It is the age of gadgets, and one thing’s for sure – with the ultimate power of the internet to accompany them, we’ve never been more plugged in than we’re today. To stay connected, one need power, and in order to store power in those traditional rechargeable batteries, you’d have to experience an inconsistency in your work, especially, when you are traveling. So, what is the solution? A portable consistent power source, which can be easily carried around and has enough juice to recharge the gadget at least twice. This is where a power bank comes to the rescue!
Well, there is a huge list of companies that sell power banks, each varying just a little on specifications. In this case, it is really difficult to figure out which one can be a right investment. Fortunately, we were able to add one more power bank to our list of reviewed item. Tech Armor may be a stranger to most of you, especially if you’re at the European or Asian Continents, and you’d be right about that. It is actually a company that sells the mobile protective case, power banks and other mobile accessories.
Unboxing
Inside the box, you’ll find a 12,000 mAh Power Bank, a white USB cable, some manual and user guide. Nothing fancy, just usual stuff here. The packaging was alright. Guys at Tech Armor were kind enough to send me extra lightning cable along with the power bank in case I had an iPhone instead of a device with the microUSB port. I am pretty sure you’ll have to buy the lightning port separately if you do not have one. The box only ships with microUSB port.
Build Quality & Design
The best thing about Tech Armor PowerBank is its Build Quality and design. The velvety finish on top, good quality plastic case and rounded body look and feel really good in person. It is actually smaller in size than it appear in the picture, which is another advantage over other PowerBanks.
There are two USB ports, ideally, one is for Smartphones and another is to charge gadgets with higher capacity batteries such as Tablets. My Samsung Galaxy S6 didn’t appear to charge as quickly as it would with bundled charger. I ended up using Tablet port on the power bank for a faster charge, only to find out that it didn’t dramatically speed up charging process. It clearly indicates that these two ports have a different power supply, but no fast charge capabilities. This is where things started to move downwards.
There is a power button on the side, which is the only physical button you’ll find on the device. Holding the button for few seconds will trigger the ‘torch’ located at the top of the microUSB port. The power indicator on top has 4 LED lights, indicating the percentage of juice left on the PowerBank.
Performance & Ease of use
The TechArmor PowerBank doesn’t appear to deliver the backup it promises. The 12,000 mAh capacity should be able to charge my Huawei Honor 6 Plus at least 2.5 times. However, during my test, I found that it would hardly go up to 1.8 times, which mean, the PowerBank itself would require me to charge before filling up my phones battery twice. It is a serious red flag right there.
Additionally, the PowerBank takes too long to recharge itself. It took 5-6 hours to charge up to 100%. Frequent travellers would really want to stay away from this as it is highly unreliable.
What do we think?
Tech Armor ActivePower 12000mAh External Battery Portable Dual USB Power Bank has great build quality and design. The small case is easier to hold in hands and carry around. However, the device has many drawbacks, given it is not cheap. The few minor bugs would’ve been acceptable if the device was made available at lower price. The Tech Armor PowerBank targets mid-market segment as it is available at $49.99 on their Official Website. When recognized players such as Huawei (AP007 Review), Xiaomi, Lenovo, and OnePlus has already settled with PowerBanks Prices around $20, I don’t see a point going for this overpriced device.
If your priority is design, look and feel over the performance and reliability, you’re in good hands. However, we would strongly suggest you look elsewhere.
We were in the middle of the tea break, right before the end of the working hours when we received a courier on our doorstep. It was Asus Zenfone 2 Laser, a budget smartphone that promise to deliver the laser technology at an affordable price.
We were actually very happy when we had a quick glance at the keywords “Asus+Zenfone” on the courier receipt, assuming that this could be Asus Zenfone Delux edition, a limited edition smartphone with 256GB internal storage. However, it was soon enough when we realized that it was a different low budget smartphone released earlier this year.
Asus Zenfone series is just like Samsung’s Galaxy line up; confusing. You have to pay real attention to the model name at the end of the title, otherwise, you will end up having a totally different smartphone. So far, Asus released these smartphones in Zenfone series:
Asus Zenfone C
Asus Zenfone Go
Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (ZE500KL)
Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (ZE550KL) – This is the one we’re reviewing
Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (ZE601KL)
Asus Zenfone Selfie
Asus Zenfone 6
Asus Zenfone 2 (multiple variant)
Asus Zenfone 2 Deluxe
and more to come…
We are reviewing the Asus Zenfone 2 Laser in this article. Let us figure out what it has to offer:
Build Quality
The Asus Zenfone 2 Laser looks a lot like the original Zenfone 2 smartphone released by the company. It has same 5.5-inch display, same ergonomically pleasing curve and overall could be easily mistaken for the original. However, there are still few minor differences that can be sorted out by the keen observer.
In addition to the surprising premium laser autofocus technology, it offers a removable battery. It also allows access to the dual Sim slots and expandable memory card slot, which adds up to the pros of the device.
The device is right there in the phablet family, if size is considered, but curved back and ergonomic design makes this device lot easier and comfortable to use compared to the other 5.5-inch smartphones.
The most annoying part of the overall build quality of the phone is the power button, which is placed at the top side of the phone. It can be really annoying at times on a phablet with a 5.5-inch display. Thankfully, double tap to wake and sleep is still present on the phone as a part of the Zenmotion, among other gestures.
There is a 5 MP front-facing camera on the right and an LED notification at the top, and 3 non-illuminated standard capacitive keys at the bottom.
We felt that bezels on this smartphone are slightly wider compared to the other smartphones in the same price range. However, just like all other areas where you’d compromise, you’ll get used to the bigger bezels on this phone.
The back of the device has brushed metallic touch on it, but the device is actually made up of plastic. There’s no metallic sides or external metallic body parts. The phone looks and feels cheap, although it is a strongly built device.
Display
The Zenfone 2 laser boasts 5-inch 720p (HD) IPS display, which looks and performs about the same as it did on the original. It has excellent viewing angles, great color reproduction and good brightness in the bright environment but not enough to read the small texts clearly as you would expect. The sunlight visibility is poor as it was on the original zenfone and we do wish that the panel was little brighter. However, the splendid display color and temperature settings are very useful and thoughtful of Asus.
Finally, Asus took the opportunity and upgraded their display’s protective glass from Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to 4, a seemingly small but very welcome change.
Camera
The Zenfone 2 Laser’s 13MP rear camera is accompanied by Laser Autofocus technology, which according to Asus is laser-guided autofocus, capable of emphasizing on specific objects within 0.3 seconds. This new technology is the main selling point of this smartphone as the name suggests, and to our surprise, it does work as advertised. In fact, this is the only thing on this phone that actually is worth spending money for.
That being said, camera on this smartphone is not going to impress anyone. The images taken by the phone doesn’t feel like it is rendered by a 13MP lens; the images lack dynamic range and suffer in low light conditions, HDR mode often make things worst, and Asus’s image processing is bit aggressive as it adds lots of digital noise on the picture. The camera is capable of taking decent images, but these issues make things hit and miss.
The front camera actually is the weakest point of this phone. Images taken from 5MP front shooter didn’t just felt right at all; the images felt washed off. The indoor images lost its sharpness, and it had same digital noise over the images when shots are taken.
We really liked the camera UI and tons of cosmetic features it had to offer. If you love taking shots with manual controls, you’ll love the camera app on this phone but however, you’ll be stuck with the poor camera module which beats the actual motive of enhanced camera UI and additional features.
The Asus Zenfone 2 laser has inferior hardware specification compared to that of the original. The Indian version is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 410, which puts the processing power slightly on the lower side. On our day to day usage, we experienced some slight hiccups and lags, given that the phone boasts to be capable of providing seamless performance in the budget segment.
As expected, the benchmark scores are at the lower side on this smartphone and expect some minor hiccups here and there, you will probably find the day to day performance to be similar if compared to the original. The gaming performance on the phone was quite a mixed experience. While we were able to play games like Asphalt 8, Modern Combat 5 and Marvel Future Fight but none of them were as fluid as it was intended to be played; at high settings, you could actually feel the struggle that these games had to go through just to keep up with the high-intensity graphics rendering.
With support for 802.11 n WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth 4.0, the Zenfone 2 Laser offers all of the connectivity that you’d expect; It is, however, missing the NFC, which is not very uncommon in this price segment. The phone comes with full 3G HSPA+ and 4G LTE support on both sim cards.
The Zenfone 2 laser comes in 16GB variant only, a bummer for those who want higher internal storage space as your options are limited. However, there is a microSD slot which can be used to extend the storage up to 128GB.
Asus seems to have used the same rear speakers that were found on the original, which means it suffers at the sound quality coupled with poor loudness. The rear speakers, like on any other phone that features the speakers on the back, will get muffled when put on a flat surface.
The battery on this phone was quite an average performer considering that this phone is packed with 3,000mAh battery. We were able to get an about 3.5hr average screen-on time with 15hr of usage. The good thing is that you can swap up the battery if needed.
The phone is powered by Android 5.0 Lollipop with Asus’s ZenUI skin on top. The software experience remains similar to the original Zenfone, and there isn’t much to discriminate it from it. However, it is not necessarily a bad thing as the ZenUI is very user-friendly and quite decent for day to day usage. Asus did a good job by adding value with nice software experience.
Virtually everything has been well thought out and Asus has done a good job filling up the gaps in Android Lollipop while it still lacks the stock-ish android feel; the ZenUI follows it’s own style guidelines. That being said, it could’ve been way better to use stock android OS on this phone, as we did notice some lags while using the phone. However, the phone does offer a good room for customizations; the custom gesture controls and customizable quick access apps on the lock screen are some of the most useful.
There are also many features that you’d find on high-end Zenfones, for eg. – Ram cleanup, Several power saving mode with automatic or scheduled switching, auto start manager, Audio equalizer, built-in backup and restore (which actually backup app data as well), FM radio, video editing app, quick memo app, a sound recorder app, themes manager with support for custom fonts and icons etc.
Asus has reduced the bloatware on this phone to a significant amount, but there still are a couple of applications which comes pre-loaded on the phone. It might piss off some users, as these apps are non-removable (well, at least if you don’t know how to root your smartphone).
What do we think?
The Zenfone 2 laser display could be brighter, battery life could be on the top side of the chart and speaker could’ve been louder, but the phone excels on the software experience and AutoFocus technology that allows you to take quick shots on the phone. There are a bunch of unrecognized competitive companies that can provide these features with better hardware specifications at lower price range. Meizu M2 Note and Coolpad Note 3 has far better hardware features to offer in the similar price range; Huawei Honor 4X actually beats Asus Zenfone 2 laser in terms of camera and battery performance. The only reason you wouldn’t want to go with these ‘not too popular’ companies is their OS update support while Asus does have the reputation of providing software updates for years.
At the end, the choice is all yours — you can go with the recognized brand for extended support but no noticeable value-added specifications or features, or opt to ‘value for money’ with newer companies.
GENERAL FEATURES
Brand
Asus
Handset Color
Black
Form
Bar
Call Features
Loudspeaker
Model Name
Zenfone 2 Laser ZE550KL
Touch Screen
Yes, Capacitive
SIM Type
Dual Sim, LTE + LTE
Model ID
ZE550KL-1A017WW/ ZE550KL-1A111IN
In the Box
Handset, Standard USB Cable, Adapter, User Manual, Warranty Card
MULTIMEDIA
Video Player
Yes
Music Player
Yes, Supports MP3
CAMERA
Other Camera Features
f/2.0 Aperture, 5-element Lens, Auto Focus, Dual Color Flash
Rear Camera
Yes, 13 MP
Front Facing Camera
Yes, 5 MP
INTERNET & CONNECTIVITY
Preinstalled Browser
Android
Bluetooth
Yes, v4
4G
Yes
Navigation Technology
A-GPS, GLONASS, with Google Maps
Wifi
Yes, 802.11 b/g/n
Internet Features
Email
3G
Yes, 42 Mbps HSDPA; 5.76 Mbps HSUPA, HSPA+
OTHER FEATURES
Sensors
Accelerometer, eCompass, Proximity Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Hall Sensor
Phone Book Memory
Yes
SMS Memory
Yes
Call Memory
Yes
SAR Value
At the Head – 0.361 W/Kg, At the Body – 0.313 W/Kg
WARRANTY
Warranty Summary
1 year manufacturer warranty for Phone and 6 months warranty for in the box accessories
We want to do so much with our smartphone, but often have to compromise our workflow to keep our smartphone alive till the end of the day. It gets worse when we are travelling and we cannot arrange a stable power source to recharge our phones. This is where a efficient PowerBank comes to rescue – but finding a right one is not always easy thing to do.
Honor PowerBank AP007 is not only cheaper but if we believe their specs, it also offers a way more than its competitor — is that so?
Unboxing
In the box you’ll find 3 items: 1 PowerBank, 1 USB cable (small), 1 user guide. There is no power adapter/charger provided out of the box.
Build Quality & Design
The PowerBank is one solid rectangular desing, with plastic casing at the top and bottom. The device looks really sturdy and strong at the first impression, and is on the little heavier side. The full metal body is robust, and can take some hit.
Top side has device specifications printed on it, which states that the PowerBank has Input and Output range of 5V — 2A. The capacity of the PowerBank is 13,000 mAh, which is manufactured in China by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
Bottom of the device is the part which will handle all the input/output operations. It has two output USB ports, which is capable of charging two phones simultaneously. There is a microUSB port to charge the PowerBank, so that it can be used when required.
A round Power button is located at the right side of the panel, with 4 LED lights to indicate the power level when Power button is pressed. The function is pretty similar to the “Mi PowerBank”.
Operation & Ease of Use
The PowerBank is very easy to use, thanks to the minimalistic design approach. Electric circuit has intelligent sleep and energy saving mode to ensure optimized power consumption. The power bank has two USB slot with 5V – 2A output that lets you charge two devices at a time. There is a power button and LED indicators to show the charge. The power bank has gone through Reliability Testing that includes 1 m Height Drop Test, Vibration and Shock Test, Salt Spray and Shell Pressure Test, says the company.
The LED lights at the bottom of the rectangular casing, lit up when a device is connected to it, and indicates the current power level of battery of the PowerBank. You can also see the power state, when no device is connected by simply pressing the Big circular Power button on the device.
During our test we could charge a BlackBerry Z3 with bundled USB cable without any issues, and it took the same time to charge the device as it would with the official blackberry charger that came with the mobile. However, it didn’t faired well, when we tried to charge the mobile phone with other USB cable. We checked with other device connected simultaneously, and it worked great as well.
The device didn’t state anywhere whether 2A is the combined output, or it is being devided between the two devices connected to the port. We didn’t experienced slow charging or incompatibility issues during our test, so it doesn’t really have direct effect unless your device support higher than 2A charging.
We also tested Huawei Honor 6 Plus with the device and it was slower than the official charger bundled with the smartphone. But, the smartphone doesn’t really work well with any other charger — that is why it is bundled with Fast Charger.
Honor PowerBank doesn’t target high end consumers, but it does pack a massive backup option at considerably low price (Rs. 1,399 in India). The device works great, and does provide 90% conversion rate, given that we could charge our Blackberry Z3 upto ~4 times.
There are many other options available, but Honor has established itself as a brand that people has started to trust. The company is working hard to provide good after sale support, and is currently trying to win consumers who otherwise would choose other already established companies.
If you are looking for a PowerBank with bigger backup, you can go with it.
GENERAL
Brand
Honor
Model Number
AP007
Battery Capacity
13000 mAh
Model Name
Honor
Output Power
5 V
Battery Type
Li-Ion
Color
Grey
ADDITIONAL FEATURES
Reliability Testing (1 m Height Drop Test, Vibration and Shock Test, Salt Spray and Shell Pressure Test)
Huawei is not a name that requires an introduction anymore. It has established itself as a popular brand — thanks to their latest smartphones with outstanding features at affordable price. We had Huawei Honor 6 Plus as our primary smartphone, as we received 5 of them and here’s what we think.
The new smartphones launched by the company including Honor and Ascend series performed really well in the market. Now that company has a great consumer in India and most parts of Asia and Europe, it is thriving to deliver the best to its customers and Huawei Honor 6 Plus seems to be the right step in the direction.
So what makes this phone successor of it’s popular variant Huawei Honor 6? We spent 5 weeks with the device to find out where it stands in real world scenario.
Unboxing
Unboxing of Huawei Smartphone has become a little bitter in taste because every phone they ship usually have the same packing and in-box accessories. This is true for Huawei Honor 6 Plus as well. The phone comes with Huawei’s standard box, with same in-box accessories that were bundled with Huawei Honor 6.
The box contains Huawei Honor 6 Plus Smartphone, A Travel Adaptor, USB cable, Sim Card Tray ejector, Warranty Card, Quick User Guide and Two scratch guard films (One for display and other for the back). There is no earphone in the box, which is pretty standard for a Chinese phone, but at this price range it could be included in the package.
However, to make us happy Huawei did some creative stuff with the packaging. We found this smiling right back at us.
Build Quality
When we opened the box for the first time and held the phone, we observed a slim beauty (well not that slim, but it still felt better than most of the phones) that somehow felt really nice to hold. The look is very similar to its predecessor but, it felt premium and less plasticky. Our first impression was really good, and we felt this is the phone which can really bang on the edges.
This rectangular piece had a distinguished look. Despite the fact that it feels very similar to the iPhone 4 and Xperia Z3, it feels sturdy in hands and comfortable to hold (thanks to the slightly curved edges).
The side panel is metal alloy unlike its predecessor, which gives it a premium feel. Huawei claims that this phone has super strength and is solid. So solid, in fact, the Huawei states that the glass back of the phone is “bulletproof” – we will strongly suggest not to try it yourself. No, we didn’t try it as well, fortunately we don’t have a gun at the office but, I did drop this phone couple times during the testing period and, unfortunately, it got a crack at the top side of the screen. Not so strong after all?
Measuring 150.5 x 75.7 x 7.5 mm and weighing 164 grams, it is stocky but still oddly comfortable to hold and use. This is mostly due to the rounded edges at the bottom, which do not dig into your palms like most angular phones do.There’s a 5.5 inch 1080 x 1920 pixels IPS LCD display, which equals a pixel density of about 401 ppi.
There is quite a bit of bezel all around (2.36mm slim on the sides), so it doesn’t look as slick as it could have, but Huawei still managed a somewhat decent 73.2 percent (approximately) screen-to-body ratio.
The 5.5-inch Display is protected by Gorilla Glass 3, and back has multi-layered transparent panel with a beautiful text beneath it. It sure is a unique touch, and that beautiful text with blue-ish tint looks really great which attracts attention. The phone has 8MP dual rear camera, which according to Huawei has been placed linearly to each other for better depth perspective.
We tested the phone for almost 2 months and it turned out the rear camera setup is more of a gimmick than a feature. We will talk more about it in the camera section.
Moving on, the phone has 3.5mm Audio Jack at the top and an IR blaster at the center (which is used for remote control), there is also a noise cancelation mic right beside it.
There is nothing on the left side, where as a power button and volume rocker on the right side. The buttons are really good and responsive, it also has a smooth texture which feels good while using them.
The bottom has a USB port, which can be used to charge the phone or to transfer data. OTG is supported by this phone, and you can easily use your pen drive as an external storage on this phone.
This device is little on the heavier side, and it still struggles to bring the premium touch that you can have with high-end devices. The Sim card slot didn’t accommodate the Sim card tray properly, you would feel that something is not right when you place the tray into the slot. It might be only with my review unit, but again we have 5 of them. Precision and finishing touch is missing on the phone, it seems like Huawei did make these in a hurry.
Don’t get it wrong, the phone works perfectly and delivers what it claims (with minor issues, which can be easily fixed). Lack of craftsmanship and precision makes us little sad, for a flagship device they could deliver much better.
Display
Huawei Honor 6 Plus has 5.5-inch (13.97cm) 1080p in-cell TFT display that produces 16.7M colors, and is bright and crystal clear. There is nothing wrong at this segment. It produces really sharp and clear images on the screen, which has really great viewing angle. Surprisingly, if we could see everything on the screen clearly when we stepped into the direct sunlight.
The auto brightness mode is a little buggy, it gets too dark or too bright in non-favorable conditions. While indoor, the phone’s display can get too dim, that you have to strain your eyes to read the text properly. And sometimes it just doesn’t lit up the screen bright enough in direct sunlight. It is sure a software bug, and will be addressed on the next update.
When you turn off the Auto brightness mode, Man! this phone can go really bright. If you monitor closely, the display has hexagonal like structure, which comprises of neighbor pixels and makes it even cooler. I don’t know what to call it, you have to see it yourself.
It might not be as bright as Samsung’s patented Super AMOLED Technology (which is something I really like), but it won’t feel anything less than any other device available in the market right now. We really liked the display of this device and you can go ahead and buy it if you are looking for something you can read online content or e-books.
Camera
One of the key selling points of the Honor 6 Plus is the unique 888 camera setup with two rear 8MP combining to offer some interesting defocus effects. The two rear cameras allow you to place the handset on a steady surface, capture an entire scene and then change the focal point of the image in post-processing.
This is why most of us wanted to test this device on the first hand. The so-called “First in the world” Technology — dual linear camera. It is really something so special that can make this device stand out? We used the camera over a long extensive period and our impression wasn’t what we can call something “astonishing,” or “marvelous.”
But Huawei boasts so much about it! So where it really went wrong? Why?
We have few reasons, first 8MP rear camera doesn’t deliver some out of the world aspect of the photograph. Everything that Huawei claims it does, is mostly controlled by the software. Wide Aperture mode is another feature which doesn’t quiet cut it. The photos taken are always hit and miss and doesn’t always end up same as what you see in the preview after taking the shot.
That being said, the pictures are clear and this phone can take a DSLR-like images. It is powerful and can take some shots, where other cameras would simply back away.
The dual camera setup has one huge benefit, it allows double the light to enter into the lens than other camera phones out there — which in turn deliver way better images in low light scenarios.
Just like the M8, the dual rear cameras record depth information in a scene, allowing the ability to set a focal point after you’ve taken a picture. Unlike the M8, both the rear cameras on the Honor 6 Plus are 8-megapixel shooters.
The main one is an auto-focus camera with f/2.0 aperture while the secondary one comes with a f/2.4 lens and is fixed focus. I couldn’t find solid specs about this anywhere, but apparently the maximum aperture of the rear camera is f/0.95.
These work together to capture that depth information, and can also capture different exposures for a single scene, allowing the Honor 6 Plus to be very quick at taking HDR images. To achieve this all, Huawei uses a powerful ISP with a ‘triple IE’ (3IE) graphics engine that the company says it has been working on for some two years. It is also worth mentioning that the sensor is the newest Sony BSI IMX214 sensor, just like the one in the OnePlus One or Oppo Find 7.
Huawei’s camera UI is similar to other camera apps, with most of the screen acting as a viewfinder. Swiping on the right side of the viewfinder allows you to go between photo, video or ‘wide aperture’ mode.
Whereas on the left side, you’ll find a toggle for the flash and front-facing camera, as well as a button on the side that gives you access to more scene modes, including a Beauty mode, ‘Audio Note’ mode, ‘Best Photo’ mode, watermark mode, HDR, Panorama, and even a ‘Super Night’ mode that really seems to work for dark shots.
Rear Camera Samples:
Rear camera sample (wide Aperture mode):
Front Camera Sample
Hardware
This phone is definitely a beast when it comes to the hardware features it has to offer. It beats many high-end smartphones, which are priced fairly high. It is bang for the buck if you are looking for a device that can deliver performance with stable battery backup.
Just like Samsung, Huawei also constructs their own processors and chips, which most recently were used in their flagship smartphone, the Huawei Ascend Mate 7.
Huawei’s HiSilicon Kirin 925 powers the Honor 6 Plus, and it offers pretty high-end performance, resulting in the UI being very smooth and quick overall, with very rare instances of lag.
It’s hard to explain the performance quality of Huawei’s architecture in comparison to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processors or MediaTek processors, but the Octa-Core processor (combination of 1.8GHz quad-core Cortex-A15 & 1.3GHz quad-core Cortex-A7) is supposed to be on equal footing with the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 805 processor, which we saw on the Moto Turbo.
Which is why it is no surprise that there are no hiccups or stutters at any point on the Honor 6 Plus. Even the most intensive 3D game played just fine, with no frame drops (except in extremely dramatic, taxing moments). Here’s a couple benchmarks to give you a better idea of how capable that processor is:
There’s 32GB of internal memory, out of which around 25GB is available to actually use. There’s even the aforementioned microSD card slot available as well, which you can sacrifice to use as a nano-SIM card slot for dual-SIM functionality (but unfortunately, not in the version sold in India).
Software
The Honor 6 Plus is running Android 4.4 KitKat with Emotion UI, but it’s possible that a Lollipop update will arrive in the future. There aren’t any particularly outstanding software features, but it’s not completely Vanilla. There’s no app drawer, for example, so you’ll have to rely on folders like you do in iOS which will appeal to some but not everyone.
The Emotion UI’s graphic design also divides opinion and is sometimes described as childish, but we enjoyed the ability to change the theme of the design, and there are many additional free themes to choose from.
In a nice extra touch, the image sees on the lock screen will change every time you wake it from sleep, which we found we really enjoyed.
Battery
This phone packs 3600 mAh battery under the hood, which is more than sufficient to carry out your daily work. If you consume a great deal of multimedia content and play games on your smartphone, this phone won’t disappoint on the battery side. It packs enough juice to give you an extra boost on the backup, so you can add more hours of work on the phone.
On our daily use, we found that device offered pretty stable battery backup — with around 18-26 hours of battery backup with moderate usage, that includes email, browsing, listening to music – WhatsApp – facebook – twitter (while on public transit), voice call, occasional video calls, games and text messages (rare).
The phone never failed to give us good batter backup, we just had to charge it once before going to bed and it would stay alive for rest of the day very easily.
Few thing you have to checkout to get best battery backup, mark all the applications in your app “Unprotected” in Huawei System so it doesn’t wake up phone frequently when it is in deep sleep mode, when screen is turned off. You can also restrict applications from using your mobile internet or WiFi.
What do we think?
Huawei Honor 6 Plus is definitely not just another Cheap Chinese rip-off of some other popular brand, it sure does look like one (or different brands fused into one), but when we look under the hood, it has so much to offer at very affordable price. You can always clear your path straight to a popular brand and pay a little high for some features that you probably won’t use in your daily life.
During our test session, we never felt that we are using some non-high-end phone, which isn’t from some established and popular brand. It had some heating issues at the beginning, which was quickly sorted out by following few 100%-0%-100% battery cycle.
The camera is somewhat hit and miss sometimes, but it certainly does very well in low light scenarios. We felt like it did outperform most of the smartphones in it’s range and some offended some of the really high-end smartphones. The hardware is superb and software (EMUI 3.0 on top of KitKat) doesn’t disappoint much. Huawei does try to copy the behavior of Apple devices, but at the end the smartphone is unique and gives refreshing experience.
The battery didn’t disappoint us during one month of usage, and we easily carried out our daily work with a relief that we don’t have to carry a charger to our office. At the beginning (our first week with the phone), we were curious and did managed to exhaust all the juice within 5-6 hours with continuous usage and running some tests, but it is pretty safe to say that average users will get 1.5 days or more with the juice that it packs inside the hood.
That being said, we can up vote this phone as one of the best phones in its segment that you probably never heard of before.
GENERAL FEATURES
Brand
Honor
Business Features
Pushmail (Exchange)
Handset Color
Black
Form
Bar
SIM Size
Micro SIM
Call Features
Loudspeaker
Model Name
6 Plus
Touch Screen
Yes
SIM Type
Single Sim, LTE
Model ID
PE-TL10
In the Box
Handset, Quick Start Guide, Eject Tool, TP Cover, Charger, USB Cable, Battery Cover Protective Film
MULTIMEDIA
Sound Enhancement
DTS Sound
Video Player
Yes, Supports RV7-10, XviD, VP8, H.264, RM, MP4, H.263, 3GP, WMV 9, WMV, ASF, MPEG4, RMVB, Full HD
Auto Focus, Flash Support, Shooting Function (Wide Aperture, Panorama, Best Photo, Beauty, Watermark, Audio Control, Touch to Capture, Capture Smiles, Burst Shoot, Ultra Snapshot)
HD Recording
HD, Full HD
Rear Camera
Yes, 8 MP + 8 MP (Dual Rear Camera)
Front Facing Camera
Yes, 8 MP
INTERNET & CONNECTIVITY
Audio Jack
3.5 mm
Preinstalled Browser
Android, Chrome
Bluetooth
Yes, v4, Supported Profiles (LE, EDR)
4G
Yes
Navigation Technology
A-GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, with Google Maps
NFC
Yes
Wifi
Yes, 802.11 a/b/g/n
Internet Features
Email
EDGE
Yes, Class 12
GPRS
Yes
Tethering
USB, Wi-fi Hotspot
USB Connectivity
Yes, micro USB, v2, OTG Compatible
3G
Yes, 42 Mbps HSDPA; 5.76 Mbps HSUPA
OTHER FEATURES
Sensors
Proximity Sensor, Hall Sensor, Compass, Digital Compass, G-Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer
Phone Book Memory
Yes
SMS Memory
Yes
Call Memory
Yes
Important Apps
POP3, IMAP4, HOTA, Gmail, Google+, Google Play Music, Google Play Books, Google Play Games, Google Play Movies and TV, Drive, Google Settings, Hangouts, Photos, Play Store, Play Newsstand, Voice Search, YouTube
Additional Features
4G LTE: Standby Time – 563 hrs, Talktime – 23 hrs, Certification: BQB, Wi-Fi, RoHS, REACH, Status Indicator, MMS Enabled, USB Mass Storage, USB Charging, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi WPS
WARRANTY
Warranty Summary
15 months manufacturer warranty for phone and 6 months for Battery and 3 months for Data cable/Charger
DIMENSIONS
Weight
165 g
Size
75.68×150.46×7.5 mm
DISPLAY
Resolution
Full HD, 1920 x 1080 Pixels
Other Display Features
Multi-touch, In-cell Display, Sensitive Screen
Type
TFT
Color
16.7 M
Size
13.97 cm
BATTERY
Talk Time
30 hrs (2G), 23 hrs (3G)
Standby Time
636 hrs (2G), 690 hrs (3G)
Type
3600 mAh
MEMORY AND STORAGE
Expandable Memory
microSD, upto 128 GB
Memory
3 GB RAM, 32 ROM
Internal
32 GB
User Memory
25 GB
PLATFORM
Operating Freq
GSM – 850, 900, 1800, 1900; WCDMA – 2100; 4G: LTE (FDD) – Band 1, Band 3, Band 7, LTE (TD) – Band 38, Band 39, Band 40, Band 41
HP released a new series of laptops that comes in between the ultrabooks and Notebooks. The new design is not too slim as an ultrabook, but it doesn’t come any closer to the Notebook when it comes to the thickness. Hardware configuration and build quality seems to be value for money, but are we looking at the best buddy in the category? Lets find out.
Build Quality
When we first grabbed HP Pavilion 15-no12TX (Part No. – F2C09PA) out of the box, we were really amazed to lay our eyes on the slim build of the laptop. It is fairly slim for the mid-range category and certainly isn’t too bulky or thick. The laptop still weighs 2.28 Kg, which is slightly heavier than other laptops in this price range (for eg. – Dell Inspiron 15R 5521 which is 60g lighter), but I guess it isn’t that significant.
The mineral black lid with horizontal brush pattern dominates the plastic case, which doesn’t feel cheap. The laptop is firmly built and features some design improvements over the previous HP pavilion series. The new batch of laptops by HP are sleek and beautiful.
The palm rest area and polycarbonate casing along the display bears the black horizontal brush pattern that we saw on the back panel. I really like how HP pavilion is built and packed with premium casing.
The laptop appears to be a rectangular slab, which feels good to work on. The corners are slightly curved with silver bezel at the sides and it looks sleek and beautiful. You might not feel the difference in the images, but, believe me, it is one of the thinnest mid-range laptops. The nonvisual parts (rear, front and back) of the laptop is plasticky and it feels cheap, but again they did well at the sections where you spend your most of your time.
I know, nobody actually care how their laptop appears at the back, just like the rear of your Brand new Television. — You got to admit that HP has really worked on every aspect of its new Pavilion Series.
DigitFreak Rating: 8/10
Hardware and ports
HP pavilion 15 e012TX (believe me I hate it to call it by alpha-numeric code myself), is packed with 4th Gen core i5 4200U processor, which is clocked at 1.6 GHz with Turbo Boost Technology up to 2.3 GHz, which is optimized for performance.
It has 1.00 TB SATA Hard disk Drive with max 5400 RPM (could be 7200 RPM). The read-writes speed when we copied/moved the files from one partition to another is really great considering the lower RPM (thanks to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology) — We got average 50MBps for the transfers within HDD.
The laptop sports 4GB DDR3 RAM and 2GB Nvidia 740M graphics card out of the box, which is sufficient to play high end games on your system. It can handle the multitasking pretty well, without stressing your processor for post calculations.
It has HP TrueVision HD webcam for video conferencing or video call with built in mic. The test shots from the webcam was considerably good enough and video output was bright and clear during our test call.
The gadget has an awesome port management, which is distributed at the side (left and right) panels. Everything is squeezed at these two side panels and you won’t find anything on the rear or front side panels.
The Gadget features SuperMulti DVD RW Drive with Dual layer support with 8x Read/Write speed. The DTS Sound+ produces High Quality audio and appears to be loud enough for entertainment purpose. The dual speakers boosts the sound output and provides considerable volume for usual requirements.
It has basic/standard communication ports – Ethernet 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n and Bluetooth v4.0.
It has 1xUSB 2.0 and 2xUSB 3.0, RJ45 LAN, 1xHDMI port, 1xVGA port, Multi-Card slot and 1x Headphone out/Microphone-in Combo Jack.
There are two USB ports on the left panel and one USB port on the right. I felt that there should be one more USB port because if you are using one of the two USB ports on the left, you end up with the other one unusable as there is very dramatically less gap between the ports. But, I guess you can still manage to carry out your work just well with two USB ports at a time.
DigitFreak Rating: 7/10
Keyboard and comfort
The laptop has standard Island keyboard, that you can find in any modern laptop. The chicklet keys are plus feature because it is really helpful for cleaning and maintaining the latoptop’s keys. I am composing this article on this laptop and I never felt any discomfort or noticed any misplaced keyword. The key spacing is perfect for both small fingers and a fat one.
You might find the navigation keys a little awkward because the up and down keys are one single key split into two. If you are a gamers you better stick to the A,W,S,D key system for navigation while playing the game.
This is the keyboard layout you will find in any new HP laptops. The HP Envy series has the same keyboard layout and it is 25% cheaper than them. The keys are well spaced and feel comfortable while typing. The only thing that I wished there should have been being a — backlit keys. If you are like me, who prefer to work at night – then you might wanna consider a better alternative that offers backlit keyboard, Otherwise it should be fine for general usage.
The Multitouch gesture touchpad is real wonder, You can pinch to zoom, scroll pages at the edge, slide page with three fingers and zoom-in ot zoom-out using two fingers. — but, the awesomeness ends at the software tweaks, I find the touchpad in-resposive at some points making, while trying to move the cursor to small distances. If I swipe the touchpad quickly, it would response just fine – but it is not the same when I try to make little movements.
By turning off “palm-Check Enhacned” and decreasing the pointing sensitivity in synaptics touchpad properties, I was able to sort the issues.
I am using this laptop since last 8 days and it always felt perfect for general usage. The display is bright enough for both indoors and outdoor usage. HP Pavilion 15-n012TX sports 15.6-inch HD BrightView Backlit Display with 1366×768-pixel resolution. We cannot expect Full HD display for the mid-range segment, but you don’t need to be worried about it, you can carry out your personal affairs pretty well.
It has Intel HD Graphics 4400 for desktop usage and usual software rendering. It is powerful enough to obtain the best output for display while you are not playing games or carrying out heavy graphic hungry tasks.
The display is bright enough to be used under the sunlight and looks good at 10-30% brightness indoors. We didn’t experience and issues with the screen brightness while working on it. Playing games on the big screen is fun and it performed well.
HP bundled 2GB DDR3 dedicated NVIDIA GeForce 740M graphics card for casual gaming needs. You can play almost all current and upcoming modern games without any issues. The only things that I noticed are Laptop heating issue — Laptop gets pretty heated if you play high-end games. I had to use the cooling pad to play Crysis 3 and Need For Speed Rivals at the moderate settings, otherwise you will notice gaming lag due to high core temperature.
I installed additional 4GB RAM to measure the performance of the system while playing the game — it turns out that the system handles games pretty well on extended RAM as well as the default configuration.
You need to manually tweak your on board graphics card and dedicated graphics card because they are initially optimized for a balance between the battery life and performance.
HP Pavilion 15-n012TX comes bundled with Latest Microsoft Windows 8 Operating system and HP software goodies. The system is stable and OS works perfectly all right with the system configuration. HP default goodies makes sure that all the hardware are aligned properly for best performance.
HP offers automatic system backup and restore points — which means you can restore your laptop to the original state without reformatting your laptop from the scratch. You just need to follow the Windows 8 System Troubleshooting options and you can re-install Windows 8 on your system without any external setup.
It’s also worth noting that this laptop comes without too much bloatware which manufacturers usually fill their machines up with. I uninstalled Norton, a games app & was good to go.
If you are not so intended to use Windows 8 on the laptop, you can switch to Windows 7 or other operating system you prefer. Just make sure you get all the drives and necessary software for the operating system. I installed Windows 7 on the Laptop and searched for all the Drivers on the internet and everything went perfectly smooth.
Windows 8 is not bad either, specially if it is your first personal computer. You will find Windows 8 little more easier to use, but advanced users still prefer windows 7 because they know every bit of it.
DigitFreak Rating: 8/10
Verdict
HP Pavilion 15-n012TX is packed with the best hardware configuration one can have for this price range. The 4th Gen processor consumes less power, which provides good battery backup (up to 5 hours with minimum brightness).
The display is bright enough, 4GB RAM and 2GB dedicated Nvidia Graphics card ensure optimal gaming experience. HP manages Windows 8 with it’s software goodies, which provides smooth transition and makes you like your new laptop even more.
Laptop’s cooling system is very effective — thanks! to the HP Coolsense technology, you won’t notice any heating issues while using it for hours. It get little heated when you play games and you will have to use the cooling pad to play high-end games effectively.
The laptop is good at delivering performance and peace of ming when we talk about multitasking and high end tasks that requires high-end hardware configuration. 1.00 TB Internal Hard Disk read/write speed is a breeze and manages files pretty well.
The material used in laptop’s external body components doesn’t feel cheap and appears to be durable for daily usage. The only drawback we noticed is its touchpad and USB ports being too close to each other. There is no separate Mic-in and Line-out ports and there is no VGA port.
For Rs 45 to 50K, this is the best laptop you can have among any other premium brands. It is a value for money. The only competitor of this Laptop in Home brand is HP Envy 15-J049TX, which costs more than 60K.
Overall Rating: 8/10
In the Box
Sales Package
Laptop, Battery, AC Adapter, User Guide, Manuals and CD
General
Brand
HP
Model Name
Pavilion
Lifestyle
Casual Gaming
Color
Imprint Mineral Black with Horizontal brush pattern
![Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (ZE550KL): definitely not worth the money [review]](https://digitfreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/z_digitfreak_00452.jpg)
![Honor PowerBank (AP007) 13000 mAh is a bang for your buck [Review]](https://digitfreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/IMG_20150626_164846_1.jpg)
![[Review] We tested 5 Huawei Honor 6 Plus for a month, here’s what we think!](https://digitfreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Huawei_Honor_6_Plus_boxes.jpg)
The Honor 6 Plus is running Android 4.4 KitKat with Emotion UI, but it’s possible that a Lollipop update will arrive in the future. There aren’t any particularly outstanding software features, but it’s not completely Vanilla. There’s no app drawer, for example, so you’ll have to rely on folders like you do in iOS which will appeal to some but not everyone.
![[Review] Hp Pavilion 15-n012TX Laptop – 4th Gen Core i5, 4GB Ram, 2GB Nvidia 740M Graphics Card and more](https://digitfreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/20131201_142123-1.jpg)
I know, nobody actually care how their laptop appears at the back, just like the rear of your Brand new Television. — You got to admit that HP has really worked on every aspect of its new Pavilion Series.
DigitFreak Rating: 8/10
DigitFreak Rating: 7/10
This is the keyboard layout you will find in any new HP laptops. The HP Envy series has the same keyboard layout and it is 25% cheaper than them. The keys are well spaced and feel comfortable while typing. The only thing that I wished there should have been being a — backlit keys. If you are like me, who prefer to work at night – then you might wanna consider a better alternative that offers backlit keyboard, Otherwise it should be fine for general usage.
DigitFreak Rating: 7/10 (Keyboard) & 6/10 (Touchpad)