The CUBOT H1 Smartphone Test: A Month with 3-4 Days of Battery per Charge
by Ian Cutress on December 23, 2015 9:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Battery
- CUBOT
The Feel
The device fits in my hand comfortably, although not easily to use one handed as I mentioned above. I've been using it in the silicone case, and I have no issues with that - it gives the edges a curve meaning I'm not subject to something sharper such as the Galaxy S6 Edge or One M9. Actually more often than not I'm playing with the case when bored, flicking it off at the edge and reattaching it, in some weird sense of being therapeutic. People who are used to small or light phones are going to notice a difference here as it certainly isn't either of those, but neither are excessive. There's a reason the 7 inch P8 max smartphone sells well in China, for example.
Audio quality is satisfactory on the H1 - my use case for this as of late has involved taking it into the bathroom and leaving it on the side playing music while I shower. This way if I know how long the track is, I can ensure I don't spend too in there if I'm in a hurry. I place the single speaker facing a wall to act as an odd form of amplification, and it only needs to be at around 90% volume to be over the sound of the water. That being said, there is a jump up in the last 5%, causing some minor distortion. As anecdotal as that seems, if you're playing something to a group of people in a noisy environment, it is worth noting. I've mainly been playing melodic or 8-bit speed metal and the clarity at reasonable volume levels are not degraded by a fast paced tune.
Phone call connection quality is also good, despite the fact that I live in an area that seems to have lead paint in the walls. Using it both for audio calls through the air or Skype video calls over Wi-Fi while on business trips came through without issue.
The Camera
On the camera side, of course we weren't expecting anything great and my own results confirm that. Based on my broken DSLR, I was left with the H1 as my photography device for the recent SuperComputing 15 conference. In the interests of taking pictures to as reference material it was good, as long as I was sitting in the first few rows. In the varied light of the show floor, bad light photos were pretty junk even after post processing in Windows but in light photographs were satisfactory for publication.
For home use, in natural light, the camera provided a much nicer response, giving shots suitable for family albums assuming the subject was still. Cue pictures of cats, food, the theatre and a bookshop (click through for full resolution):
Cat One: Summer
Home-made Marshmallows
London Coliseum, before The Nutcracker
Carturesti Carusel, A Bookshop in Bucharest, Romania
Cat Two: Cici
The camera software is the standard android app, and with the H1 it is noticeably slow when taking an image. Focusing is noticably longer than a high end device but if you need to capture one photo in an ongoing scene, it is best to hold down and take up to 40 continuous photographs and then delete most of them. The camera does come with a form of EIS which is great, but the stability range is limited, making a burst capture of at least 2 or 3 required to get the best shot. There are motion capture modes, as well as beautify and panorama also. With Lightroom now free for Android, at least basic photo editing can be done almost immediately.
For an image comparison, I took photographs of three scenes using the devices at my disposal (caution, large images). It is worth noting that the HTC One Max I have suffers from the purple effect, due to the image low-light amplifiers burning out on some early models.
| The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
| The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
| The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
A quick note on the rest of the software - despite the origins of the phone, mine came with an English based kernel / OS. I changed the default home screen to Google Now (because I'm using it a fair bit these days) and all of my usual software and games (Kairosoft, naturally) including Fallout Shelter seem to work and can be switched between easily using the long press on the home button. I have noticed in the past month two apps that seem to close without an error message - it happened once after a crop in Lightroom that involved rotation, and any time I want to start TrickShot. I'm not sure if this is a compatibility issue based on the OS, the platform or the chipset, but I was expecting the H1 to handle it properly.
The Video
At this point the 16GB storage on the device hasn't become a burden, perhaps due to the microSD. Pictures come out at ~2MB each and videos at just over 1MB a second using the fine detail settings (720p) saved in 3gp format. From what I have read, the video mode on the H1 gets a lot of criticism due to the low quality or the EIS being very basic. It's true it's not the best to capture long lasting memories on, because at distance there is not much detail and requires a good light source, but it's more of an add on than a focal point.
For video comparisons, the garden and night-time road scenes were used for motion and static video:
| The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
| The Competition | Other Devices to Hand |
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Notmyusualid - Sunday, December 27, 2015 - link
Signal strength! Possibly the most important aspect!Despite living in Denmark for years, I have little Danish - everyone spoke English to me. But I understood a little. So jeg taler ikke Dansk, you see.
But nice to see my trusty S5 in 2nd place. I feel I've still no reason to change my phone, but seeing a battery like the one has on this phone, has me looking at reviews again.
If I use my S5 as a GPS, and connected to the cars hands-free, I can *burn* up my battery in hours. And I can't have an extended-back battery, because I have the Qi-wireless-s-view case on the back... so I've no option. I did however, buy one of those 2.4A car chargers, so it can be used, and charged in a timely manner...
Alexvrb - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
That's only really true if your wireless is the limiting factor. If you're in an area with good LTE signal quality and you're using VoLTE, yes there IS such as thing as better than tolerable voice quality. At that point you may very well find out you're being held back by the phone. Good speakers and mic(s) can make a difference. Especially when using it on speakerphone occasionally.buxe2quec - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
For example, mics can be really different. Mz iPhone 4S can tolerate up to (arbitrary scale) 101 dB before saturating, while my LG G2 only 81 dB. I measured with the two phones next to each other, even if the absolute values are off, the 20 dB difference stays.This can mean a lot in loud environments.
Robalov - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
That'll teach me I guess.But I would've thought call quality would deserve its own heading.
I still believe it won't have the longevity of your previous phone, however.
leexgx - Friday, December 25, 2015 - link
Ian Cutress (not sure if you would like a follow up on my useage as well)i cant use my HTC One M7 without a Mophie battery case and it turns the phone into a brick as only lasts short time without the morphi and has to be plugged in constantly when navigating (even when the HTC one M7 it was in good condition the battery it still lasted as long as i expected and that was 2-3 hours of constant use/SOT) 2400 is yes good for maybe the first 6 months to a year but due to battery not holding as much capacity after 1 year it ends up like a iphone (unless you can replace the battery)
well hopefully it's a good phone as i own it on 27th december (2015 assuming the shop is open so i can do my collect location) see how it goes,
i know it's slower then a HTC ONE M7 and no boomsound speakers, but slower CPU should mean less heat when navigating and same with screen, a slim phone with a 5200mAh battery, it be like using the Old Motorola RAZR Maxx again (just this time its a 5200mAh, quad core, 720p and 2GB of ram and 16GB + the 32GB SD card i got at the same time)
i only paid £110 so worth it to try any way (its from amazon so can send it back if its not fit for purpose, why i got it from amazon not ebay, as amazon is there to make customers happy and sellers unhappy, ebay not that far off really but amazon have better return policy and how they handle it as well),
HTC need to pull there finger out and start making phones that last more than half a day
3200-3500 battery size needs to be the minimum so to last more then 2-4 hours of SOT (not benchmark SOT time or phone with nothing installed) and the battery needs to be replaceable as my HTC ONE M7 is now turning off at 50%, if i could of changed the battery in the M9/M10 i might consider it (M10 hoping replaceable battery) we don't give a dam about Thin phones (as it turns into a iPlug device like where lots of iphone users are hunting for the nearest USB socket to get a small boost) going from 2400mha battery to 3400 might not sound like much but it has so much a dramatic effect on the day use of the phone, most phones nealy Suck More than 1A when phone is in use at times, phone makers need to add 1000mAh on top of there phones if its works fine on light loads (or what Stupid way they test there phones) so if think they can get away with a 2200 2400 2600 battery they should fit a 3200-3600 battery
Notmyusualid - Saturday, January 16, 2016 - link
The battery life (and the slow charging off too), of the M7 is the ONLY reason I changed it.I loved that handset too...
leexgx - Thursday, December 24, 2015 - link
you say knock off phone so not a real cubot H1 phonef0d - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
if you want to get crazy there is this 10000mah monster (its a bit ugly)http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_204428.html
or this more sane 6000mah (not so ugly)
http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_253010.html
im loving these phones that are coming out now with super batteries, battery life is much more important than speed or a lot of other things in a phone for me
SunLord - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
That's more of a battery with a phone built on it...phoenix_rizzen - Wednesday, December 23, 2015 - link
The Cubot H1 has the same size battery (10,000 mAh) as the Oukitel. In fact, just about every spec is the same between the two phones. They're almost identical.