Elephone P8000 smartphone

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A very nice smartphone

I was sent this phone for an objective review and I like it very much. It has good build quality and very good specifications for the price.

When reading this review, please bear in mind that I am in late middle age and that my use may not be the same as many people's. I don't game or tweet, for example; I use the phone for calls and texts, music, checking email, some catch-up TV, occasional photos and occasional web browsing. I don't use data. All this means that I cannot advise on comparisons, lots of technical specification and so on, but my non-techie take in the Elephone P8000 is this:

I think the phone itself is attractive: it's stylish and fairly slim. It is pretty weighty at about 200g, largely due to the big, replaceable battery which gives excellent life and a long while between charges – several days with my use. The back is plastic, but it's robust and looks metallic and it feels comfortable in the hand. The fingerprint security works pretty well, although I do need a couple of goes sometimes before it recognises me.

The screen is excellent to my eyes; it's a generous 5.5" and I find it a pleasure to use: bright, true colours and very tolerant of viewing angle. Video, TV catch-up and so on look great and everything works very nicely for me. The phone runs Android version 5.1. Mine needed a system update when it arrived but it was easy and trouble-free and the result is a very nice user experience. There is 3GB of RAM and everything seems very quick, smooth and pretty intuitive. The internal memory is big at 16GB and you can expand with a micro-SD card of up to 64GB capacity (I use a 32 GB and it works fine).

Set-up was very easy: there is a very good manual explaining how to use Android, but nothing specific to the phone. This isn't a big problem, but I could have done with some instructions, especially on how to remove the back and how the SIM and micro-SD slots work – it took me three goes to get it right. This is a dual-SIM phone which allows two SIM cards and a memory card to be installed, all of which work fine once I'd got them in correctly. You will need to check whether the 4G band (FDD-LTE: Band 3/7/20 (800/1800/2600)) is supported on your network. On Vodaphone I only seem to get 3G (not a problem for me as I don't use data) so make sure before you buy.

Plenty of apps are pre-installed, including Google Play and new apps install very quickly and simply. In use, everything I want works very well. Wi-fi connection was very straightforward as was syncing with my account. The battery lasts for several days with my use. The speakers aren't bad for smartphone speakers (which isn't saying much, I know) and through headphones or an external speaker - both wired and via Bluetooth 4.0 - the sound is excellent. There's no NFC, but normal Bluetooth pairing is very quick and simple, and stable up to a decent range. The rear camera has a very good 13Mp resolution and the front camera has a pretty impressive 5Mp. I have found both to be fine, and other functions also seem very good.

I think this is a very nice phone. It does everything I want very well, it is simple to use, it seems robust and it works well. It seems to have very good specs for this price and I am very happy with mine. I can recommend it warmly, certainly to fellow non-techies who want a decent smartphone which just does the job.