The fact that the Elephone company is preparing to release a phablet, positioned as an alternative to the Xiaomi Mi Mix, became known back in 2016. However, full technical specifications were revealed only in the fall of 2017, when the official announcement of the device took place. First of all, Elephone S8 attracts attention due to its stylish design with minimal frames, 6-inch 2K display from SHARP, a powerful 10-core processor, a Sony camera with a resolution of 21 MP and a 4000 mAh battery, combined with a very attractive price.
This review contains detailed information about the design, hardware and software capabilities of the smartphone, its features, strengths and weaknesses. The material also describes the key differences between the Elephone S8 and its closest competitors, and reveals the results of comparing the model with its analogues.
Equipment
The standard delivery kit is quite modest, but contains almost everything minimally necessary to start using the device. In the box with the smartphone the user will find:
- 5V/2A power adapter with fast charging support;
- USB cable;
- SIM card removal tool;
- protective silicone pad;
- user guide.
Features of appearance, body materials
The model can be found in two color variations: the glossy black body will certainly be appreciated by everyone who prefers the classics, and in blue the smartphone looks even more impressive and attractive. In addition, fingerprints are less visible on the blue panel. Thanks to a special bend, the reflective part of the surface of the body has the property of shimmering beautifully when hit by light.
The build quality is not satisfactory. The frame is made of aircraft aluminum, and the front part is covered with Gorilla Glass 4, with curved edges using 2.5D technology. The manufacturer indicated in the specifications that the back panel is also covered with glass. However, in fact it is durable polycarbonate plastic with increased wear resistance. It is noteworthy that the back wall of the case has a low slip coefficient, due to which the smartphone lies quite securely in the hand.
No less important features of the external appearance include narrow frames surrounding the display on three sides. Thanks to the new concept of “frameless” design, smartphone manufacturers have the opportunity to increase screen diagonals without compromising the dimensions of the device. A good example: thanks to the reduction of the frames, the Elephone S8 body with a 6-inch display is shorter than the 5.5-inch iPhone 8 Plus (152 mm versus 158.4 mm).
Control elements and connectors
On the panel under the screen, engineers placed the front camera module, as well as a rectangular button combined with a fingerprint sensor. The built-in fingerprint scanner is fast and accurate, allowing you to unlock your smartphone with one touch.
Due to the lack of touch navigation buttons, it is possible to control the interface using a fingerprint reader. A single or double consecutive touch to the sensor is used to return to the previous menu and to the desktop, respectively. To call the running application manager, hold the button for a few moments.
For users who prefer the classic control method, there is a section in the settings that allows you to activate standard on-screen buttons. If necessary, the navigation bar can be temporarily hidden or brought back using a vertical swipe.
On the right side there are metal power and volume buttons. The power control key is easy to feel without looking, thanks to the ribbed surface.
On the opposite side you can find a tray for two Nano SIM cards. It is not possible to install an external MicroSD drive.
In addition, the manufacturer abandoned the 3.5 mm audio jack in order to increase the capacity of the built-in battery. To listen to audio through headphones, it is suggested to use a Bluetooth headset. Or connect standard wired headphones to the symmetrical USB Type-C connector located on the bottom edge through a special adapter.
Sound
Next to the USB-C port there are holes that hide the multimedia speaker and the main microphone. An additional noise-cancelling microphone is placed on the top edge. The smartphone is equipped with a special chip from NXP, which is an audio power amplifier for the built-in speaker. As a result, the sound emitter demonstrates a fairly high volume of reproduced audio, without squeaks, crackles or other extraneous noise. In addition, thanks to the amplifier, you can even hear mid and low frequencies.
It is worth understanding that the Elephone S8 does not belong to the class of music smartphones, so you should not expect quality in headphones, as from Hi-End equipment. However, most average users will be satisfied with the sound.
Unlike Mi Mix, it does not use bone conduction sound technology. Instead, the engineers installed a regular earpiece, leaving a barely noticeable slot above the screen.
Display
One of the main advantages of the Elephone S8 is its 2K resolution display (2560 x 1440), manufactured by SHARP. Even Full HD resolution would provide high pixel density on a 6-inch screen, but the smartphone still received a Quad HD screen. And in addition to it - a full set of sensors necessary to work with virtual reality equipment.
The device supports ClearMotion technology, which improves the smoothness and clarity of the picture due to a significant increase in frame rate. The effect is best seen in moving scenes, such as games, videos, etc. The built-in MiraVision utility allows you to independently adjust color temperature, sharpness, contrast and other image parameters at your own discretion. There is also a blue light filter that helps reduce eye strain when reading in low light.
Thanks to the high backlight brightness reserve, excellent image contrast and the absence of an air gap between matrix, glass and touch panel, guarantees excellent visibility of the screen content even in the clearest, sunny weather on the street. The viewing angles are very wide, the image is highly clear, and in terms of the saturation of transmitted colors it can easily compete with an AMOLED matrix.
Hardware platform
Elephone S8 is built on a powerful 64-bit SoC MediaTek Helio X25 (MT6797T), with an integrated 4-core Mali-T880 MP4 video accelerator. Thanks to the three-cluster structure, the chipset has good energy efficiency indicators. If the task does not require significant computing power, clusters with economical Cortex-A53 cores are used. To handle the most resource-intensive tasks, high-performance Cortex-A72 cores with a frequency of 2.5 GHz are included in the work.
In terms of performance, Helio X25 is only slightly inferior to the chipsets that were used in the brand's flagship models of 2016. The smartphone copes excellently with almost any load, demonstrating good performance when working with applications and fairly high rendering speed user interface.
The impressive power reserve allows you to use the device to play 4K video in H.264, H.265 and VP9 formats, without dropping frames. In addition, the Elephone S8 can run any modern 3D games, even the most demanding CPU and GPU resources, without any problems. Although for some of them to work smoothly, you will still have to sacrifice the quality of textures and visual effects.
Memory
The SoC uses built-in memory modules manufactured by Samsung, standard LPDDR3 and EMMC 5.1. The amount of RAM is 4 GB: not a record by modern standards, but it is still enough to run several applications and freely switch between them.
Support for installing external memory cards is not provided by the manufacturer. However, the internal storage capacity is 64 GB, of which about 10 GB is used for system needs. For many users, 54 GB is enough not only to install a set of all the necessary games and applications, but also to store multimedia content. In any case, if necessary, you can always connect an external drive to the USB-C connector via a special adapter, thanks to the support of the OTG protocol.
Cameras
For the main camera, the Elephone S8 uses a 1/2.3-inch Sony IMX220 sensor, with a maximum aperture of F/2.2, autofocus and dual flash. The camera is capable of taking photographs with a resolution of 21 MP, as well as recording 2K/4K video. There is no support for optical stabilization, which is not surprising given the price category of the device.
However, if you wish, you can use the digital image stabilization function, which is activated in the camera interface. The standard shooting application is very simple, without support for manual settings. But it contains a set of interesting filters and the ability to switch between panoramic, HDR and Picture in Picture modes.
In bright daylight conditions, you can count on getting high-quality photos, with correct color rendition and a good level of detail. If you try, you can get a decent quality photo even in low light levels. However, it is worth considering 2 factors: not the highest focusing speed, as well as the inability to manually adjust shutter speed and other parameters. As a result, any object in the frame that was in motion during an evening or night photo shoot may turn out blurry.
However, the camera is perfect for everyday amateur photography, and the resulting photos will look great both on social networks and in a family album. The lack of Pro mode and focus lag are software issues that can easily be resolved by installing a third-party camera app. There is reason to believe that with subsequent software updates, developers will stabilize the focusing speed.
The device is equipped with a pretty good front camera, with a Sony IMX219 matrix and autofocus support. The resolution of the resulting images is 8 MP. The photo module is placed on the bottom frame due to the design of the case, so the smartphone must be turned over before shooting.
Battery
A built-in 4000 mAh battery is responsible for the autonomous operation of the device. Combined with an energy-efficient chipset, this is enough to keep the smartphone working throughout the day, without the need for additional charging. A very good result, for a model with a 6-inch 2K display. It is also worth noting support for Pump Express Plus fast charging technology. When using the supplied 15-watt power adapter, full charge restoration from 0 to 100% is achieved in 2.5 hours.
Software
Elephone S8 runs Android 7.1.1 OS, which provides the ability to work in multi-window mode. The firmware has a minimum of third-party applications, and the shell interface is “clean”, like in the stock version of Android. To make using the device more comfortable, the developers have introduced several useful add-ons into the system. For example, we added a reading mode, support for various gestures, the ability to customize the display of touch navigation buttons, etc.
The manufacturer abandoned the LED notification indicator, instead offering the Always-on Display function. When Always-on Display is activated, notifications about missed incoming events will be displayed even on the locked screen. This feature is often found in smartphones from LG, Samsung and Moto.
Wireless interfaces
The device supports 2G, 3G and 4G communication standards. In FDD and TDD modes, 4G LTE networks will operate in frequency bands B1/B3/B7/B20 and B38-B41, respectively. Access to high-speed mobile Internet (300/50 Mbit/s) is provided through a built-in LTE Cat-6 modem. The device is compatible with Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11ac wireless connections (with support for 2.4/5 GHz).
It is worth noting the flawless operation of the navigation module, with which the user can access satellite navigation systems GPS (A-GPS), GLONASS and Beidou. The smartphone copes well with the role of a navigator, thanks to fast search for satellites, provision of a stable signal and support for an electronic compass. In addition, on a large screen it is much more convenient to view maps and get directions.
Advantages and disadvantages
Pros:
- spectacular modern design, blue body color;
- huge Quad HD display of excellent quality;
- good ergonomics due to narrow frames;
- high level of productivity;
- fast, convenient fingerprint scanner with interface control support;
- The front photo module is equipped with autofocus;
- presence of built-in Always-on Display function;
- adequate autonomy;
- support for fast charging technology;
- Full compatibility with VR equipment.
Minuses:
- there is no LED event indicator;
- NFC sensor is not supported;
- no standard headphone jack;
- There is no slot for a MicroSD card.
Review results
It so happened that at the start of sales, the phablet did not have a single a worthy competitor that would combine minimal bezels, a 6” 2K display, a 4000 mAh battery and SoC Helio X25. Among the “frameless” models, there are mainly either budget options that are inferior to the Elephone S8 in terms of characteristics, or devices with higher price tags. It is noteworthy that this smartphone is not too far behind the Xiaomi Mi Mix in technical terms, but at the same time it has a much more affordable price - only $240!
In addition, in some moments Mi Mix is completely inferior to the new product. For example, the S8 has higher screen resolution and pixel density, a slightly better selfie camera, a more comfortable body and a classic but practical earpiece. Taking into account the above factors, this model can really be considered as an affordable alternative to the phablet from Xiaomi.
To summarize, the Elephone S8 can be an excellent option for those who are looking for an attractive “frameless” 6-inch phablet with good characteristics and a competitive price. The device is ideal for games, navigation, viewing photos and videos, accessing the Internet, and also for use in conjunction with a VR helmet. For $240, this is an incredible opportunity!
