At first we would like to thank GearBest for supplying us with a sample of the Cubot H1 smartphone for testing and reviewing.

 

 

 

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Product Features:

 

CUBOT H1 Quick Charge Feature

 

After charging the smartphone for about 10 minutes, it will be good to go for making calls for a period of two hours or more.

 

Cubot H1 comes with a preinstalled smart-managed battery chipset which will be in the quick charge mode when you want to charge urgently. Meanwhile, the battery is protected.

 

5200mAh - high capacity and pressure polymer battery

 

Its 9.2mm thickness. - it’s so amazing that 5200mAh battery can be wrapped in one-centimeter-thick body.

 

5V/2A Quick Charger

 

Stable output, speeds up charging intelligently accompanied with the H1 intelligent battery management chipset.

 

2.5D Curved Glass

 

The 2.5D curved glass is applied to H1 display. The CNC metal frame reinforces the H1 smartphone body.

 

Sticking to 4G!

 

MT6735P ,64-bit quad-core processor is supporting 4G FDD-LTE

16G ROM+2G LP DDR3 are included for running multiple tasks at once.

The smartphone also supports expansion via microSDHC up to 32GB

 

Stunning cameras

 

8MP front camera ----4P lens

13MP rear camera ----5P AF lens

 

The TV and air conditioner can be remote controlled by CUBOT H1

 

The built-in Infrared Remote Control System can remote control the electrical appliances such as the TV and air conditioner which do use this technology. There are about 2853 kinds of devices which can be supported by the Zaza Remote application (not installed with the ROM).

Product Technical Specifications:

 

Display: 5.5 inch IPS HD Screen

CPU: MTK6735 Quad Core 1.0GHz

System: Android 5.1

RAM + ROM: 2GB RAM + 16GB ROM

Camera: Back camera 8.0MP (interpolated 13.0MP) + front camera 5.0MP (interpolated 8.0MP)

Bluetooth: 4.0

GPS: GPS/AGPS

OTG: Yes

SIM Card: Dual SIM dual standby, MICRO SIM, Standard SIM

Network:

2G: GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz

3G: WCDMA 900/2100MHz

4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz

 

In this review we will concentrate our attention upon one of the latest smartphones of the Cubot manufacturer and as you have maybe seen from the Product Features and Specifications page, the main point of attraction of this model is its huge 5200mAh battery. The product is shipped inside a medium-sized box of a brown color and the manufacturer logo is situated on top:

 

 

 

On the bottom area we will be able to spot some of the product main hardware specifications; the product box also comes fully sealed, but thanks to the DHL Customs processes it has arrived unsealed (besides the fact that they are using insanely high taxes for importing samples):

 

 

 

After removing the top packaging cover, we will get to see the smartphone wrapped inside a semi-transparent plastic bag, for additional protection:

 

 

 

If we remove the top layer, we will get to see some written instructions which act as a small Quick Installation Guide:

 

 

 

Cubot also supplies a secondary screen protector (as added value) and we will be also able to see a secondary Quick Start Guide:

 

 

 

The guide is written in more detail and suitable for people which haven’t used an Android smartphone before:

 

 

 

Which accessories we will also receive? Well, we would like to remind you of the wall charger, one OTG adapter, the USB cable but also the battery:

 

 

 

Cubot has included a 5V, 2A charger in order to have the smartphone ready in no time:

 

 

 

On top of it we will be able to spot a single USB port:

 

 

 

The included OTG adapter allows us to connect removable storage to it but also to charge other smartphones from the large battery:

 

 

 

The USB charge/data cable connectors have a slightly optimized body:

 

 

 

Coming back to the main product, the Cubot H1 has a length of 154.5mm, a width of 76.6 mm and a thickness of 9.2mm; the 5.5’’ display does not come with a Full-HD screen but a HD one, also for the means of battery life conservation. The display is covered by a 2.5D curved protective glass and the manufacturer has pre-applied a plastic screen protector on it:

 

 

 

On the top area we have the light sensor, proximity sensor, the central speaker, one 8MP frontal camera (interpolated value, 5MP real) but also a very useful notification LED in the upper right side corner:

 

 

 

Under the display area we will get to see the Menu, Home and Back Android buttons which do have LED lighting under them:

 

 

 

On the sides of the smartphone we will get to see a good quality PC frame with a metallic texture; the left area comes with the volume rocker:

 

 

 

 

The right side sports the same design, but this time we will get to see the Power/Sleep button:

 

 

 

 

On the top, the manufacturer has placed the headphone jack, the IR blaster but also the USB port:

 

 

 

The bottom area only houses the MIC port, which is very subtle and placed in the upper area of the frame, between the Menu and Home capacitive buttons:

 

 

 

On the back side of the smartphone we’ll get to see the plastic cover with a rough texture, which would make it more resistant to scratches:

 

 

 

The top area comes with the 13MP back shooter lens (interpolated value, 8MP real) and under it we have a small LED flash:

 

 

 

Further down we’ll get to see the company logo along with the loudspeaker grill:

 

 

 

The back cover can be removed with ease in order to reveal the internals; on the top we have the card slots, the middle is reserved for the large battery and the bottom comes with the buzzer motor and loudspeaker:

 

 

 

A closer look at the card slots reveals that this smartphone can house two SIM cards at once, one miniSIM on top and one microSIM on the bottom. These can be easily removed at will by using a small metallic component which is placed on the right side:

 

 

 

The Cubot H1 battery is one of the largest we have seen so far when compared to all other smartphones which have passed through our labs; it is rated 5200mAh, 19.76Wh with a limited charging voltage of 4.4V:

 

 

 

On the opposite side we will be able to spot the Cubot logo:

 

 

 

Here is also a close look at the gold-plated battery contacts:

 

 

 

The smartphone is actually coming with a pre-attached transparent silicone case, which fully protects it against damages on the sides but also on its back:

 

 

 

 

Cubot is proposing with the H1 a simplified launcher, with no drawer, all installed applications being visible on the desktop area. The main application icons have been also slightly altered for a different experience and the clock widget is pre-applied on the main page:

 

 

What we do also appreciate with the H1 is the fact that no bloatware is included and a very low number of applications are pre-installed; we always have the option to install additional ones via Googles’ Play Store:

 

 

Let’s take a look at some of the pre-installed applications; the first one is Camera, which sports the usual MTK look, with some extra options to set:

 

 

Most of these can be accessed via the small “gear” icon:

 

 

While we have a maximum of 13MP setting for taking photos, we will be also fine with the 8MP option since this is the real hardware capability of the sensor:

 

 

The Music application will index the suitable content from the storage and afterwards display it accordingly:

 

 

Next we would remind of Play Store, which allows us to download a ton of free and paid applications:

 

 

Calculator application is one of the usual one found on MTK ROMs as well as Android OEM ROMs:

 

 

We can also say the same thing about Calendar:

 

 

Clock does not have a custom skin as we have found with Flyme or MIUI, but comes with the Android stock look:

 

 

Downloads item is just a shortcut to the Downloads folder found on the internal storage:

 

 

Email is the application to work with if we would like to connect to our company servers; for public free services like Outlook we have separate applications in Play Store which are easier to configure:

 

 

The File Manager application is available like on other MTK ROMs:

 

 

FM Radio application works well only when we have a set of earphones connected so their wire can be used as an antenna:

 

 

Gallery application is next, which sorts and creates thumbnails of the found photo content:

 

 

Gmail is one very handy application which initially takes care of the associated email account which we use to log into Play Store:

 

 

The Google+ social application was also pre-installed by Cubot:

 

 

Maps will help us navigate with ease to the desired location:

 

 

We also have the highly-acclaimed Google Photos application pre-installed:

 

 

The SIM Toolkit will allow us to change the current IMSI:

 

 

Sound Recorder is one of the included stock apps with this ROM:

 

 

The latest YouTube videos can be watched with ease thanks to the dedicated application:

 

 

Next, we could remind of the Phone application, which allows to dial new numbers and work with the list of recent contacts:

 

 

We do also have a separate Contacts application which lists the recorded ones and here we can also define favorites:

 

 

Messaging is the application we are going to use in order to send SMS messages:

 

 

The default Internet browser is preinstalled but we have plenty of other options to download free of charge from the Store:

 

 

Settings is the place to go in order to alter system-wide preferences:

 

 

The first option we would like to present is Wi-Fi, which lists the currently detected networks and allows connection given that we have the correct credentials available:

 

 

Bluetooth menu will list the nearby compatible devices and allow connection:

 

 

The SIM Cards menu will display the currently detected installed SIMs and here we can also prioritize different services per each card:

 

 

Cellular data menu is an extra section built by Cubot, which generally picks some settings also available from other menus (SIM Cards menu and Data Usage menu):

 

 

The Data Usage menu allows us to see the traffic consumption per each interface:

 

 

The More area allows working with the Airplane mode, define the current SMS application, work with tethering and more:

 

 

From the Display menu we will be able to adjust the stock wallpaper, brightness levels, sleep timer, notification LED functionality, font size and more:

 

 

The usual Sound & Notification menu is also available, with its preset profiles and secondary menus:

 

 

Each profile has the option to adjust the volume levels, select a particular ringtone, a notification sound, choose to vibrate the device for incoming calls and more:

 

 

Here are the respective sub-menus which are available:

 

Notification

 

 

Interruptions

 

 

Sound Enhancement

 

 

The Storage menu will allow us to choose the default write disk and show the current storage status:

 

 

From the Battery menu, we’ll be able to enable the Standby intelligent power saving option and see the applications which consume the most battery resources:

 

 

The Apps menu confirms again that a very few applications come preinstalled with the R12 ROM:

 

 

The Security menu is filled with the usual options, including the Unknown Sources which allows installing applications which were not downloaded from Googles’ Play Store:

 

 

Logged-in accounts will be also displayed in the Accounts section:

 

 

The Language & Input menu allows us to choose the system language, enable the spell checker, choose from one of the installed keyboards, work with voice input and more:

 

 

Backup & Reset menu will assist us when we would like to reset the smartphone to its factory defaults:

 

 

Date & Time menu is pretty self-explanatory:

 

 

Schedule Power on & off menu is present with each and every MTK ROM:

 

 

Next we do have the regular Accessibility menu:

 

 

Printing menu will show the currently installed services:

 

 

Besides the usual options inside the Developer options menu, we have also found “OEM unlocking” which seems to unlock the bootloader automatically:

 

 

Finally, we will get to see the About phone menu, which allows us to perform OTA update, check the current terminal status, Android version, Baseband, Kernel and current Build number (R12):

 

 

The Cubot H1 is powered by the 4G LTE WorldMode 64-bit quad-core SoC from MediaTek, which is the MT6735; this one can come in three different variants, as marketed by the SoC manufacturer itself: 1GHz, 1.3GHz or 1.5GHz; while with the SISWOO C50 we had the chance to check out the 1.3GHz version, the Cubot H1 is equipped with the lower-clocked 1GHz; nevertheless, on the 3D we are still getting the ARM Mali-T720 GPU, the 802.11n Wi-Fi support, Bluetooth 4.0, the 13MP image signal-processor and support for 1080P Full-HD video recording and playback at 30FPS. The SoC is paired with 2GB of RAM but also 16GB of internal storage on a single partition for installing our applications:

 

 

The Device tab informs us on the supported screen resolution, manufacturer, screen density, total RAM and usage but also total internal storage and usage:

 

 

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 working properly on this model:

 

 

 

The new Thermal tab will update us with the live temperatures in different areas:

 

 

The application also shows live data from the available sensors:

 

 

To test out the performances of the Cubot H1 Note smartphone in more detail, 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

 

 

 

GFXBench

 

 

Quadrant

 

 

Vellamo

 

 

3DMark

 

 

Real Pi

 

PCMark

 

 

Despite the fact that H1 does not feature a 13MP back shooter as advertised but this is an interpolated value from 8MP, it can deliver surprisingly good results as it can be seen from the sample photos. With less than ideal lighting conditions the camera may have sometimes trouble focusing (which is in fact a very fast process) but during the day we have succeeded to obtain excellent macro shots, while the landscape photos seem to have a very clear central area but a bit blurry on the corners. Color reproduction is also good, recommending this product to be used by people which access social applications quite frequently and share photos online.

 

 

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

The 5.5'' screen of the H1 does not come with a Full-HD display but a HD one in order to save battery life and to put less strain on the Mali-T720 3D component in games and 3D applications. However, it has a good color reproduction and has no issues when viewed from different angles.

 

The Cubot H1 belongs to the mainstream segment since it houses at its heart the MT6735 MTK SoC at 1GHz (and a total of four cores are available), is paired with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and the manufacturer has also included a 5MP frontal camera for selfies along with an 8MP sensor on the back which seems to produce good quality shots. The 5.5’’ HD display is covered by a 2.5D Arc Corning Gorilla Glass solution and we also get a handy notification LED along with an IR sensor for controlling different devices via ZaZa Remote Android application. However, none of these features are the main point of attraction for this model: H1 packs a massive 5200mAh battery which would allow the product to last up to four days in normal usage conditions.

 

Speaking again about the battery, we have a new winner in terms of battery life so it has succeeded to beat all other models we have tested in the past without any issues at all:

 

 

 

As all MTK 64-bit-based smartphones we have tested so far, the Cubot H1 does not have issues with GPS tracking and it can lock on in a matter of seconds:

 

 

 

H1 does also feature dual-SIM capabilities so it can house one mini-SIM and one micro-SIM at the same time; the card reader is a compact model as we have seen with the UleFone Be One and a small metallic component is provided for easy removal.

 

From where could you acquire this interesting smartphone model? Well, of course that from our friends at GearBest and at the moment of the review the model is available in three different colors for the same value of $154.99.

 

Cubot H1 Smartphone is Recommended For:

 

 

We would like to thank again to GearBest for making this review possible!