The cell phone market goes via one thing of a change presently, as cellphone consumers are maintaining their units for longer, and so they aren’t as eager to splash out on the big-ticket new releases.
The place to purchase?On-line Chinese language retailer, Gearbest, sells the Oukitel WP2 for $209) on the time of writing. Notice that, whereas this value consists of supply, it’s unique of any taxes which may be levied by HMRC or the courier corporations on behalf of the seller. Wish to purchase tech from on-line Chinese language retailers?
Learn this primary. On high of that, they’re additionally seeking to purchase telephones which have a selected objective, moderately than fashions that do most issues in a mediocre jack-of-all-trades vogue.The Chinese language cellphone makers are completely poised to take advantage of these rising niches and ship low-cost merchandise to a mature cellphone shopping for public.
Oukitel is one in all these Chinese language manufacturers, and with the WP2 the audience is those that like a bit of journey of their lives away from the massive cities.The Oukitel WP2 is a phablet design that sports activities a 5.99-inch show and IP68 certification for lower than $300.Which begs the query: is that this specification and value level simply too good to be true?
Design
The WP2 is an enormous slab of a cellphone that tries to boost its journey credentials by having chamfered corners and visual Torx-head bolts. The overview model was fully black, however this cellphone can be accessible with gold highlights for many who are simply impressed by a bit of glitz.
Aesthetically, it says ‘I’m powerful’ in a voice that might make the dulcet tones of Thanos appear squeaky.We initially assumed that this building and look was merely window dressing. Nevertheless, studying a protracted warning sticker connected to the rear revealed that if despatched to an Oukitel licensed service supplier, this cellphone could be opened and the battery changed.
Weighing in at 365g, this isn’t the heaviest cellphone we’ve reviewed, however you wouldn’t wish to drop it in your foot, relaxation assured.
The Oukitel method to maintaining mud and water out of the internals is decidedly old-school, in that every open channel is coved with a rubberized plug. That features each the USB Sort-C charging port and the SIM card tray.One curiosity is that the fingerprint reader is on the right-hand facet of the handset, just under the facility button, moderately than on the again, or positioned slightly below the display as is historically seen.
That successfully dictates that the opening digit is the appropriate thumb (except you might be left-handed).The place you may usually anticipate that sensor on the middle of the rear cowl is a strip of 4 white LEDs (beneath a defusing strip) that are used for flash pictures or as a flashlight. The 2 digital camera lenses are above this, and so they’re mounted vertically, not horizontally.
Given the sheer bodily scale of the WP2, it’s most definitely aimed toward these with bigger arms, and doubtless not appropriate for a kid. It’s comfy sufficient to carry, and the form has sufficient laborious edges to cease it being dropped too simply.However then, being dropped is unlikely to trigger this design a lot of a problem, relying on how far the gadget falls.
Spec Sheet
Here are the complete specs of the Oukitel WP2:
- CPU: ARM octa-core 1.5GHz
- GPU: Mali-G71 MP2 650MHz
- RAM: 4GBStorage: 64GBScreen dimension: 5.99-inch
- Resolution: 2160 x 1080Weight: 365g
- Dimensions: 176.6 x 85.three x 16.5mm
- Rear digital camera: 16.3MP + 2MP
- Front digital camera: 8.3MP
- OS: Android 8.0
- Battery: 10,000mAh
Specifications and features
Chinese cellphone makers have clearly finished some market analysis about what turns off clients with regards to telephones from manufacturers they’re not acquainted with. We are saying this as a result of nearly all of the fashions we’ve seen just lately from this area have the identical coverage concerning Android, in that they supply an nearly vanilla expertise.The WP2 runs Android 8.0 Oreo with only some further or enhanced apps, and the expertise is usually an excellent one. Our solely grievance in regards to the Android implementation is that the default background graphic is one which first appeared on the Nexus four, which could give the misunderstanding that this cellphone is utilizing older tech.A lot of the optimistic Android expertise could be defined by the that Oukitel selected to place within the WP2, and it’s a well-recognized spec to any seasoned cellphone reviewer.
The SoC inside is the stalwart octa-core MediaTek MT6750T with related ARM Mali T860-MP2 GPU, and on this cellphone, it’s paired with 4GB of LDDR3 RAM. This is a similar platform to the Blackview BV6800, amongst others, with a Mali GPU that runs on the 650MHz baseline clock.This was on flagship Chinese language telephones a yr in the past and has now migrated all the way down to increased quantity merchandise throughout a variety of makers.
In contrast with the Samsung Exynos chips it doesn’t excel, however for the much less demanding person, it has greater than sufficient efficiency for typical cellphone use.Storage is a wholesome 64GB, of which about 55GB is on the market initially. You’ll be able to bolster that with a microSD card that goes in a SIM card slot, if you’re keen to make use of just one cellular SIM, and never the 2 the cellphone can deal with.
For us, the standout expertise on this cellphone is the 5.99-inch 2,160 x 1,080 decision display that makes use of IPS expertise for good viewing angles. We’re assured that that is an LG-made panel that we additionally noticed within the Doogee S80, and it is extremely clear and fairly colourful.
Benchmarks
Here’s how the Oukitel WP2 carried out in our suite of benchmark checks:
- Geekbench: 655 (single-core); 2,728 (multi-core); 1,850 (compute)
- Antutu: 83,658PCMark (Work 2.zero): three,zero64
- Passmark: 3,723
- Passmark CPU: 74,347
- Androbench (sequential): 268 (sequential learn); 103 (sequential write)
- Androbench (random): 28 (random learn); 13 (random write)
- 3DMark Slingshot: 135
- 3DMark Slingshot Excessive: 209
- 3DMark IceStorm: 9,036HW
- Bot Prime: 3,627In use
The efficiency of the MediaTek processor is the Achilles heel of this gadget, as it’s fairly lackluster given the eight cores at its disposal.As we’ve talked about earlier than the configuration of this SoC – with 4 1.5GHz cores and 4 1GHz cores – may make energy administration higher, however does little for the efficiency of both a single demanding job, or one the place all cores are utilized.It additionally tends to drag the clock pace of cores down aggressively to save lots of energy, inflicting minor pauses when choosing an app or clicking on a management. You typically really feel just like the cellphone isn’t fairly prepared for you, even in the event you’ve simply woken it up.We must always say that this can be a very delicate factor that many customers won’t discover. It’s additionally value noting that this handset performs video games fairly successfully, which you won’t anticipate.
Our benchmarking didn’t produce any nice surprises, and the outcomes have been solely in step with earlier units constructed across the similar .The battery is a powerful level, with 10,000 mAh of capability that means that this cellphone can deal with even the busiest working day and depart you with energy to spare. Utilizing the battery sparingly might simply prolong the operational life to for much longer durations.
One facet of the WP2 energy system we should salute is that that is an OTG implementation of the Sort-C connector, and due to this fact it may be used to energy/cost different objects if wanted.This type of versatile considering could possibly be a lifesaver in the event you get remoted within the wilderness and have to consolidate battery energy. Sadly, wi-fi charging was omitted, undoing among the good work with the OTG connection.Likewise, the digital camera seems to be a barely missed alternative.
With many cellphone makers utilizing Sony sensors, we have been stunned to seek out that Oukitel went with a Samsung S5K2P7 16MP digital camera sensor on this cellphone, and mixed it with a a lot smaller 2MP assist digital camera for creating background blur if required.The photographs it takes (see the 2 photos above, and one under) aren’t distinctive, however they’re not abysmal both. Accessible seize modes on the just about inventory app embrace HDR, Panoramic, QRScan, Youngster, Magnificence, Watermark and ‘SLR’.Those that need extra management can discover a huge variety of free apps on the Play Retailer, however for primary snapping the preinstalled app is workable.
If this sensor mixture has a weak spot, it’s that the second sensor doesn’t seem to assist low gentle capturing, and the Samsung S5K2P7 tends in the direction of very grainy outcomes as soon as the sunshine ranges drop.We’ve already talked about that Android is sort of inventory on the WP2, however Oukitel did pre-install a number of further apps which might be genuinely helpful. Collected beneath the ‘Toolbag’ app, these embrace a compass, image hanging utility, gradienter, peak measurer, magnifier, protractor and a plumb bob device.
These utilities are nothing ground-breaking, however they’re higher than among the free apps we’ve seen from different producers.The cell phone expertise within the WP2 handles the 4 primary GSM frequencies (800, 900, 1800 and 1900MHz), each 3G (900 and 2100MHz) and 5 4G LTE bands (800, 900, 1800, 2100 and 2600MHz).Regrettably, these aren’t the ranges that the majority US mobile phone companies use, although they’re generally used exterior that area in Europe and Asia.Remaining verdict
The Oukitel WP2 is a combined bag the place some options are pretty much as good as better-known manufacturers, and others fall fairly quick. The shortage of US frequency bands negates its use within the Americas and Canada, and it’s too heavy to be an on a regular basis gadget.However in the event you intend to hike, surf or journey off the crushed observe, and also you don’t fancy taking an costly top-tier cellphone with you, then the WP2 is virtually ultimate.It’s sturdy, has nice battery life, can deal with water immersion and may take a good image in good lighting circumstances.The WP2 won’t be nice at a lot, however for the asking value, it represents glorious worth.