[General Questions and Answers] sixtheninth:
Hey guys,

I would like to start a discussion that would aggregate meta-data available on the Chinese budget phones under £200 with mid-range specs, firstly in order to help me ,but also others to decide the correct one as there is scarcity of reviews and lots of them are paid for stubs and contain lots of misleading data.

I have spent last two weeks researching on my leisure the best possible option for the chinese budget mid-range purchase. I have been hoping to get a device priced well under £200 that would field a solid camera, 4G (800mhz) ,superb hardware perf. CPU, GPU and GPS, have solid battery 2700mh+ (ideally with quick charge function) have appealing design and ideally max up to 5" of display size with the Lollipop upgradeability.

I have seen and read lots of reviews including yours and concluded on following:

- Mediatek did really break out of its shackles and these new 64bit SoCs ARM A53 Cortex with 6732 and 6752 are real deal breakers, so I have found a plenty of quad core 5" phones that satisfy my hunger for the performance stuffed by features - >

- Kingzone N3 Plus , Elephone P6000 (and possibly P3000s) , Lenovo P70 and also a bit more expensive Zopo ZP920 magic.

--- > now from what I have seen about these devices they are united under one oblivious problem that I cannot simply overlook despite being on low budget. And that is the overall quality of their cameras. Here we can easily conclude that they generally suck, although Zopo Zp920 is one of the favourites together with ZTE Blade S6 ,but here had battery life really swept all my hopes into oblivion. One of the issues I ve found here is that almost every budget manufacturer simply loves to overstate the resolution capability of these phones, I have been digging deeper just to find out that Elephone and Kingzone simply equip their devices with a lower quality Omnivision or Sony (ElE has even issued two different sensors for the same phone due to shortage of stock) that are really just 8Mpx interpolated to 13 MPx. I have not seen many useful reviews for N3 Plus despite it's appealing design and functions comparable to P3000s, but I assume the camera problem will be exactly the same (as it is with the alleged overstated battery capacity). Despite this problematic, I have found out that the camera on P6000 is kind of controversial.

P6000 is slacked as most of the same priced phones for underperformance in low light situations., however, I have found several contrasting reviews that even claim that its low light/night images are even better that on the famous Xiaomi Mi4. From pics I ve seen I wonder whether the varying quality can be a result of different sensors used or for example that pictures have been taken on its native 8MPx res rather then extrapolated 13MPx . I am writing this really because, P6000 seems to be after all my best choice together with its 32bit brother P3000s. I have tried to look out for some comparison between these two especially camera wise (talking about rear cameras, as I am not really that concerned about the front ones), but I failed. Problem is that Ele nor reviewers really state what sensors are these phones using. But P6000 seems (at least from some outdoors pictures) quite sharper and with better dynamic range, but I am still undecided.

Is camera on these phones also fixable software wise as I am not really into vanilla camera apps.

Now first questions on you. Firstly, do you know about any device currently priced under £200 that would match my criteria or at least that would have really exceptional camera for this price range ? Is Elephone P6000 superior to P3000s in terms of performance and camera or are they pretty much comparable ? Also how much of difference we talking in terms of GPU between Mali T450-M4 and T760 M2 ? It seems that finding a solid camera that would boast at least with pretty standard Exmor 214 sensor with a solid battery life is almost impossible, or I have largely overlooked something.

I also understand that if camera wise my 5" quest would prove unsuccessful I will have to go phablet wise and I am although kinda reluctantly to do so. Here I have researched my field on comparable level.

My finalists are Jiayu S3 , Kingzone Z1 and Eco E04 Aurora (P7000 and M1 are excluded as they re not supporting my LTE band 20) On E04 side I am quite baffled as it initially looked as a superb device , but many responses pointed out its inaccurate GPS and also camera seems to be exaggerated as 16MPx with unknown sensor model. I have seen some really great shots, but also some not very good - again probably due to extrapolation perhaps. Also it only comes with 2GB at the moment and without NFC support. So in phablet side S3 seems to be the king - yet, I have seen some really crap videos took on this devices, where reviewer admitted that this is a firmware error and that fix is on its way, so the S3 leaves me with the only really big concern and that is the battery recharge time that is apparently the slowest around here (up to 4hrs !!! ) which again made my enthusiasm cease. And then we have here Kingzone Z1. Apart from only HD display, it is stuffed with features and seems to be a direct competitor for all 5.5s of its price range. However, despite being out there are no reviews that I can hold on, so for me this device also represents a great unknown.

Equally, I have been checking camera comparison for the upper-midrange flagships like Meizu Mx4 and OnePlusOne just to find out that not even these guys despite their renown are capable of great shots under low-light conditions.

Also I am in a preference of 64bit processors especially the new Mediatek 6732 and 6752. I am ready for your tips and advices, also if you can bring in links to some camera comparisons among these phones and more in depth reviews I d be glad. Also will happy if you bring up some real data about camera sensors and other modules that are under suspicion to be lies presented by manufacturers.

And if you own any of the phones mentioned, state a brief overview about their pro/cons.

Waiting forward to your responses

Thanks

Six