[Android General] KloNom:
As usual, you can find the full review in a nice format and all pictures in a higher quality here ;):

http://klonom.com/doogee-turbo-mini-f1-review/

The Doogee Turbo-mini F1 is a compact budget dual SIM LTE smartphone. It runs on an MT6732 64 bit quadcore SoC with 1 GB RAM, 8 GB ROM, Android 4.4 KitKat and a 4.5″ display with qHD resolution. We kindly received the Turbo-mini F1 from the TinyDeal Online Shop. You can get it for around 125$ from →here.

Spezifikationen:

-MT6732 64 Bit Quadcore SoC (each up to 1.3 GHz)

-Android 4.4.4 KitKat

-1 GB RAM

-4.5″ qHD IPS Display (960×540, OGS)

-Dual SIM (4G/2G) (1xMicro, 1xMini (Normal))

-MicroSD Slot

-5 MP rear camera, 2 MP front camera (8 MP + 5 MP interpolated)

-1700 mAh battery (measured, officially 2000 mAh)

-Sensors: Acceleration, Light & Proximity

-USB OTG

-HotKnot

-WiFi, BT

Items delivered:

The Doogee Turbo-mini F1 is delivered in a valuable looking box, which is kept in a white and partly blue color. On the side you can find a genuine certificate, similiar like the ones you can find on Xiaomi products. Beside the smartphone itself the following accessoires are delivered with it: An USB-data/-charging cable, an USB charger, a white headset with control button, a quick start guide and a second screen protection foil (one is already applied). The first three enumerated items are placed very neatly in a foam-like material, which gives the whole box a kind of valuable impression: Thumbs up here! Attached you can see an overview of all items delivered.

Unboxing Video:

[YOUTUBE]md3564R9FUk[/YOUTUBE]

First Impressions:

What you will probably notice first when you take the Doogee Turbo-mini F1 in your hands, is that it weights way less than any smartphone you hold in a long time. At first sight (and also at second) this is a very nice combination with its quite compact size. Although its very little weight it still has a valuable feeling due to the metal edging.

Like usual, on the front bottom you can find the three capacitive Android buttons. These are printed in silver color and do not have a background light. At the top you can find the loudspeaker, the front camera and the light/proximity sensor. The transition between display and case can be seen slightly whilst turned off screen, but not very remarkable.

At both long sides metal bars are placed. They feel cool when being touched and give the smartphone a valuable appeal, way more as you would probably expect from a price around 125$. The volume rocker (also made out of metal) is placed on the left side. It is not perfectly enclosed, so it has a little free space to move. You can hear a very faint metal “clicking” when you move the phone as the volume rocker moves as well. The pressure point is, anyhow, very nice.

On the right side the power button is placed. Also this one is made out of metal and has a nice pressure point. As a kind of design elements, both metal stripes have visible screws at the ends.

MicroUSB and 3.5 mm headphone jack are placed on the top side of the Doogee. While I personally would prefer the MicroUSB on the bottom, this is not a very big drawback.

The bottom side of the F1 does not have any connectors. Top and bottom side does not have metal elements. Plastic elements in a chrome look were used here.

The backside of the Turbo-mini F1 is kept simple. On the lower part you can find the mono-loudspeaker, while the camera is placed on the top left. A little highlight is the metal bordering of the camera, which can be felt nicely.

The back cover is sitting pretty tight. Pretty damn tight :D . Beneath it you find the battery as well as the SIM slots (1xMicro, 1x Mini (“Normal”)) and the MicroSD slot. There is no dedicated 4G slot. Via the Android menu it can be chosen which card should be using LTE, the other one is running on 2G.

All in all the Turbo-mini F1 makes a good impression, nothing is creaking and has an overall serious look. Single downside is the volume rocker which is not perfectly enclosed.

UI/Android:

The F1 is delivered with Android 4.4.4. It comes preinstalled with a launcher from Doogee. Anyhow, the launcher is quite close to the stock laucher, only the icons are modified with a colorful background. The launcher is very snappy, the animations are fluent. The phone is delivered with the FW revision from 31.01.2015. The Turbo-mini F1 also supports “Wireless Update” (FOTA). Below some impressions of the launcher.

Performance:

Like already mentioned in the Android section the system runs very smooth – the strenghs of the MT6732 can be noticed easily. An update to Lollipop would be great since then the whole advantage of the 64 bit architecture SoC could be exploited. But already with the preinstalled KitKat the smartphone reaches above average benchmark results in this price section. The results of the Antutu v.5.6.1, Geekbench 3 and 3DMark (Icestorm Extreme) benchmark can be seen in the next pictures:

Only the small RAM of about 1 GB is limiting the performance of the F1 for using it with massive parallel programs. Personally I did not hit that border yet, while using several opened Chrome tabs (>7) and messenger apps in the background the system still ran smoothly.

Storage:

The budget 4G phone from Doogee comes with an officially 8 GB ROM. This is divided into internal and phone storage. The exact partition can be seen in the next screenshots:

-Internal Storage: 1.12 GB (0.95 GB available)

-Phone Storage: 4.59 GB (4.58 available)

-Total: 5.71 GB (5.53 GB available)

The internal storage (which can be used for apps) is unfortunately quite small with around 1 GB.

The memory can be extendend via MicroSD-slot and and external USB storage via USB OTG (tested).

Camera:

...check out here the camera sample pictures and more ;):

http://klonom.com/doogee-turbo-mini-f1-review/

Sensors:

According to shop information the Turbo-mini F1 comes with acceleration, proximity and light sensor. The app “Sensor Box” shows several more, but the shop remains correct: The “additional” sensors don’t return any values and are fake. In general the sensors work as expected. Similiar as in the DG280 the proximity sensor has a quite low resolution with just 2 values: Covered and not covered. Still totally enough turning off the screen while talking.

GPS:

The GPS in the mini-F1 is usable. The first fix out of the box was done after a few seconds outside, while the accuracy improved up to 3 m in the next few seconds. At the start of one from several test navigations the GPS showed a similiar behaviour as the camera did – the device could not get a fix (although it worked short before without any problems). Once cleaned the system quickly with Clean Master and the GPS works flawlessly again: GPS fix immediately. When the GPS is once locked the signal is stable – navigation worked without any problems. No “improvements” like updated EPO files or similiar were used. The Turbo-mini F1 uses GPS (no GLONASS or BeiDou). Below you can find a screenshot from GPS Test and the used satellites.

Battery:

Officially the phone comes with a 2000 mAh battery. The measurement of the battery revealed a real capacity of roughly 1700 mAh. The MT6732 is an energy efficient SoC and in combination with the small display the battery can live with average use (subjective!) about one day. In areas with often changing signal strengths (or types) you will notice the increased battery drain due to the constantly tried switch between 2G/3G/4G. In this situation the battery life is getting hardly over one day. This downside can be partly reduced by manually setting one network type while not using. Below you can see the charging history of the battery.

Battery charging history of the Turbo-mini F1

Supported Bands:

The Turbo-mini F1 is fully functional for LTE in Europe due to the coverage of all relevant european bands. An overview is given in the next screenshots. As already mentioned, the 4G service can be switched between the SIM cards.

WiFi Receiption:

The WiFi receiption is above average good. A direct comparision with the Doogee DG280 and Cubot Zorro 001 you can see in the next picture (all tested at the same location, 2 walls in direct sight line).

From left to right: WiFi receiption Turbo-mini F1, DG280 and Cubot Zorro

Display:

The display diagonal measures 4.5″, while the resolution is 960×540 (qHD). Officially it is an IPS display as one-glass-solution (OGS). Both specifications seems to be correct at near observation. In other ratings of the Doogee Turbo-mini F1 it can be read that the low resolution is a major drawback of the phone: The display is not HD and of course it can be seen. Anyhow, the qHD resolution is in my eyes (wordplay, hehe :D ) still suficient for the compact display and no pixels are jumping right into your eyes. Comparision: The Turbo-mini F1 has a pixel density of roughly 245 PPI, while a 5″ display with HD resolution has a pixel density of about 294 PPI. The difference is not that huge.

Virus-Scans:

The initial virus scan with G-Data shows an infected system:

The Anti-Virus app reports that the system is infected with the “SMSReg” malware. According to internet reports this program can cause (unasked) sending of messages to a chinise number and rise costs. This app can be removed with root (for example via “System App Remover”), the app to be removed is called “Device Management”. Afterwards the system is virus free (…except of the SuperUser App which is recognized as malware):

Speedtest:

…will be added soon ;).

More Infos:

-Weight: 114 g

-3 Point touchscreen

Misc:

The Turbo-mini F1 has no notification LED. The smart wake function (double tap to wake up, also gestures) is supported and works without problems. Google Apps are preinstalled. The F1 can be easily rooted via One-Click-Tools (iRoot successfully tried). It also supports the budget alternative to NFC called HotKnot (had two HotKnot devices at hands for the first time – it even works :D !).

Review Video:

[YOUTUBE]faMoYa52bh8[/YOUTUBE]

Conclusion:

The Doogee Turbo-mini F1 makes a pretty good impression overall. The smartphones combines several decent functions at a low price and weight: Full european LTE coverage, good processor performance, good GPS and nice manufacturing quality. Of course the F1 also has some (mostly budget class typical) downsides like the camera or the storage division. A small FW update which corrects some small software issues wouldn’t hurt either. Anyhow, all in all it is a smartphone with a very nice price/performance ratio which we can especially recommend to friends of sub 5″ displays. (Since I am one myself I think this device will accompany me on ;) ).