Gadgets: LeEco Le Max 2 and LG Urbane smart watch short reviews
LeEco Le Max 2
Got a new phone. I don't like it the easy way, I seek my own way, so I got myself a Chinese phone this time: LeEco Le Max 2. It's a full-blown flagship phone. Short story: I run Antutu benchmark and it smokes Samsung Galaxy S7 by a healthy 10%, with very similar specs and a larger screen. So it's faster than S7 and faster than iPhone 6. With taxes S7 costs a whopping $1000 in Canada, while I only paid $214 USD for mine. With virtually the same hardware and a larger screen, jsut as I like it. And because of long shipping time I even got refunded $47.
I got a grey metallic one. So what's so great about this phone? A lot! It has one of hte fastest CPUs on the market: Snapdragon X820 quad core 64bit Kryo 2.15 GHz with Adreno 530 GPU (same combo as Samsung Galaxy S7), Huge 5.7" Quad HD screen (2560×1440 pixels), 4Gb RAM, 21 Mp camera (Sony sensor) with optical stabilizer and f2.0 aperture, 8Mp front camera, 4K video recording, fingerprint sensor (similar to iphone), dual SIM card slots, unibody aluminum with reinforced glass, Usb 3.0 Type C. Comes with Android 6.0 OS. Of course it's unlocked and very easy to flash TWRP recovery, root it and flash custom ROM with xposed framework, which is of course what I did.
I'm very impressed with the phone. Screen is great, super bright and sharp at all angles. Slowly customizing everything to just how I like it. Amazing value for money, nothing even comes close to it. My previous phone, OnePlus One, was great and very good value, however their OnePlus Two was "meh" and and OnePlus Three is one of the best phones available but the price is quite steep. So I went more radical. LeEco is a huge company in China but is virtually unknown here.
Downsides: it's a Chinese phone, so original firmware had some Chinese apps - solved with a custom ROM from XDA. So prepare to fiddle with the phone a bit if you want to make it work just as you like it. 32Gb of internal storage is not that much, and there is no SD card slot. But I can live with that, as I play music in both cars from dedicated USB drives, never through blutooth (quality is below what I can suffer). Basically no official warranty. They were the first brant to eliminate 2.5mm headphone jack, 2 months before iPhone. That's just stupid. Adapter is supplied, but you can't charge and listen to the music at the same time. However I don't care because I rarely listen to music in headphones form a phone, and when I do - I have a cool FiiO external headphone amp/DAC which makes any phone that supports USB OTG sound amazing, can drive huge studio headphones and has a battery for 10 hours of playback. Fingerprint scanner can be a bit slow (up to 1 second), but still faster than drawing a password. Battery is 3100mAh, which is a bit "meh" with a huge and hi-res screen, but it's enough for a day. This is compensated by a super-fast LeCharge charging that fills like 80% in 30 minutes or something like that. It's not very light. I think those are all of the downsides. Nothing really major for me, considering value for money.
LG watch Urbane
I got addicted to my Moto 360 smart watch, which I got one month after their release, 2.5 years ago. But after 2 years their battery died. I had nothing to lose and replaced a battery that was not user-serviceable. That made a case a bit loose, and after 2 months I accidentaly destroyed it, ripping away upper case with monitor. I enjoyed it but It had some problems: screen was shutting off completely after a few seconds, even with "ambient screen" option on. Battery was barely enough for one day with light use, and not enough with heavy use. And it won't get Android Wear 2.0 upgrade.
Unfortunately there was not much progress in those 2.5 years, nothing really new in terms of technology. But I got a model that has been around for more than a year, originally costing $350 US very cheap - $160 US (grey market model, new in sealed box). For that kind of money nothing compares to it. It is still one of the best smart watches around, and it looks like an actual watch:
I've ordered a metal bracelet from China and will replace leather strap with it. Big advantages over Moto 360: amazing battery, screen in "ambient mode" is still quite bright and visible, and after the whole day I have more than 50% left. It's amazing! CPU is much faster (4 core Snapdragon 400, was a leading smartphone CPU 4 years ago or so), the screen is truly round, no "flat tire" on the bottom. Screen is a bit smaller than Moto 360, but pixel density is higher so it looks better. Charger is nicer and more solid, and I printed a stand on my 3D printer that houses the charger, makes it more convenient and would work with a bracelet. This watch is confirmed to get Android Wear 2.0 upgrade (released this month) sometime later this year, so it's future-proof. It's water-resistant (only 1m though, but better than Moto 360 which could not be submerged at all). And pulse sensor seems more reliable. Also has compass, barometer, accelerometer and gyro. Has several good watch faces and I have downloaded a bunch more. Considering the price - great value. I hope it will work for a while. I was considering some Chinese smartwatches but anything cheap is terrible and a decent watches they make are $115-$125 USD, and they are bad companionwatches as they have full Android, not Android Wear and have limited functionality as a companion watch. People say that Moto 360 (1st gen, sam as I had) can sometimes be found for $100 USD, but its downsides were annoying, with LG Urbane I feel a different level of experience, so it's a big improvement. Can't wait to get Wear 2.0, it's even better!
Got a new phone. I don't like it the easy way, I seek my own way, so I got myself a Chinese phone this time: LeEco Le Max 2. It's a full-blown flagship phone. Short story: I run Antutu benchmark and it smokes Samsung Galaxy S7 by a healthy 10%, with very similar specs and a larger screen. So it's faster than S7 and faster than iPhone 6. With taxes S7 costs a whopping $1000 in Canada, while I only paid $214 USD for mine. With virtually the same hardware and a larger screen, jsut as I like it. And because of long shipping time I even got refunded $47.
I got a grey metallic one. So what's so great about this phone? A lot! It has one of hte fastest CPUs on the market: Snapdragon X820 quad core 64bit Kryo 2.15 GHz with Adreno 530 GPU (same combo as Samsung Galaxy S7), Huge 5.7" Quad HD screen (2560×1440 pixels), 4Gb RAM, 21 Mp camera (Sony sensor) with optical stabilizer and f2.0 aperture, 8Mp front camera, 4K video recording, fingerprint sensor (similar to iphone), dual SIM card slots, unibody aluminum with reinforced glass, Usb 3.0 Type C. Comes with Android 6.0 OS. Of course it's unlocked and very easy to flash TWRP recovery, root it and flash custom ROM with xposed framework, which is of course what I did.
I'm very impressed with the phone. Screen is great, super bright and sharp at all angles. Slowly customizing everything to just how I like it. Amazing value for money, nothing even comes close to it. My previous phone, OnePlus One, was great and very good value, however their OnePlus Two was "meh" and and OnePlus Three is one of the best phones available but the price is quite steep. So I went more radical. LeEco is a huge company in China but is virtually unknown here.
Downsides: it's a Chinese phone, so original firmware had some Chinese apps - solved with a custom ROM from XDA. So prepare to fiddle with the phone a bit if you want to make it work just as you like it. 32Gb of internal storage is not that much, and there is no SD card slot. But I can live with that, as I play music in both cars from dedicated USB drives, never through blutooth (quality is below what I can suffer). Basically no official warranty. They were the first brant to eliminate 2.5mm headphone jack, 2 months before iPhone. That's just stupid. Adapter is supplied, but you can't charge and listen to the music at the same time. However I don't care because I rarely listen to music in headphones form a phone, and when I do - I have a cool FiiO external headphone amp/DAC which makes any phone that supports USB OTG sound amazing, can drive huge studio headphones and has a battery for 10 hours of playback. Fingerprint scanner can be a bit slow (up to 1 second), but still faster than drawing a password. Battery is 3100mAh, which is a bit "meh" with a huge and hi-res screen, but it's enough for a day. This is compensated by a super-fast LeCharge charging that fills like 80% in 30 minutes or something like that. It's not very light. I think those are all of the downsides. Nothing really major for me, considering value for money.
LG watch Urbane
I got addicted to my Moto 360 smart watch, which I got one month after their release, 2.5 years ago. But after 2 years their battery died. I had nothing to lose and replaced a battery that was not user-serviceable. That made a case a bit loose, and after 2 months I accidentaly destroyed it, ripping away upper case with monitor. I enjoyed it but It had some problems: screen was shutting off completely after a few seconds, even with "ambient screen" option on. Battery was barely enough for one day with light use, and not enough with heavy use. And it won't get Android Wear 2.0 upgrade.
Unfortunately there was not much progress in those 2.5 years, nothing really new in terms of technology. But I got a model that has been around for more than a year, originally costing $350 US very cheap - $160 US (grey market model, new in sealed box). For that kind of money nothing compares to it. It is still one of the best smart watches around, and it looks like an actual watch:
I've ordered a metal bracelet from China and will replace leather strap with it. Big advantages over Moto 360: amazing battery, screen in "ambient mode" is still quite bright and visible, and after the whole day I have more than 50% left. It's amazing! CPU is much faster (4 core Snapdragon 400, was a leading smartphone CPU 4 years ago or so), the screen is truly round, no "flat tire" on the bottom. Screen is a bit smaller than Moto 360, but pixel density is higher so it looks better. Charger is nicer and more solid, and I printed a stand on my 3D printer that houses the charger, makes it more convenient and would work with a bracelet. This watch is confirmed to get Android Wear 2.0 upgrade (released this month) sometime later this year, so it's future-proof. It's water-resistant (only 1m though, but better than Moto 360 which could not be submerged at all). And pulse sensor seems more reliable. Also has compass, barometer, accelerometer and gyro. Has several good watch faces and I have downloaded a bunch more. Considering the price - great value. I hope it will work for a while. I was considering some Chinese smartwatches but anything cheap is terrible and a decent watches they make are $115-$125 USD, and they are bad companionwatches as they have full Android, not Android Wear and have limited functionality as a companion watch. People say that Moto 360 (1st gen, sam as I had) can sometimes be found for $100 USD, but its downsides were annoying, with LG Urbane I feel a different level of experience, so it's a big improvement. Can't wait to get Wear 2.0, it's even better!