At first we would like to thank Efox-Shop for sending out a sample of the UleFone Be One smartphone for testing and reviewing. It is currently available for about 105 Euros, but with the "efoxlovebeone" you can have 4 Euros off your order!

 

 

 

About Efox-Shop:

 

“The company Aukey E-Business Co., Ltd.is a company based in Shenzhen, China, company, which operates in the international online trade, and most Chinese products sold. Shenzhen is located in Perfluß Delta, one of the most important industrial zones of China and in close proximity to Hong Kong.

 

In Germany, we have several business platforms. Next to it are Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Poland part of our market and we currently further expand our networks, to become active on the online markets in Russia and Brazil.

 

The company of Aukey was founded in 2003 in Hamburg and operates its headquarters in Shenzhen since 2007.

 

The work environment is modern and pleasant.”

 

Product Features:

 

♦ 5.5-Inch Screen, 1280*720 Pixel

♦ MTK6592M 1.4GHz Octa Core

♦ Band: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz, WCDMA 850/1900/2100MHz, Support 2G & 3G network

♦ 1 GB RAM + 16GB ROM

♦ 13MP 8MP main camera + front camera

♦ Android 4.4 system (Android 5.0 OTA will be later updated)

 

Product Specifications:

 

The UleFone Be One smartphone was shipped along with an additional case accessory, packaging design which looks similar to the box the main item is sent in. Talking about the smartphone, we are dealing with a MTK 6592M processor, which we have encountered many times before, clocked at different speeds. We imagine that MTK has differently binned SoCs, and has organized them in 1.4GHz models, 1.7GHz versions but also the Turbo 2.0GHz model. The version we are taking a look upon today is the lowest clocked for mainstream smartphones and is paired with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal memory:

 

 

 

On the bottom side of the box we will learn more about the technical specifications:

 

 

 

Let’s dig in and see what we are dealing with! After removing the top cover, we will end up seeing the UleFone Be One wrapped inside a semi-transparent plastic bag:

 

 

 

Under the smartphone, the manufacturer has placed a screen protector, but most of the bundle is included in the lower layer:

 

 

 

The battery is not pre-installed inside the Be One, we need to do that ourselves:

 

 

 

The rest of the bundle is packed inside two separate, smaller cardboard boxes; we have seen a similar design with the UMI C1:

 

 

 

 

The USB charger is branded UleFone and is rated on the output as 5V, 1A:

 

 

 

The USB cable has connectors with a custom design but does not feature a non-tangle design:

 

 

 

The battery is a Lithium-Ion-Polymer model at 3.8V, with a charging voltage limit at 4.35V and the typical capacity of 2350mAh:

 

 

 

To avoid accidental discharges during transit, the factory has placed a small adhesive tape in the contacts area:

 

 

 

This specific model is also shipped with a manual written in English, which is a plus for international users which did not work with an Android device before:

 

 

 

Coming back to the bundled extra accessory, we get a silicone case, but we will get back to it later:

 

 

 

The UleFone Be One comes with a pre-attached protective screen, which is super great! We only have to remove the last plastic layer from it, which will also remove the middle printed UleFone logo. Again, this is a good thing since we do not have to go through the hassle of installing the protective screen onto the smartphone ourselves:

 

 

 

There is quite a bit of space left on the top and bottom areas of the 5.5 inch display, with a plastic grill theme, which, by the way is put there only for the designs’ sake and does not feature speakers:

 

 

 

Here is a closer look on top of the terminal, where we can spot the speaker, the frontal 8MP camera (most likely interpolated value) along with the light and proximity sensors:

 

 

 

On the lower side of the screen we have the capacitive buttons for Menu, Home and Back, which feature an interesting dotted design:

 

 

 

On the back side of the terminal, we have a large, rubberized plastic cover, with a central removable sticker which shows us the removal procedure:

 

 

 

On the upper side we have the Sony IMX214 13MP lens along with a single LED flash:

 

 

 

Moving further down, we have the UleFone logo present:

 

 

 

A grill design is also present on the back cover, but only a small portion of it is actually used:

 

 

 

A look on the side reveals that the Be One is quite slim; the left side of the terminal features the chromed volume rocker:

 

 

 

On the opposite we have the smaller, Power/Standby button:

 

 

 

A small opening is provided for easy removal of the back cover:

 

 

 

On the bottom we have the USB port along with a small microphone port hole:

 

 

 

On the top we only have the 3.5mm audio jack:

 

 

 

Let’s pop up the hood in order to check out the innards:

 

 

 

UleFone has adopted for a more compact design, featuring dual-sim and the possibility to also mount additional storage via TF-Card:

 

 

 

On the lower part we have the “3D Sound”-branded loudspeaker:

 

 

 

Here is a view with the microSIM along with a TF-card attached in their respective slots:

 

 

 

Remember the case accessory we have shown you previously? The silicone-based protective case fits very well and fully protects our investment:

 

 

 

If we look a bit closer, we can see that the case frame is raised a little bit over the screen so in case of an incident, the screen should not break:

 

 

 

Both Power/Standby and Volume rocker are covered by the case material:

 

 

 

 

Here are some views of the interfaces:

 

 

 

 

On the back, the case has accurate cuttings for the camera and speaker:

 

 

 

 

 

The capacitive buttons also have LED lights in order to be able to access them with ease during low light conditions:

 

 

 

UleFone proposes us a stock Android experience with their Be One, without additional bloatware which is excellent; the main desktop looks quite familiar and a monochrome wallpaper is preset:

 

 

Let’s go into the drawer and see what we have available:

 

 

If we check out the Backup & Restore application, we will end up with the familiar interface we have seen at MTK-based smartphones, which operates only when a microSDHC expansion card is installed:

 

 

The default browser is nothing to call home about, just the standard Android build:

 

 

Next, we have the Calculator, with the default skin applied:

 

 

Then we could remind you guys of the Calendar application:

 

 

UleFone has also left the camera application untouched, with the stock MTK interface; we have tried the modded Lenovo Super Camera with this smartphone and we could say that we did really like the results we have got with it and much more settings are available on that one:

 

 

The Clock application allows us to work with the Alarm, Stopwatch and more:

 

 

A Compass application is preinstalled, which seems to work as advertised; if interferences are detected, we will be prompted to re-calibrate:

 

 

If Gmail app is not our thing, we can use the default Android Email application:

 

 

The default File Manager will allow us to work with the internal and external storage, but for more in-depth exploration we would recommend ES File Manager:

 

 

Of course, the Flashlight application is present with this ROM:

 

 

The FM Radio application will advise us to plug in the earphone before use, since its wire will be used as an antenna:

 

 

The default Android 4.4.2 Gallery application is next:

 

 

We also have the Gmail application pre-installed which will be used by many of us:

 

 

Google Maps is another handy application which also supports navigation:

 

 

The Messaging section is where you will send and receive your SMS messages:

 

 

Movie Studio is another application we can find with the Android stock MTK ROMs:

 

 

Next we have the stock Music application, which will index our audio content and will help with its playback:

 

 

The dialer features the stock skin, nothing has been added as an extra:

 

 

Next we have the Play Store, but this is quite explanatory:

 

 

A “Change IMSI” application is also here:

 

 

The Sound Recorder default application is next:

 

 

Same goes for the ToDo application, which is stock with all MTK ROMs:

 

 

The Videos application indexes our content and helps with the playback:

 

 

Now let’s go back to the well-known Settings menu, where we can perform system-wide modifications regarding the display, audio profiles, storage and many more:

 

 

The SIM Management menu allows working with default services and is particularly helpful when two SIM cards are installed:

 

 

The Bluetooth menu will list the current devices and will allow attaching devices to our UleFone Be One:

 

 

A unique menu is the Flash Alert one, which we can set different functions to the back flash LED:

 

 

Next we have Data Usage, where we can monitor the consumption on both WiFi and 3G:

 

 

Wireless and Networks menu is the default one:

 

 

From the Audio Profiles menu we can customize our ringtones on different profiles, but also apply one of the available Sound Enhancement filters:

 

 

The Display menu contains the usual MTK6592 option which is ClearMotion, but we can also set here the brightness levels of the display, sleep timer, Daydream mode and so on:

 

 

The Storage menu allows switching the default storage from internal to external SD Card, and here we also have the current stats regarding the storage listed:

 

 

MTK-based ROMs also have the CPU Power Saving Mode available inside the Battery sub-section and here we can see which applications consume the most battery resources:

 

 

Gesture Sensing menu is also available which permits performing different actions in order to reach applications like Gallery, Music or Camera:

 

 

From the Apps menu we can monitor the applications closely and this sub-menu also functions as a task manager:

 

 

Location Mode can be set in either battery saving mode or high accuracy:

 

 

The Security menu is stock on most MTK-based ROMs:

 

 

From the Language and Input menu se can set custom keyboards, enable spell checker, set the system language and more:

 

 

The Backup and Reset menu allows us to perform a factory reset, which will restart our smartphone and do this action right from the stock recovery:

 

 

Gesture Sensing was not the only menu including hand gestures; we also have Screen Gestures which has the most-awaited Double-tab to wake, Swipe-up for waking the screen and direct unlock but also more:

 

 

Date & Time menu is pretty self-explanatory:

 

 

We also have a separate menu for the notification LED:

 

 

The Schedule Power On & Off is regular to MTK ROMs:

 

 

Next, we can go to the Accessibility menu which also comes with the Quick Boot option:

 

 

The Printing menu prompts us that there are not services installed at the moment:

 

 

Of course, we also have the Developer Options available for debugging:

 

 

We can check more details about the terminal status, model name, installed Android version, Baseband version, Kernel version but also the Build number from the About Phone menu:

 

 

The UleFone Be One smartphone is equipped with the  MediaTek MT6592 SOC, which is true octa-core chip with eight ARM Cortex-A7 application processors but this time downclocked at 1.4GHz from the usual 1.7GHz and the Mali-450 MP4 GPU cores are clocked at 600MHz instead of the usual 700MHz. This smartphone also comes with 1GB of installed memory:

 

 

The System tab will supply us more information regarding the board type, Android version, kernel, resolution, free memory and so on:

 

 

The Battery tab will show the current status; the battery sensor is operating properly, unlike some other terminals we have checked out previously:

 

 

The application also shows live data from the available sensors:

 

 

To test out the performances of the UleFone Be One smartphone, we have installed some freeware benchmark apps from the Google Play Store in the internal memory (did not transfer them to a 3rd party microSDHC card, in order not to influence the test results). Afterwards, the applications were ran one-by-one, and we recorded the final scores; the obtained results were also compared with the previously tested systems, in order to spot the performance differences.

 

AnTuTu

 

 

Basemark GUI

 

 

Passmark PerformanceTest

 

 

GFXBench

 

 

Quadrant

 

 

Vellamo

 

 

3DMark

 

 

Real Pi

 

 

Stock Camera Application

 

Lenovo Super Camera

 

Of course, you can always check out the full-resolution, unaltered versions at this LINK.

The 5.5 inch, 1280x720 resolution IPS screen is of good quality and the screen can be viewed without issues from different angles.

 

Here we are again at the closing thoughts of the UleFone Be One smartphone assessment; it is incredible how cheap Chinese smartphones have become nowadays, even the ones sporting 5.5’’ diagonal screens and incorporating decent camera sensors, expansion possibilities with SD-Card, software enhancements like double-tap to wake and more.

 

The Be One model from UleFone sports a newer Android version than Kolina K100+ V6, 4.4.2 and we have promises that Android 5.0 will be also available for this model.

 

Speaking of the device performances, we are dealing with the quite familiar octa-core MTK6592, which was released after the quad-core MTK6589, none of them sporting stellar performances regarding the GPS. The MTK6592 can be found in three different versions: 1.7GHz which was the first one and we have seen it at the iOCEAN X7S and X8, the later 2.0GHz Turbo version which we have seen with the ThL 5000 and Kolina K100+ V6, but also 1.4GHz which is the lowest clocked and also has only 600MHz 3D clock. Be One comes with the later but also features a lower-resolution screen and this is the explanation of the higher 3D scores in our benchmarks.

 

We really appreciate the bloatware-free Android distribution which has come with the Be One and the launcher offers us a stock experience, which is preferred by many users out there; of course, if we need more customization, we are free to use Nova Launcher, Apex Launcher or other launchers of our choice. Still speaking of the software portion, the Be One does not appear to come rooted and Kingo Root was unable to perform this procedure; however, on NeedRom website there is a release available with the same version, but pre-rooted so enthusiasts can use that instead.

 

The battery of the Be One is rated at about 2350mAh, which may seem enough at first (and it drops with a decent rate with the smartphone in IDLE), but while working with 3D games and other 3D-based applications, the SoC is used extensively and the drop is much more significant so if the manufacturer would have included a 3000+mAh capacity battery, we would have seen better results. With a low to medium usage scenario, we have counted about 23 hours before the next recharge:

 

 

Next, we could remind about the camera sensor; UleFone advertises a Sony IMX 214 13MP sensor for this model, but while taking shots with the stock camera application, we have seen that the photos are sporting average quality and lack detail. After using Lenovo Super Camera modded version from XDA, which is installable like a regular APK, the quality of the shots has improved by a bit, but still look a bit washed out if we zoom in. While these shots are decent for sharing on Facebook, we are forced to recommend a regular camera for archiving purposes.

 

This particular smartphone model can be acquired from Efox-Shop at only 105 Euros, which we think that it is great for what we are offered.

 

That is not all! With the "efoxlovebeone" you can have 4 Euros off your order for this specific product!

 

UleFone Be One Smartphone is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Efox-Shop for making this review possible!