Meizu M3s mini
Pros: The “well-coordinated apparatus” in a thin metal case with 2.5D glass bribed users of the Runet with a design and low price. Decent performance and battery life are noted: the battery lasts for two days of "moderate use". The speed and accuracy of the fingerprint scanner is a delight: "It works better and faster than on the iPhone", - writes one of the owners.
Minuses: The case is made of low quality material: “Fairly easily exposed to cosmetic defects”. The vaunted fingerprint scanner often fails, the same thing happens with the back button. The camera “soaps”, the colors are faded, and with a low level of lighting it “drowns” with noise. Users who have moved to Meizu M3s mini from old iPhone regret their actions: “If not Apple, then who?”
Referee: Inexpensive elegant productive middling in a metal case. Photo enthusiasts will be disappointed with the quality of the camera. It is worth buying a smartphone in white retail, so that in case of a breakdown of the fingerprint scanner there would be no problems with the return or warranty repair.
Xiaomi Redmi 3s
Pros: The overwhelming majority is attracted by the low price tag. Happy smartphone owners are delighted with the battery: it lasts for two days in intensive mode. At the same time, the iron is quite powerful - you can even play. The final stroke is a quick fingerprint scanner: the smartphone unlocks in less than a second.
Minuses: It is necessary to monitor the firmware update so as not to drown in glitches - either the time zone will reset after a reboot, then incoming calls are not detected, then the cheek clicks on the screen during a call. Nuances - darkness! Generally, “Dancing with tambourines cannot be avoided”, - users of Runet summarize.
Referee: An average with impressive autonomy for little money. Everything is good in it, except for the "raw" firmware. For geeks, the need to delve into a smartphone is only a joy, but for an ordinary person, it will cause a bad mood.
LeEco Le 2
Pros: For little money, you get everything in the world - from a metal case to a powerful processor and a USB Type-C port. There is even a quick charge.
Minuses: “The battery runs out as fast as it charges”- writes one of the users. With an intense load, the charge may not be enough even for a day. Many people report a squeak from the USB connector - it cannot be heard with the naked ear, but when it is recording video or audio, as well as during a conversation, it manifests itself. The camera soap even in daylight, users say. The chip in the form of the lack of an audio jack 3.5 mm for many turned out to be a drawback of a smartphone.
Referee: A beautiful, powerful, modern smartphone. But, unfortunately, it leaves an impression of incompleteness. It seems that the manufacturer was too in a hurry to put it on sale.
Xiaomi Mi5
Pros:“This phone is without compromise. He really does everything he needs - and does it beautifully! ”The smartphone is not inferior to branded flagships with a similar filling and costs significantly less, users of Runet are sure. Not only high performance, but also the function of fast charging is noted: in one hour up to 100%. The rear and front cameras are simply gorgeous, the owners of the smartphone write.
Minuses:Many are annoyed by the black frames around the screen. "Eating a battery like crazy." The firmware is teeming with unpleasant little things. With an incoming call, the subscriber’s number is indicated, and not his name from the phone book, even if the subscriber is recorded, one of the users clarifies. “After you add a fingerprint, then it is not deleted, it writes an error. But this is easily solved by temporarily changing the language to English, " - clarifies another. It is noteworthy that there are much fewer complaints about the firmware of this model than the state budget Xiaomi Redmi 3s.
Referee: This flagship would be impeccable if not for the “dampness" of the firmware and high power consumption.
Meizu MX6
Pros:"Everything is like the famous flagships, only cheaper at times", - the opinion of Runet users. Cool design a-la iPhone 6. Performance is also on top. No freezes or slowdowns were noticed, one of the smartphone owners shares. They also praise fast charging, thanks to which the smartphone “eats up” up to 100% in 75 minutes, the camera and sound in the headphones.
Lumia for $ 50, and iPhone 5S for $ 20 altogether - the Internet is full of offers today to purchase a copy (fake) of a top-end smartphone, either for half its price, or almost for a symbolic price. Most often, these are devices with 2 SIM-cards, which are very similar in appearance to the original, but if copies more expensive have less functionality and hardware components of average lousiness, then very basic copies can offer only the basic capabilities of mobile phones that they had about 7 years ago. You can buy a clone of a branded smartphone not only on Internet trading platforms, but also in markets, in underground passages and even at points of sale of mobile equipment, where copies and originals are sold.
Of course, there is nothing wrong if a person who is versed in technology, consciously acquires a fake of your favorite gadget, in order, for example, to brag to your friends in the dark. Or just to explore a fake device - how much it differs from the original, and is there any point in buying a real smartphone. But it’s a completely different matter when completely uninformed people buy a fake, believing that this is the original. Indeed, in order to distinguish an original branded smartphone from a Chinese fake, especially if it is a fairly high-quality fake and not at the lowest price, you need to have some experience in handling mobile devices and be extremely careful.
What is the difference between copies of top smartphones from the originals? Should I buy a Chinese copy of my favorite gadget? About all this below.
Why can the Chinese do everything?
Why do the Chinese make fakes of branded equipment and electronics? Many probably know the answer to this question, but nevertheless we outline the main points. Firstly, the Chinese are very hardworking and unpretentious to working conditions, including wages. Secondly, it is impossible to forbid the Chinese to make fakes, because few people want to get in touch with this country - even the most developed European will find it difficult to argue his case in a Chinese court, and it’s not at all a language barrier, it’s the specific mentality of the inhabitants of the Middle Kingdom . And China’s army is powerful, which is why only military parades stand. Third, why should the Chinese be prohibited from making cheap copies of branded products? Imagine if all the production points in China (for reference: the population of this country is 1.3 billion people) will supply the market with something unique, inimitable and super-quality. The world will simply be drowned in an abundance of exclusivity in the market, and purchasing power is unlikely to provide the cost of producing unique goods.
"Made in China" - does that mean it's bad?
Does cheap equipment and electronics from China have to be of poor quality? Not necessary. The Chinese can do both high-quality things, and not very good ones - with weak power characteristics, poor assembly, in cases made of unpleasant and impractical material, etc. For example, Taiwanese companies, and a company from Singapore are among the five best manufacturers of computer equipment. But these companies themselves are brands, their products are cheaper than, for example, products of American manufacturers HP and. At the same time, Asus, Acer and Lenovo computer and mobile devices are not inferior in quality, and, perhaps, in some cases they win.
Chinese manufacturers cloning top-end smartphones, as a rule, have no name, no central office, no official representative offices. The absence of legalization and representation costs allows such manufacturers to earn quite good money on fakes.
Chinese copies of top-end smartphones vary in quality - from neatly made assemblies that differ from the original gadget in a couple of little things, to carelessly assembled devices with cranked cases and errors in the inscriptions. The latter are more like a children's toy than a full-fledged mobile device. But the main drawback of low-quality fakes is the firmware - this is software with a lot of glitches and a clumsy translation into Russian.
Most of all, the Chinese love to make fakes on smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Nokia,. Their flagship models are successful in the market, in fact, which should encourage the buyer to purchase a fake, if he does not have money to buy the original.
How to distinguish a fake smartphone from the original?
In the case of a low-quality fake smartphone, it’s very easy to distinguish it from the original, since it will cost very cheaply, casually look externally, with a dull screen, with firmware braking and clumsy translated into Russian. On low-quality fakes, the connectors and ports can hang out, as a rule, they are not equipped with plugs and quickly clog. Some of the standard ports and connectors of mobile devices may be completely absent. The cheap fakes of the top smartphones are equipped with a terrible quality headset, wheezing quiet speakers and a weak battery. So in the case of a low-quality fake, you don’t even need to know the hardware characteristics of the original top-end smartphone to compare everything. And often sellers simply do not have information about the hardware characteristics of cheap fakes.
When buying a more or less high-quality fake top-end smartphone, you need to take an interest in hardware specifications.
Smartphone support for two SIM cards is a clear sign that this is a copy. “Dual SIM” models of branded mobile devices on the market can be counted on the fingers, and these are definitely not flagship gadgets.
Resistive displays with low resolution (320x480) brand manufacturers today do not equip not only flagship models, but even budget ones.
0.3 megapixel camera for video calls and 2 megapixel camera for photo and video shooting - the first color sliders and clamshells from Samsung had such parameters about 10 years ago. But not today. This will be a terrible quality of photos and videos, which will be embarrassing to watch for yourself, not to mention showing someone.
A copy of the package may not include a memory card, but only a slot for it.
Copies may not be equipped with a Wi-Fi module, and connecting a mobile device to the Internet will be possible only through GPRS or WAP.
600 MHz processor clock speed, and even single-core - this is a very low-power device. Coupled with 265 or 512 MB of RAM, such a device will not pull the latest versions of the Android mobile platform. The firmware of such devices can be either ancient versions of Android (2.2 or 2.3), or artisanal Chinese firmware with simulated iOS or Android. By the way, it is worth noting that the Chinese coped very well with simulating the appearance of the iPhone 5 and Samsung Galaxy, which is a pity, however, the same cannot be said about the functionality and quality of the firmware.
High-quality copies of top-end smartphones can have almost the same characteristics as the original, including the arrangement of a Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1920x1080. But even in this case, there is a saving on hardware components - a budget processor (usually MTK) and a budget video card.
Should I buy a Chinese copy of a top-end smartphone?
The service life of Chinese cheap fakes of top-end smartphones, as a rule, is short. According to statistics, about half of these gadgets begin to fail and slow down in the first month. And after six months, as a rule, cheap fakes break. In service centers, it’s rare to repair such good when specialists take it. More often, in response to a request to repair a Chinese fake smartphone, you can hear the recommendation to throw it away and buy a new, preferably original.
In the case of more or less high-quality fakes of top-end smartphones, the purchase of such a device is a real lottery. Such a device can work for a very long time, or it can, like a cheap fake, deliver a lot of trouble in the first month. Neither a cheap nor expensive fake smartphone, of course, will not be accepted in the service center of the original manufacturer. Therefore, in any case, it will be necessary to solve problems with a fake gadget in third-party service centers, and for a fee.
As you can see, the risks are quite high. Without warranty obligations of the seller, throwing away money for a fake, even if more or less of an acceptable quality, makes no sense. It would be more advisable to look after a used smartphone in the secondary market, but the original.
If you nevertheless decided to purchase a Chinese copy of the top-end smartphone, you should carefully check the device’s operability for all the nuances described above when buying, paying particular attention to the firmware. It is better to buy a fake directly at retail outlets - in the market or in stores. Since even if the seller of the online store agrees to accept a non-working fake back, returning its value, all the same time and extra money will be spent on fussing with the shipment of goods.
Now the smartphone market is filled with dozens of models from different manufacturers. New smartphones are regularly released by giant companies -Samsung, Apple and others. However, the gadgets of well-known manufacturers are not cheap, and some buyers choose inexpensive Chinese devices. Is such a choice always safe?
So different china
Now almost all popular gadgets are assembled in China, Vietnam and other Asian countries. However, the difference in price, quality of components used and assembly can be enormous. Often, large companies try to produce entire lines of devices with budget models, mid-range devices and expensive smartphones, while little-known Chinese manufacturers offer devices with similar characteristics for less money. What's the catch?
Much depends on the manufacturer. Well-known Chinese companies such as Xiaomi or Meizu, as a rule, produce smartphones of very decent quality. For example, the relatively recently released Xiaomi Redmi 6A leaves a very good impression. For 7000-8000 rubles in retail, you get 2 GB of RAM, a quad-core processor with a frequency of 2000 MHz, 16 GB of memory (with a microSD card slot) and a very good battery (3000 mAh, there’s definitely enough charge for 3-4 days) .
But less well-known "Chinese", such as Oukitel or Doogee, for the same money can offer, for example, devices with an eight-core processor, 3 GB of RAM, etc. However, after buying the device from a not-well-known manufacturer, buyers often remain unhappy with the choice, despite the more interesting characteristics of the hardware.
The phone is watching you
For example, the manufacturer Doogee received a warning from Google for embedding third-party components in the Android OS that transmit information about the user's whereabouts and the programs he uses to third parties. In addition, in the original firmware of a number of models (for example, Doogee BL7000 - far from the cheapest phone) detected ... malware. Viruses can often be removed from firmware by obtaining root rights and manually deleting dangerous components, and then checking the system with antivirus. However, careless actions can lead to smartphone inoperability, and finding a service center in which a little-known Chinese device is "brought to life" is not always easy.
One of the main shortcomings of many budget Chinese smartphones is the presence in the pre-installed firmware of many programs that monitor users.
Of course, not only Doogee “distinguished himself”. Inexpensive Chinese smartphone DEXP Ixion M545 (about 3,000-4,000 rubles in retail), working on the original firmware, after a while starts to load applications in the background without the knowledge of the user. The manufacturer has a Trojan embedded in the firmware, which silently downloads and installs packages on the system. Even if unwanted applications were deleted, after a while they appear again. Similar incidents were also reported by users who bought smartphones from Leagoo, Bluboo, Jiayu and other Chinese companies.
Weak iron
But if the phone’s firmware can be changed (though not always), then replacing the processor, RAM or camera is almost impossible, and the build quality of the “Chinese” can be unpredictable.
Here are some examples. Ulefone S7 smartphones are equipped with an 8 megapixel camera, but the quality of the optics is poor: the photos and videos are blurry and the focus is not always accurate (this flaw was fixed in the more expensive S7 Pro model with a 13 megapixel camera). Highscreen Easy Power devices cause complaints among many users due to overheating: a large 8000 mAh battery quickly becomes hot. DEXP B145 disappoints buyers with a weak speaker - according to the owners, the background noise on the street is often heard better than the interlocutor. Alas, most Chinese smartphones in the price category of up to 8 thousand rubles suffer to some extent from such shortcomings. We add to the frequent complaints of smartphone owners references to dull phone screens, low-performance quad-core processors and not the most sensitive sensors - and now the average “portrait” of an inexpensive Chinese smartphone is ready.
Is there a way out?
But do not despair.
If you want to choose a good smartphone no more than 7000-8000 rubles, look at the budget devices of famous Chinese brands (for example, Meizu or Xiaomi). You can also find good phones 2-3 years ago (in excellent condition or new) from Samsung, LG, Motorola and other large companies - they will cost less than the latest models.
As a rule, good smartphones in 2015-2016, which can still be found at a discount, can cope with everyday tasks in 2018 as well. So on average for 7,000 rubles you can now buy the Samsung Galaxy J2 Prime, released at the end of 2016: 1.5 GB of RAM, a quad-core processor with a clock frequency of 1.4 GHz, 8 GB of internal memory, an 8 megapixel camera. "Iron" is not the most outstanding, and Android 6.0 is outdated, but the build quality does not cause any complaints, the display is bright, the sound from the speaker is heard well - in a word, the choice is quite worthy.
And the "Chinese" from well-known companies are also not bad. Xiaomi Redmi 6A we already mentioned, for example, consider the device from Meizu. The Meizu M5C, released last year, has decent build quality, a good quad-core MediaTek MT6737 processor, 2 GB of RAM here - in a word, the device is very high-quality.
Of course, the little-known "Chinese" with Aliexpress can be very good. There is a certain likelihood that for $ 100 you will get a smartphone with decent features (better than Xiaomi from retail in Russia). But, alas, choosing a phone from a little-known company often raises a lot of questions. Will the device be qualitatively Russified? Will there be problems with overheating of the smartphone? Will there be viruses in the firmware? When buying a phone from a little-known Chinese company, you will have to get answers to these questions yourself, through trial and error. Therefore, we urge you not to rush into a purchase after seeing a cheap smartphone at a Chinese auction - it may be better to buy a budget device from a well-known manufacturer in a store.
Is it worth buying chinese-made smartphone? It is unlikely that anyone would have asked such questions a few years ago. After all, what adequate person will throw out money for a knowingly poor-quality thing? And even a significant difference in price did not appeal to people who understood that a trusted brand is reliability, functionality, and indeed the right choice. Today the situation has changed dramatically.
From one factory
Few people know, but production facilities around the world no longer exist: virtually all smartphones are made in China. Yes, not just in China, but only two or three large enterprises that use the same production technologies. For example, the most expensive mass-produced smartphones in the world from Apple are made at the world-famous foxconn, an enterprise with well-established technology for producing a variety of expensive smartphones.
Interestingly, a direct Chinese Apple competitor, Xiaomi, manufactures its products in a nearby workshop. Well, perhaps it is global brands that have contributed to this development, having invested a lot of money in the development of production. So now China does not offer counterfeit quality-terrifying fakes, but develops its brands made using well-established technologies.
Is there any difference with the brand?
And yet, one can not say that buying a Chinese device like xiaomi or lenovo, you run the risk of getting firmware cluttered with various advertising junk. In addition, rapidly growing brands have already begun to lock downloaders, taking away from the user the possibility of flashing and further customization. And by the way, well-known brands are guilty of this, so here is a draw.
The second important point is the guarantee. If you purchase a device for China’s domestic markets, you can forget about local tech support. On the other hand, official a-brands still will not offer such characteristics for such a cost as some Chinese. So in the event of a breakdown, it will be easier to repair for money or even buy a new device.
The third point is reliability. Paying attention to the brands Huawei, ZTE, Meizu, Lenovo or Xiaomi, you are unlikely to encounter a significant marriage or problems in the operation of the device. Other Chinese devices do not yet boast of this.
And the last most important point is localization. The brand is always trying to provide high-quality firmware with local localization, so when you purchase a smartphone, you will use it on the official Russian-language localization. China most often comes with poorly developed amateur translations into Russian.
So, taking into account all the troubles that a Chinese user may encounter, he should also look at the pleasant aspects.
Same iron
If you look at the specifications of the Chinese and the brand, you will notice that they use the same processors from kvalkomma or media library. At the same time, a powerful filling in Chinese with the same Sonykovsky and Samsung cameras, the same processors and gigabytes of RAM, will be offered at a much more attractive price.
Same programs
Imagine that you want navigation, photos, Skype for calls, games, browsers for surfing the Internet, connecting to Wi-Fi, social networks, in a word, all the same applications that a modern person needs from a smartphone. So, all this is available both in the one-hundred-dollar apparatus and in the apparatus for 600 cu There is no difference in price, as well as in the quality of components. However, you should carefully approach the price-quality ratio: after all, the most cheap chinese gadgets will not provide proper performance, and stability sometimes lame. But on the other hand, do not chase cheapness. And branded smartphones of a low price category will be even worse in terms of performance.
Skillful Chinese pens can not only sew synthetic clothes, but also assemble smartphones. The Chinese almost immediately joined the race with world giants in the mobile market. The most significant event was the launch of the first smartphone from Xiaomi. Since then, the global market has been flooded with Chinese devices, the Russian market, by the way, the most beloved after the domestic Chinese. Every day, thousands of citizens of our country order smartphones via the Internet to friends as a gift or for their own use. However, there is in all this a fly in the ointment, and more than one.
“We are not so rich as to buy cheap things” is the famous English proverb, which is the most relevant in the case of the Chinese market. The Chinese cannot be blamed for poor quality products, because they have it in their blood. They are used to doing absolutely everything according to their standards, which are not so attractive to us. This applies to both cars and buildings of the Chinese, which are already falling apart in 5-10 years, however, this is not a problem for the Chinese, in just a week they will completely demolish the building, and in another 2-3 weeks they will build a new modern residential complex with a height of 30- 40 floors. We, in turn, are accustomed to build in such a way that it is 100 years old, to assemble in such a way that it works 50 years. So why all this? And to the fact that similar principles apply to the smartphone market.
Yes, the Chinese strive to make the product as high-quality as possible, but no less than their desire to get the highest possible profit. And the products in the person come out only thanks to the enormous competition, however, having set the price at $ 299, Oppo natives seek no less than the others to maximize profits.
Chinese smartphones are almost always cheaper than analogues of world companies, but, as a rule, they are always worse. For example, buying a fake Galaxy S6 with a powerful 8-core processor and FullHD-display for a price that is two times lower than the original, you will get the appropriate quality, and this purchase can be called a failure. By the way, this is not only about fakes. Even eminent Chinese brands can sometimes surprise with "quality."
The following is a list of common Chinese device issues:
Work in our networks
Each device has different frequency ranges of networks. In other words, before buying a Chinese device, you should definitely look at the frequencies, because very often the Russian frequency ranges remain in the shade.
Chinese components
The Chinese device receives the corresponding components, which, as a rule, are of rather poor quality. Chinese chargers are distinguished by a low bandwidth, as well as a quick failure, the possibility of a fire of the device during charging is not ruled out.
Lack of headphones
In order to reduce the cost of their product, the Chinese in most cases refuse headphones. Unfortunately, this trend has reached the global giants.
Small amount of memory
“The more memory - the more expensive the product,” - these are the thoughts that envelop the Chinese manufacturer. He is forced to save on memory so that the final price of the device is competitive. That is why the most often among Chinese devices can be found and 8-GB models and even devices with 4 GB of internal memory.
Lack of camera protection
Most cheap Chinese devices do not get protective glass, not to mention sapphire. Yes, the more expensive and popular smartphones of Chinese brands (Meizu, Xiaomi, and so on) are well protected from scratches, but there are also trade-offs.
Lack of protective glass
Gorilla Glass is the most popular safety glass used in modern smartphones. You can find a number of Chinese devices equipped with this glass, but the bulk of the devices are still on the sidelines.
Touchscreen
Poor touchscreen quality is the next problem with Chinese gadgets. It is easily verified. Swipe your finger across the screen in any multi-touch test: the response to pressing should be long, when you reach the end of the screen with your finger, your smartphone may think that you are still somewhere in between. But we have not yet talked about how quickly touchscreens fail.
Touch buttons
The Chinese still use touch buttons in their even expensive devices. Moreover, their quality, as a rule, is at a very low level: the lack of backlight, and if there is one, it is quite difficult to make out the buttons at night; an incomprehensible vibromotor that responds strangely to button presses; and, of course, the moody appearance of the buttons themselves. The taste, or rather, its absence among the Chinese, surprises us.
"Excellent" characteristics
“An 8-core processor, 13-megapixel camera, 3 GB of RAM!” - say the developers. In fact, we get weak 8 cores operating at lower frequencies and starting throttling after 5 minutes of the game. We get a camera that shoots worse than the 4-megapixel camera of HTC. Moreover, all cheap Chinese devices have the same camera application, as evidenced by the identical appearance of the application on different devices, regardless of the version of Android. And you can keep silent about the memory, however, because there is no sense in it without sufficient software optimization, and, as a rule, we are dealing with LPDDR3, not LPDDR4.
Software
The main problem of Chinese devices, in my opinion, is software. Constant freezes, crashes, reboots, error reports cannot make the user simply endure. You will get tired of all this so much that you abandon the Chinese gadget after a week of use at best.
But we did not touch on the topic of viruses, unnecessary software represented by various programs in Chinese that cannot be removed. We did not touch on the topic of Russification, which is absent in most Chinese gadgets that do not work on stock Android. And the lack of firmware will not allow you to somehow rectify the situation.
Of course, in this case we are not talking about smartphones of companies such as Meizu, Xiaomi, Lenovo, Huawei, OnePlus, but the prices for their devices are higher than those that an ordinary Chinese small manufacturer will ask you.
Thus, the purchase of a Chinese smartphone can be equated to the purchase of cheap shoes for 2000 rubles at a discount. You carry it one season, and then just throw it away. If you are a lover of variety - this is a good choice. However, it’s not easy for many to constantly get used to new devices, and it’s not pleasant to use their business.
