Chinaphone inside: what saved on Haier W867
All of us have become accustomed to Chinese smartphones that have flooded our market. Most models have even ceased to cause disgust with case materials or a strange iron, under which there are no updates, no games. Rare and strange video accelerators have sunk into oblivion, MediaTek has ceased to produce heating devices of unknown purpose and still engaged in the production of processors, phenolic crap gave way to normal polymers.
Nowhere has the desire of users to “buy a penny chervonets” disappear, and the desire of manufacturers to save on production. What we get on the coin and what the manufacturer saves I propose to look at the example of the Haier w867 phablet.
Inside the 5.5-inch phablet, fortunately (or unfortunately) is not a neon, but a completely ordinary set of hardware: Haier W867 does not offer you super-performance, but call it a snuffer - the language does not turn. The SoC is quite famous and popular among Chinese MTK6582 (4 Cortex A7 cores with a maximum frequency of up to 1300 MHz), as a video accelerator - the Mali-400 MP2, which has seen many things, was a “single-core” version of which was still in Galaxy S II. This system is equipped with one gigabyte of RAM, four gigabytes of permanent memory and two slots for SIM-cards. Memory can be expanded with microSD cards.
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Among the “extra” bonuses are WiFi N support (doubtfully, the manufacturer claims up to 150 megabits), Bluetooth (most likely, like many MTK-based smartphones, without the A2DP profile and stereo sound transmission), GPS — in general, the set is standard. It is difficult to find a smartphone now without anything of the above. The camera is, or rather, two whole: at 8 and 1.3 megapixels. Take pictures and videos. Better to characterize them will not work, unfortunately, you want a photo flagship - spend more than 160 bucks.
The performance of this system naturally does not set records: the test results are clearly visible in the screenshots. Purely for comparison, the Nexus 4, the “last year’s” flagship of Google, with a decent quad core and two gigami RAM, gains 18–19 thousand to Antutu, depending on the firmware and testing conditions.
The results of benchmarks are displayed on an IPS display with a resolution of 960x540 pixels. The record holder cannot be named, but you can use quite tolerably, at least, the particular discomfort of the “tear my eyes out” form even after the FullHD screen of the Nexus 5 I did not feel: there is a margin of brightness, albeit small (in the sun, the screen blinks fairly), the resolution allows show more or less decent results in games, yet the video core is old. For six or seven thousand rubles - quite the performance.
All this “wealth” is powered by a battery with a capacity of 2000 mAh. Again, this is not a record figure, but considering the total cost of the device at retail, as well as considering the chipset and the screen that are not the most greedy before consumption, this is quite a working volume. By the way, the devices are fully certified and imported in white, which adds a couple of points of trust to the manufacturer, but, unfortunately, affects the cost of the device in the Russian Federation. One and a half days in the "keep in touch" mode - no problem. And on the Internet, and chat, and the constant transmission of data the device suffers.
Localization of the smartphone involved thoroughly. In addition to the translation (which, of course, took care of in Google itself), supplemented by the translation of Dual-Sim functionality, the manufacturer took care of good packaging. A nice white cardboard box is packed in a “slider”, and the main characteristics of the device are covered in sufficient detail on the board. As far as I know, the local office of Terminal Equipment, the official representative of Haier-Telecom, has its own staff of engineers who help send bug reports and localize updates.
By the way, about the updates: closer to the fall on devices with MTK6582 chipset, Haier promises to release Android 4.4, because knocked out the necessary drivers and components from MTK. Not the most pleasant update time, but better than nothing; In addition, this patch will close the rather current vulnerability with OpenSSL. There is no information about L, but here, as in the case of 4.4, the question is rather not in the reluctance to upgrade the device from Haier, but in the presence of possibilities: the MTK driver will give to the new version of the Android kernel - there will be an update (the hardware will pull without problems ). Will not give…
In search of "what the manufacturer saved on," I looked even under the plastic. The back cover is mounted on 11 identical screws and can be easily removed. Just in case, we sign the screw and the angle (there are few inside screws of different lengths), we begin to twist in a circle and check with a hint. This time, lucky, all the screws are identical. Sometimes it happens 3 or even 4 sets of hardware of different lengths.
Next, gently hook the plastic (after removing the SIM card), unhook it around the perimeter of the “latches” and simply remove the protective “cover” without sudden movements - antenna cables can be attached to it. In this case, there were no loops, all the antennas on the spring-loaded contacts. What was waiting for us under the lid?
Under the cover there was a very decent motherboard size: green, quite “simple” in appearance. Again, the plumes of the buttons and the screen are inserted neatly and without distortions, there are no traces of the manual assembly curve - no, the soldering is decent. The external speaker was surprised by its size (compared to the one on the Meizu and LG devices, it’s just gigantic), but, unfortunately, it doesn’t please either the quality or the maximum volume. Of course, it’s far to the packing density of parts like Meizu , but the price here is almost twice as different.
The smartphone is hard to hear "from the pocket," from another room or ten meters and worse. True, lately people have not let go of their smartphones at all, so the problem can hardly be called the biggest disappointment in the world. What I really do not like in this "Chinese" is the vibration. It is sluggish, strongly “late”, short pulses are generally better heard than “visible”. The motor obviously needs time for promotion, and the weight is either small, or the “vibration” itself has poor contact with the body.
On what did the manufacturer save, if a phablet with, in principle, good performance characteristics (comparable to the flagship devices of 2012) costs less than 200 bucks?
On everything a little: on pieces of iron that do not set records, on the screen, which will surrender under the sun at the zenith, on the external dynamics and vibration motor. But they did not save on the quality of assembly and soldering of elements, the delivery set and the general level: the smartphone does not produce results that are surprising, but not disappointing. For such money, finding a “white” alternative (and for a gray one can get problems ) is quite difficult. Either old models of decent manufacturers, or significantly less opportunities in the face of the old dual-core MTK, a smaller screen and battery. Here is a comparison of models in this price segment and form factor on the Yandex Market:
The closest in all characteristics of the LG G Pro Lite DualSim is two thousand more expensive, has a dull dual-core from MTK, however, a slightly more interesting GPU. It looks a bit better and more pleasant in terms of built-in software, but is not at all promising in terms of hardware: updates for this old one will not be released. :( The Samsung Galaxy Grand is worse for all the glands, except maybe the camera. And more expensive by three thousand on average. Among the “Chinese” you can look at the “French” Fly Evo Chick 2, which is “luxurious” for 7500 rubles HD Unfortunately, the case materials and the build quality of the latest Fly leave much to be desired, and you cannot go far on one HD screen, besides, it has problems with viewing angles, and also battery life. Lenovo also has interesting models. but I honestly did not hold them in my hands and cannot comment in person.
Nobody has canceled the variant of used smartphones, but here you can be sure of the purchase only if you take the “body” from good friends: there are plenty of cats in the bag in avito: drowned people, gluconauts with a battery drained or battered, and stolen smartphones.
Similar to the glands of the Chinese with 800x480 and 960x540 screens, but the smaller diagonal is a dime a dozen, for the same 6.5-7 thousand you will get about the same set of iron. So if the screen diagonal is critical, and you want a spade inapplicable, - there is a choice, but ... the question comes into play here, does the device have a normal support and a normal guarantee? I mentioned the situation with gray smartphones and potential problems with their crossing the border , there are not so many “white” Chinese, but brands that are not just “imported and cleared”, but also have their own department for customizing firmware and adapting them - and even less . The issue of updating for some manufacturers of models similar in hardware to Android 4.4 also remains open.
In the box, in addition to the standard headphones, which are of little use for nomral music playback, (like all smartphones with the rarest exception, in fact) and the charge turned out to be an ordinary-looking box with ... a case. The cover itself is put in place of the back cover, slightly thickening the device.
Actually, it opens with a “book” to the left, has a magnetic tail, which allows fixing the lid in two positions, it looks “usually”. Of the minuses I can point out the inconvenience of communicating with the camera while wearing a case: either you need to hold it with your hand, or shoot horizontally. Well, the upper / lower ends look somewhat unfinished. Included with the case was a protective film on the display. Both that and that - trifles, but add weight to a complete set. Some older people could not get rid of the use of phones in the case (my grandmother with HD2 walks;)), and finding a protective skin for non-Samsung-Eychtisi-skiing or non-iPhone is extremely problematic. Well, the film in the absence of any decent glass (of course, Gorilla Glass does not smell here) will prolong the life of the screen without wrinkles and scratches for several months. In any case, it would not be interesting to buy it at retail for 500-1000 rubles, and it’s nice that the manufacturer took care of the accessories and put them in the standard package. For some reason, I recall those times when the phones came with an additional removable panel of a different color out of the box.
It is difficult to praise the device, which in all respects is inferior to the smartphone that you use every day. It is slower than a nexus, it has a worse screen, a frankly weak camera. With all this, I can’t curse the W867 either: it is well assembled, it lives for a relatively long time on a single charge, it costs a ridiculous 6,500 rubles and it doesn’t seem like a frank sloop. Everything works, the interlocutor is heard almost better than in my Nexus 5, the screen does not cause bleeding from the eyes, despite the seemingly ridiculous 960x540 pixels for a 5.5-inch shovel. Solid inexpensive smartphone. Well assembled, get updates, imported legally, has a live Russian support and do not ask for it very much. What is there to scold? For vibration motor, perhaps. And let the creators cut off from everywhere on a piece - uniform savings and balanced characteristics, IMHO, much better than the options with one good element and the rest "just to get into the budget."
Nowhere has the desire of users to “buy a penny chervonets” disappear, and the desire of manufacturers to save on production. What we get on the coin and what the manufacturer saves I propose to look at the example of the Haier w867 phablet.
Pieces of iron
Inside the 5.5-inch phablet, fortunately (or unfortunately) is not a neon, but a completely ordinary set of hardware: Haier W867 does not offer you super-performance, but call it a snuffer - the language does not turn. The SoC is quite famous and popular among Chinese MTK6582 (4 Cortex A7 cores with a maximum frequency of up to 1300 MHz), as a video accelerator - the Mali-400 MP2, which has seen many things, was a “single-core” version of which was still in Galaxy S II. This system is equipped with one gigabyte of RAM, four gigabytes of permanent memory and two slots for SIM-cards. Memory can be expanded with microSD cards.
')
Among the “extra” bonuses are WiFi N support (doubtfully, the manufacturer claims up to 150 megabits), Bluetooth (most likely, like many MTK-based smartphones, without the A2DP profile and stereo sound transmission), GPS — in general, the set is standard. It is difficult to find a smartphone now without anything of the above. The camera is, or rather, two whole: at 8 and 1.3 megapixels. Take pictures and videos. Better to characterize them will not work, unfortunately, you want a photo flagship - spend more than 160 bucks.
The performance of this system naturally does not set records: the test results are clearly visible in the screenshots. Purely for comparison, the Nexus 4, the “last year’s” flagship of Google, with a decent quad core and two gigami RAM, gains 18–19 thousand to Antutu, depending on the firmware and testing conditions.
The results of benchmarks are displayed on an IPS display with a resolution of 960x540 pixels. The record holder cannot be named, but you can use quite tolerably, at least, the particular discomfort of the “tear my eyes out” form even after the FullHD screen of the Nexus 5 I did not feel: there is a margin of brightness, albeit small (in the sun, the screen blinks fairly), the resolution allows show more or less decent results in games, yet the video core is old. For six or seven thousand rubles - quite the performance.
All this “wealth” is powered by a battery with a capacity of 2000 mAh. Again, this is not a record figure, but considering the total cost of the device at retail, as well as considering the chipset and the screen that are not the most greedy before consumption, this is quite a working volume. By the way, the devices are fully certified and imported in white, which adds a couple of points of trust to the manufacturer, but, unfortunately, affects the cost of the device in the Russian Federation. One and a half days in the "keep in touch" mode - no problem. And on the Internet, and chat, and the constant transmission of data the device suffers.
Localization and software update
Localization of the smartphone involved thoroughly. In addition to the translation (which, of course, took care of in Google itself), supplemented by the translation of Dual-Sim functionality, the manufacturer took care of good packaging. A nice white cardboard box is packed in a “slider”, and the main characteristics of the device are covered in sufficient detail on the board. As far as I know, the local office of Terminal Equipment, the official representative of Haier-Telecom, has its own staff of engineers who help send bug reports and localize updates.
By the way, about the updates: closer to the fall on devices with MTK6582 chipset, Haier promises to release Android 4.4, because knocked out the necessary drivers and components from MTK. Not the most pleasant update time, but better than nothing; In addition, this patch will close the rather current vulnerability with OpenSSL. There is no information about L, but here, as in the case of 4.4, the question is rather not in the reluctance to upgrade the device from Haier, but in the presence of possibilities: the MTK driver will give to the new version of the Android kernel - there will be an update (the hardware will pull without problems ). Will not give…
Savings and competition
In search of "what the manufacturer saved on," I looked even under the plastic. The back cover is mounted on 11 identical screws and can be easily removed. Just in case, we sign the screw and the angle (there are few inside screws of different lengths), we begin to twist in a circle and check with a hint. This time, lucky, all the screws are identical. Sometimes it happens 3 or even 4 sets of hardware of different lengths.
Next, gently hook the plastic (after removing the SIM card), unhook it around the perimeter of the “latches” and simply remove the protective “cover” without sudden movements - antenna cables can be attached to it. In this case, there were no loops, all the antennas on the spring-loaded contacts. What was waiting for us under the lid?
Under the cover there was a very decent motherboard size: green, quite “simple” in appearance. Again, the plumes of the buttons and the screen are inserted neatly and without distortions, there are no traces of the manual assembly curve - no, the soldering is decent. The external speaker was surprised by its size (compared to the one on the Meizu and LG devices, it’s just gigantic), but, unfortunately, it doesn’t please either the quality or the maximum volume. Of course, it’s far to the packing density of parts like Meizu , but the price here is almost twice as different.
The smartphone is hard to hear "from the pocket," from another room or ten meters and worse. True, lately people have not let go of their smartphones at all, so the problem can hardly be called the biggest disappointment in the world. What I really do not like in this "Chinese" is the vibration. It is sluggish, strongly “late”, short pulses are generally better heard than “visible”. The motor obviously needs time for promotion, and the weight is either small, or the “vibration” itself has poor contact with the body.
On what did the manufacturer save, if a phablet with, in principle, good performance characteristics (comparable to the flagship devices of 2012) costs less than 200 bucks?
On everything a little: on pieces of iron that do not set records, on the screen, which will surrender under the sun at the zenith, on the external dynamics and vibration motor. But they did not save on the quality of assembly and soldering of elements, the delivery set and the general level: the smartphone does not produce results that are surprising, but not disappointing. For such money, finding a “white” alternative (and for a gray one can get problems ) is quite difficult. Either old models of decent manufacturers, or significantly less opportunities in the face of the old dual-core MTK, a smaller screen and battery. Here is a comparison of models in this price segment and form factor on the Yandex Market:
The closest in all characteristics of the LG G Pro Lite DualSim is two thousand more expensive, has a dull dual-core from MTK, however, a slightly more interesting GPU. It looks a bit better and more pleasant in terms of built-in software, but is not at all promising in terms of hardware: updates for this old one will not be released. :( The Samsung Galaxy Grand is worse for all the glands, except maybe the camera. And more expensive by three thousand on average. Among the “Chinese” you can look at the “French” Fly Evo Chick 2, which is “luxurious” for 7500 rubles HD Unfortunately, the case materials and the build quality of the latest Fly leave much to be desired, and you cannot go far on one HD screen, besides, it has problems with viewing angles, and also battery life. Lenovo also has interesting models. but I honestly did not hold them in my hands and cannot comment in person.
Nobody has canceled the variant of used smartphones, but here you can be sure of the purchase only if you take the “body” from good friends: there are plenty of cats in the bag in avito: drowned people, gluconauts with a battery drained or battered, and stolen smartphones.
Similar to the glands of the Chinese with 800x480 and 960x540 screens, but the smaller diagonal is a dime a dozen, for the same 6.5-7 thousand you will get about the same set of iron. So if the screen diagonal is critical, and you want a spade inapplicable, - there is a choice, but ... the question comes into play here, does the device have a normal support and a normal guarantee? I mentioned the situation with gray smartphones and potential problems with their crossing the border , there are not so many “white” Chinese, but brands that are not just “imported and cleared”, but also have their own department for customizing firmware and adapting them - and even less . The issue of updating for some manufacturers of models similar in hardware to Android 4.4 also remains open.
Nice bonus
In the box, in addition to the standard headphones, which are of little use for nomral music playback, (like all smartphones with the rarest exception, in fact) and the charge turned out to be an ordinary-looking box with ... a case. The cover itself is put in place of the back cover, slightly thickening the device.
Actually, it opens with a “book” to the left, has a magnetic tail, which allows fixing the lid in two positions, it looks “usually”. Of the minuses I can point out the inconvenience of communicating with the camera while wearing a case: either you need to hold it with your hand, or shoot horizontally. Well, the upper / lower ends look somewhat unfinished. Included with the case was a protective film on the display. Both that and that - trifles, but add weight to a complete set. Some older people could not get rid of the use of phones in the case (my grandmother with HD2 walks;)), and finding a protective skin for non-Samsung-Eychtisi-skiing or non-iPhone is extremely problematic. Well, the film in the absence of any decent glass (of course, Gorilla Glass does not smell here) will prolong the life of the screen without wrinkles and scratches for several months. In any case, it would not be interesting to buy it at retail for 500-1000 rubles, and it’s nice that the manufacturer took care of the accessories and put them in the standard package. For some reason, I recall those times when the phones came with an additional removable panel of a different color out of the box.
In the dry residue
It is difficult to praise the device, which in all respects is inferior to the smartphone that you use every day. It is slower than a nexus, it has a worse screen, a frankly weak camera. With all this, I can’t curse the W867 either: it is well assembled, it lives for a relatively long time on a single charge, it costs a ridiculous 6,500 rubles and it doesn’t seem like a frank sloop. Everything works, the interlocutor is heard almost better than in my Nexus 5, the screen does not cause bleeding from the eyes, despite the seemingly ridiculous 960x540 pixels for a 5.5-inch shovel. Solid inexpensive smartphone. Well assembled, get updates, imported legally, has a live Russian support and do not ask for it very much. What is there to scold? For vibration motor, perhaps. And let the creators cut off from everywhere on a piece - uniform savings and balanced characteristics, IMHO, much better than the options with one good element and the rest "just to get into the budget."
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/235153/
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