Lexand Capella: a smartphone with Full HD-screen and support for two SIM-cards for 9,600 rubles ($ 280)
The smartphone Lexand Capella, which I will discuss in this review, belongs to the class of models with Full HD-screens, support for two SIM-cards and MediaTek chipsets. Such devices covered the domestic market with a whole wave in the last quarter of 2013. Today they are offered on average for 10 thousand rubles ($ 290). There are slightly cheaper options, and there are slightly more expensive ones. I admit honestly: among the smartphones of this type, the red / yellow Alcatel One Touch X is most attractive to me, but it does not have a memory card slot. There is also a version of this model with microSD support, but it can work with only one SIM card. Meanwhile, Lexand Capella has both, and the device costs 9,600 rubles ($ 280, average Yandex.Market price). Let's see what it is in practice. Looking ahead, I note that he has enough pros and cons.
Android OS 4.2
2 active SIM cards
MTK6589 Cortex A7 1.2GHz Quad-core processor
Screen with a diagonal of 5 "IPS FULL HD resolution of 1920x1080 (OGS)
3G / WiFi / Bluetooth 3.0 / GPS
13MP camera with built-in flash
Front camera 2Mp
Built-in FM receiver
4 GB internal memory
MicroSD memory card up to 32 GB
Battery capacity 2200mAh
Multimedia
Dimensions 141x71x8 mm, weight 155g.
In the box with the Lexand Capella nothing special was found; everything was as usual - instructions, warranty, headset, cable, charger unit. Some smartphones of this brand are equipped with much more generous ones: for example, with the Antares and Callisto models, two back covers go at once, regular and in the form of a cover-book.
In the case of Lexand Capella, there is nothing to protect the screen - the cover here is ordinary. Meanwhile, the display is excellent: 5 inches, 1920 x 1080 pixels, IPS, and even with the use of OGS (One Glass Solution) technology. This means that the touch layer is one with the LCD panel, and this has a positive effect on image quality. Anyway, the picture is really impressive - and the naturalness of color reproduction, and margin of brightness, and viewing angles, which reach the cherished figure of 178 degrees. I remember the other day, at the request of a friend, I updated the firmware on the LG G2, so in this device for 25 thousand rubles the screen does not win the Lexand Capella display.
')
The coating of the front panel is glass, but the developers do not give any information about its origin. And this means that Capella does not use Gorilla Glass and Dragon Trail, but something less famous. Touchscreen capacitive, supported by 5 simultaneous touches. Sensitivity is high - at the level of the flagships of A-brands.
The case of the smartphone is not that it does not completely fit the screen, but, of course, it looks much simpler. The back cover, which comes on the side faces, is trimmed with a quite ordinary soft-touch. Not the cheapest, but not expensive either. The thickness of the case is relatively small - 8 mm. Lexand Capella is assembled quite carefully, which, in principle, is not surprising: lately, local brands have been well “pulled up” in terms of accuracy.
An unexpected moment was the material of the volume and power keys - they are made of unpainted aluminum. True, their location raises questions. In particular, the power button of the smartphone and its screen is closer to the center of the upper end of the case. Given that the smartphone is not small, 5-inch, it is not very convenient to reach for this button - sometimes you have to “intercept” the device with your hand; that is, if you hold it by the bottom, you have to move your palm higher. At first, on the machine, I pressed the volume button, which is located just to the right, instead of the power button. Later I got used to it, but the sediment remained.
The 3.5 mm jack is on the top, the microUSB port is on the bottom, which is good, since this arrangement allows you to comfortably talk on your smartphone when it is on recharging.
There are no special complaints about the three touch buttons under the display. Except that they have an uneven (albeit very bright) backlight - the upper parts of the icons are highlighted less than the lower ones.
The back cover can be removed easily, although it sits very tightly. A microSD card slot is located under it (I tried to insert a 64 GB flash drive, but I didn’t recognize the smartphone, but I managed it with a 32GB drive) and two miniSIM SIM slots. To install / remove all this stuff you need to remove the battery. Its capacity is average: 2,200 mAh. For a day, quite active exploitation of its charge is enough, but unduly indulging yourself with games and serials away from power outlets is not worth it. You can discharge your smartphone "to zero" for 10 hours.
Smartphone performance , alas, I can not. The fact is that Lexand Capella is based on the MediaTek MT6589 chipset with 4 cores ARM Cortex-A7, the maximum frequency of which reaches 1.2 GHz. Responsible for the graphics accelerator PowerVR SGX544MP with a frequency of 286 MHz. Complements the picture 1 GB of RAM (of which about 350 are available). For devices with HD screens, all this stuff is enough, but for a model with a Full HD display ... In the Android environment, no slowdowns are visible - and when a couple of tabs are open in Chrome, and when you scroll through desktops. But in games it's not too cool. For example, "Iron Man 3" periodically slows down, and well, so that interferes with the gameplay. Asphalt 8 at first was not at all a search on Google Play, but then suddenly found (I have a smart phone for a month and a half). In his case, there are also brakes - if you set the quality of graphics to a high or medium level. On the low and very low brakes are completely absent, but on this display I would like to observe the highest quality picture ...
I do not know why the developers chose MediaTek MT6589, because in nature there is also MediaTek MT6589T with frequencies of 1.5 GHz and 357 MHz (for the processor and the graphics accelerator, respectively). Here, he would look great here (and even in the “bundle” with 2 GB of RAM), and the existing solution does not cause much enthusiasm - its capabilities are sufficient for basic tasks. Not the highest performance is confirmed by the results of synthetic tests. MT6589T based models recruit thousands for AnTuTu by 2 more.
Against this background, I no longer hoped that the developers did not save on the camera . But everything turned out better than I expected. Lexand Capella uses a 13 megapixel resolution matrix.
According to some reports, it is released by Sony. I know, I know that this is not yet a guarantee of the quality of the pictures - even a very good camera of Japanese origin can be ruined by curved software, which we see in a number of inexpensive smartphones. However, Lexand Capella quality is not bad. Yes, this is not the Galaxy S4 and certainly not the Xperia Z1 embraced with the Lumia 1020, but still for the device for 9 with a thousand rubles, the pictures are worthy. There are, of course, errors with white balance and exposures, and blurry shots were not at first uncommon. But for the day I got used to it and now I get such pictures with the help of Capella. In the south of Ukraine, alas, it is now frosty, dark and snowy:
The video is recorded in Full HD 1080p, its quality is average. Front camera at Lexand Capella 2-megapixel. For crossbows and "Skype" will fit, and more from it, no one requires.
A few words about the software . Like almost all smartphones on the MT6589, Lexand Capella uses the Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean operating system. Updates, I think, will not, and even minor. I have got the device for a month and a half, and during that time no updates arrived. However, I don’t regret it much - I didn’t find any serious software glitches, except that once during a Skype conversation my smartphone hung.
Interface customization has been reduced to a modified camera interface (it is the same on all modern devices with MediaTek chipsets), coloring icons in the settings menu, and rudimentary support for themes.
Camera Interface:
In order not to spread the idea of ​​the tree, here are 4 screenshots. They will tell you what the topics are in this case.
Among third-party applications there is a client of Odnoklassniki, Navitel Navigator (a trial 30-day version), a number of services from Yandex and Mail.ru. Also, I would like to mention “Film Studio” (a simple video editor), “Flashlight” program using a dual LED flash and a separate task manager.
Summing up. The smartphone left a very flat impression, no special enthusiasm, no disappointment.
What did you like? Screen and camera.
What did not like? Iron, for it is weak. You can live, but only if you isolate yourself from the games.
In general, Lexand Capella is clearly not the brightest smartphone on the market, but I cannot call it low-quality or unsuccessful. I would not have taken this model myself, because sometimes a mobile gamer wakes up in me. In the meantime, I will also refrain from advising readers — let everyone decide for himself whether such a device is suitable for them or not. Perhaps indifferent to toys and he will satisfy most of the parameters.
Features from the Lexand brand site:
Android OS 4.2
2 active SIM cards
MTK6589 Cortex A7 1.2GHz Quad-core processor
Screen with a diagonal of 5 "IPS FULL HD resolution of 1920x1080 (OGS)
3G / WiFi / Bluetooth 3.0 / GPS
13MP camera with built-in flash
Front camera 2Mp
Built-in FM receiver
4 GB internal memory
MicroSD memory card up to 32 GB
Battery capacity 2200mAh
Multimedia
Dimensions 141x71x8 mm, weight 155g.
In the box with the Lexand Capella nothing special was found; everything was as usual - instructions, warranty, headset, cable, charger unit. Some smartphones of this brand are equipped with much more generous ones: for example, with the Antares and Callisto models, two back covers go at once, regular and in the form of a cover-book.
In the case of Lexand Capella, there is nothing to protect the screen - the cover here is ordinary. Meanwhile, the display is excellent: 5 inches, 1920 x 1080 pixels, IPS, and even with the use of OGS (One Glass Solution) technology. This means that the touch layer is one with the LCD panel, and this has a positive effect on image quality. Anyway, the picture is really impressive - and the naturalness of color reproduction, and margin of brightness, and viewing angles, which reach the cherished figure of 178 degrees. I remember the other day, at the request of a friend, I updated the firmware on the LG G2, so in this device for 25 thousand rubles the screen does not win the Lexand Capella display.
')
The coating of the front panel is glass, but the developers do not give any information about its origin. And this means that Capella does not use Gorilla Glass and Dragon Trail, but something less famous. Touchscreen capacitive, supported by 5 simultaneous touches. Sensitivity is high - at the level of the flagships of A-brands.
The case of the smartphone is not that it does not completely fit the screen, but, of course, it looks much simpler. The back cover, which comes on the side faces, is trimmed with a quite ordinary soft-touch. Not the cheapest, but not expensive either. The thickness of the case is relatively small - 8 mm. Lexand Capella is assembled quite carefully, which, in principle, is not surprising: lately, local brands have been well “pulled up” in terms of accuracy.
An unexpected moment was the material of the volume and power keys - they are made of unpainted aluminum. True, their location raises questions. In particular, the power button of the smartphone and its screen is closer to the center of the upper end of the case. Given that the smartphone is not small, 5-inch, it is not very convenient to reach for this button - sometimes you have to “intercept” the device with your hand; that is, if you hold it by the bottom, you have to move your palm higher. At first, on the machine, I pressed the volume button, which is located just to the right, instead of the power button. Later I got used to it, but the sediment remained.
The 3.5 mm jack is on the top, the microUSB port is on the bottom, which is good, since this arrangement allows you to comfortably talk on your smartphone when it is on recharging.
There are no special complaints about the three touch buttons under the display. Except that they have an uneven (albeit very bright) backlight - the upper parts of the icons are highlighted less than the lower ones.
The back cover can be removed easily, although it sits very tightly. A microSD card slot is located under it (I tried to insert a 64 GB flash drive, but I didn’t recognize the smartphone, but I managed it with a 32GB drive) and two miniSIM SIM slots. To install / remove all this stuff you need to remove the battery. Its capacity is average: 2,200 mAh. For a day, quite active exploitation of its charge is enough, but unduly indulging yourself with games and serials away from power outlets is not worth it. You can discharge your smartphone "to zero" for 10 hours.
Smartphone performance , alas, I can not. The fact is that Lexand Capella is based on the MediaTek MT6589 chipset with 4 cores ARM Cortex-A7, the maximum frequency of which reaches 1.2 GHz. Responsible for the graphics accelerator PowerVR SGX544MP with a frequency of 286 MHz. Complements the picture 1 GB of RAM (of which about 350 are available). For devices with HD screens, all this stuff is enough, but for a model with a Full HD display ... In the Android environment, no slowdowns are visible - and when a couple of tabs are open in Chrome, and when you scroll through desktops. But in games it's not too cool. For example, "Iron Man 3" periodically slows down, and well, so that interferes with the gameplay. Asphalt 8 at first was not at all a search on Google Play, but then suddenly found (I have a smart phone for a month and a half). In his case, there are also brakes - if you set the quality of graphics to a high or medium level. On the low and very low brakes are completely absent, but on this display I would like to observe the highest quality picture ...
I do not know why the developers chose MediaTek MT6589, because in nature there is also MediaTek MT6589T with frequencies of 1.5 GHz and 357 MHz (for the processor and the graphics accelerator, respectively). Here, he would look great here (and even in the “bundle” with 2 GB of RAM), and the existing solution does not cause much enthusiasm - its capabilities are sufficient for basic tasks. Not the highest performance is confirmed by the results of synthetic tests. MT6589T based models recruit thousands for AnTuTu by 2 more.
Against this background, I no longer hoped that the developers did not save on the camera . But everything turned out better than I expected. Lexand Capella uses a 13 megapixel resolution matrix.
According to some reports, it is released by Sony. I know, I know that this is not yet a guarantee of the quality of the pictures - even a very good camera of Japanese origin can be ruined by curved software, which we see in a number of inexpensive smartphones. However, Lexand Capella quality is not bad. Yes, this is not the Galaxy S4 and certainly not the Xperia Z1 embraced with the Lumia 1020, but still for the device for 9 with a thousand rubles, the pictures are worthy. There are, of course, errors with white balance and exposures, and blurry shots were not at first uncommon. But for the day I got used to it and now I get such pictures with the help of Capella. In the south of Ukraine, alas, it is now frosty, dark and snowy:
The video is recorded in Full HD 1080p, its quality is average. Front camera at Lexand Capella 2-megapixel. For crossbows and "Skype" will fit, and more from it, no one requires.
A few words about the software . Like almost all smartphones on the MT6589, Lexand Capella uses the Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean operating system. Updates, I think, will not, and even minor. I have got the device for a month and a half, and during that time no updates arrived. However, I don’t regret it much - I didn’t find any serious software glitches, except that once during a Skype conversation my smartphone hung.
Interface customization has been reduced to a modified camera interface (it is the same on all modern devices with MediaTek chipsets), coloring icons in the settings menu, and rudimentary support for themes.
Camera Interface:
In order not to spread the idea of ​​the tree, here are 4 screenshots. They will tell you what the topics are in this case.
Among third-party applications there is a client of Odnoklassniki, Navitel Navigator (a trial 30-day version), a number of services from Yandex and Mail.ru. Also, I would like to mention “Film Studio” (a simple video editor), “Flashlight” program using a dual LED flash and a separate task manager.
Summing up. The smartphone left a very flat impression, no special enthusiasm, no disappointment.
What did you like? Screen and camera.
What did not like? Iron, for it is weak. You can live, but only if you isolate yourself from the games.
In general, Lexand Capella is clearly not the brightest smartphone on the market, but I cannot call it low-quality or unsuccessful. I would not have taken this model myself, because sometimes a mobile gamer wakes up in me. In the meantime, I will also refrain from advising readers — let everyone decide for himself whether such a device is suitable for them or not. Perhaps indifferent to toys and he will satisfy most of the parameters.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/210406/
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