*I completely forgot to mention it but others have pointed it out - this does NOT have VoLTE. Which is a bummer* WELCOME BACK to another installment in the iWish series. I am sure you are expecting garbage...but I think you may be surprised with this one. Let me know what you thought of this down below! Thank you also to all the folks who donated to see this, you are all mad lads and I love you all. Thank you for tuning in and I'll see you in the next one! TIMESTAMPS: Intro, Disclaimers & Timestamps: 0:00 The Listing: 1:27 Unboxing: 4:39 Around the Phone: 6:36 Power On, First Look, Wallpapers, Shortcuts & Torch: 7:54 Display Quality, WiFi & NFC: 9:51 It has 4G! Cellular Networks & Notification LED: 10:39 Some issues with 4G, More Testing & Call Quality: 11:59 Settings - Buttons, Display Settings & OTG Test: 13:38 Settings - Battery Test & Apps List: 15:27 Settings - Security, Accessibility & About Phone: 17:06 Performance, Calculator, Calendar & Camera: 19:05 Camera Test: 21:02 Camera Quality: 27:35 Snappy Phone & Browser Test: 29:14 Clock, File Manager & FM Radio Test: 30:49 More Apps, Headphone & Speaker Test: 32:12 Play Store, Other Apps & TH-cam Test: 34:24 Gaming Test - Grand Theft Auto III & San Andreas: 36:22 Checking the Specs: 38:55 QuickShortcutMaker Testing: 41:16 Rambly Conclusion: 43:00 Investigation Teardown: 44:49 Does it still work, Full Specs & Final Thoughts: 50:14 THANKING FOLKS FOR DONATING TOWARDS SEEING THIS!: 51:15 Outro: 52:15 BONUS! Second DJ-1000 Quick Test: 53:02 Be good people!
I am pretty sure, they mass produced many of them and just enabled/disabled some features. Thats why there is the handbiometrics. It potentially could have had fingerprint scanner.
If the day comes where you get free samples of every major phone release as well, your channel will be the only phone channel I ever need. Your reviews go more in depth than 20 different channels spliced together.
Having a Snapdragon chipset, let alone 600-series on a no-name brand smartphone is still an achievement. Cheaper phones like this are usually powered by crappy MTK chipsets (prior to Dimensity & G series) & outdated Android OS. This phone, during its release (2015 or 2016?), was on-par with HTC One A9, ZTE Axon 7 Mini & of course, Mi 4i (during Hugo Barra's Xiaomi era). Granted that Mi 4i used the overclocked version of SD 615 but still, it was a mid-range chipset & international market got this instead of the more powerful SD 801 China-exclusive Mi 4.
This phone might actually be a ZTE Blade S6 Plus. The ZTE has the 615 in it, which is basically the same as the 616, same front and rear cameras, same sized display but ZTE is slightly higher resolution.
its a mi 4i clone the phones look very similar, but the insides are completely different its cool to see a clone device without the sketchy fake specs or anything, and thats comparable to the original!
@@catofthekittenIt might be a design copy but I doubt the intent was to make an actual clone. Clones usually have terrible mediatek processors, not snapdragons.
I bet consumer cellular or some of those other networks marketed towards older generations carry something like this. Seems perfect for most non tech savvy people.
You found a genuinely decent yet outdated device, love to see it! It's a real shame that there's no SD slot though, otherwise this looks like it'd make a pretty darn good little music player or such.
@@jan_harald On 16GB, assuming the system eats away 2GB, the system cache after some time weights 2GB, and a few apps to fit your needs (EQ/Booster, VLC, Spotify, TH-cam, etc) weigh around ~2-3GB, you already only have 9GB left. To me and for people who have big libraries, that's already not enough, and that's *only* if we use this as a music player. Also, if said people had money for something better like an iPod Classic+Rockbox, they wouldn't get this. On the other hand, CyanogenMod out of the box for ~57$ would be a great daily driver for someone who needs less distractions/things they can do on their phone besides normal tasks.
@@jan_haraldThe main problem is that 16GB is the total storage. What's available for you to use is usually only around 10GB or so, and for a more or less dedicated music player that's pretty much nothing
@@Knaeckebrotsaege 320kbps mp3 is estimated to be 40KB per second, 2.40MB per minute, or 144MB per hour, 10GB/144MB = 69.44 HOURS of music tell me again about "pretty much nothing" not like it'd be worth putting your flac collection on there, anyway, and even if you did, a 24bit 96khz stereo raw PCM file (basically a wav), is still only about 2.0736GB per hour, so you'd STILL get like 4.823 HOURS of RAW audio so "pretty much nothing" is bullshit, especially given that the cheapo devices aren't worth using raw audio on anyway and another place finds that CD audio is 288KB/s (you'd get 9.645 HOURS OF RAW CD AUDIO), spotify extreme (Ogg Vorbis 320 stereo) is same as my mp3 math (40kbps), "apple lossless" (ALAC 757 kbps stereo) would last 29.354 HOURS, and so on the fact you can't have 100+ hours of high-quality music does *NOT* mean it's "pretty much nothing", ya dumbo, a normal person could hold AT LEAST ~30 hours of music, and most likely around 60 hours, in any case, more than a full day of non-stop playback, which would probably still let you listen without repeat, for at least 2 or 3 days (since about half the day you're sleeping, or at home, anyway, and could use better equipment)
What a journey it has been. The first 4G Welcome phone has been discovered. After a couple of years of you making these videos you have finally made it haha. This was by far the best Welcome phone you've reviewed so far. Thoroughly enjoyed the video as always.
@@account-now-closed Ah I don't remember that one to be honest. Still I'd guess this thing is better than any previous phone he's reviewed in the past. Probably the first to feature honest specs as well.
"I miss aero effects" I don't have to miss them at all because I'm watching this on a Vista machine! I don't give up what I love for the sake of updating!
@@hrq007 Unfortunately where I work we're stuck with Windows 10, with about a couple hundred icons on the desktop across two monitors. Boss, have you ever heard of pinning to taskbar?
Good gracious! The number of details and the dedication that you've put in this video is superb. On the topic for this phone, yeah it's a good one if it's still 2016.
@@ShadowGD_OfficialYT It doesn't have a standard CM build number, but when he is flipping through the shortcuts there are a lot of CM programs in there and Trebuchet is Cyanogen's default launcher. It's possible they pinched some of it, but it was probably just as easy to rework a CM12.1 build made for a similar device
@@yeshuinfinity5963 CyanogenMod "sometimes" had volte settings. It has been a while so I don't recall if it was even available by default or if it had to be flagged during the build. Not to mention around that time (2015/2016) a lot of devices that "supported" volte had it disabled in the baseband by default.
Considering the launcher is Trebuchet and the file manager is the one from CyanogenMod/LineageOS, it's safe to assume the ROM is based on a custom ROM. Also, that exact camera app is used on LineageOS. I have LineageOS installed on a phone right next to me. It has that camera app pre-installed. I think it's called Snapdragon Camera.
Hmm I noticed on the listing image for the box it says "公测版", which rougly translates to like "Public Beta" Could explain the weird bands, mention of no play store, cayanogen mod and root access
Isn't Google Play Store disabled in China? Or at the very least a very limited play store? So maybe a a very cheap domestic Chinese phone repurposed to be sold internationally? EDIT: Wait NVM it does have Google play despite the listing saying it doesn't
Your telstra call failed because this device doesn't support VoLTE, tried to fall back to 3G but Telstra 3G is 850MHz which this doesn't support. On Optus and Vodafone the calls are going over 3G 900, but data is 4G 1800/2100. After July 2024 this either won't do calls at all or only on Optus
That file manager on that phone that you said supposedly is stock is actually the Cyanogenmod file manager, which means the phone could be custom rommed, however it’s quite rare to have a custom rommed phone from Aliexpress
i think it's not running a custom rom, but it's definitely running a qcom flavor of AOSP. came with trebuchet launcher and some of phones running this software also came with cyanogenmod profile switcher (i previously had a phone called andromax and i can tell it right away that software feels almost the same) and there's cyanogenmod/lineage file manager too.
I'm reminded of when I poked around around in the hidden AOSP settings on BOOX tablets and e-readers, I found some references referencing Qualcomm AOSP builds, like Qualcomm bug reporting, and in CPU-Z, the device manufacturer name being reported as Qualcomm instead of Onyx (likely in order to get Google Play Services working without certification, since Android doesn't officially support e-paper from what I can tell).
Greetings from Manchester. Haven't you heard the song Rasputin? That was the tune you just played. Top tune back in the days. This poor cat of yours have you considered leaving her out in the garden whilst you're there with a light lead so you'll have her under your control?
@@mal0gen Funny that, because my main phone (Moto Z Play) is on android 8 and I'm already starting to lose app support for a ton of things. Trying to use an android 6 or older device these days is quite painful because you have to start digging for older, still compatible app versions, and even then they likely rely on some online service that blocks you from using it, telling you to update the app which you can't. That's what made my 2nd gen Moto G, my HTC One M7 and my LG G3-on-life-support pretty much useless, which is annoying because especially the G3 has _excellent_ specs, but you can't flash a more modern custom ROM cause no more bootloader unlocks (LG mobile is dead), so it's stuck on ancient 4.4 kitkat
The fact that this phone is better than the current old phone I am using (since I broke my newer one, lmao) surprises me, the only thing my old phone is better than is that it runs a newer version of Android... lmao.
Hey mate, I actually decided to purchase one of these phones from your Aff link cause you done a great review of covering everything, I paid AU$89 bucks though and it arrived to me today which was decently quick, but it is totally defective. When i first turned it on it vibrates and controls itself and closes apps automatically and also any app or setting i try open up on the phone it will vibrate and go back to the home page. The home buttons on the phone seem to be the issue like they are over sensitive (even though I am not even touching them!) and causing this fault to happen. Then the phone turned itself off while there was still plenty of charge in the battery, because i noticed like yours in this video, my phone was also sent to me with 100% full charge. Now after turning itself off the phone will now not turn on at all. I have contacted the seller and hopefully they will reimburse me my $90 bucks, the phone is totally fkd and unusable. Keep up the great videos mate, Happy New Year to ya from Perth WA
Damn its nice phone... I love those boxes for those cheap Chinese phones... I just love boxes :D I have whole closet of every phone I had. Also I think games suck a bit mostly because slow and low memory as Snapdragon 6xx or even 4xx should run GTA smooth(as I tried few times). As for IMEI, all sites say its simcom A318 that is bigger wireless/GPS module for laptop... a bit weird...
Thanks so much for that :) I thought the box was nifty. Considering nowadays boxes for phones aren't fun at all. This came with an actual story! Simcom a318. What a journey of finding out what this thing is. Others already told me but yeah it has like 4 different names.
Honestly this phone would be perfect as a music player since it has an analog headphone jack. If it had an expandable SD card slot, you could do so much more with it.
Cool!!!....Smoorez vid!.. haven't had a good laugh or seen any good content since his last video... Whenever I'm depressed or in a bad mood I just watch me some Smoorez..and realize how good I got it lmao..😂
Have you looked up those Hanzi using Google Translate app? 5:45-6:01 The "DUANG" word is an onomatopoeia first spoken by Jackie Chan in 2004 Bawang Shampoo ad. It became popular in 2015 when a netizen uploaded a remix video consisted of the shampoo ad and tune from Pang Mai Lang's viral song "My Skate Shoes (我的滑板鞋)" to Bilibili website. (paraphrased from Wikipedia and CGTN America) 😁
it's not bad for such a low budget device, i still have a lollipop smartphone and yeah he died with that. cool tbh a little to "low" but at least it's way better that any welcome device. cool to see the dj phone again! and i was thinking the same thing, swapping the black with blue lol it looks way cooler than black.
My old phone just died this summer, after serving for 11 fucking years. It was of the same type - cheap and noname, but honest, not trying to look like something else or to sell some gimmick and running stock android 4.0.4. And it has been through some rough shit - its been dropped countless times, used as an improvised blunt tool and as a hard surface, i have gotten caught by rains and fallen into water with it in my pocket many times, and it survived all of it, but sadly couple months ago it slipped out of my pocket and fell into a swampy shallow when i was fishing and i failed to notice it for like 30 seconds. And thus, it will forever remain and my memory as a hero that it was (and it's corpse will forever remain in my desk)
MSM8939 is software compatible with the MSM8916 from which they partially reused the software. That's why the two different model numbers show up. I wonder if this phone has secure boot off considering that it came with CyanogenMod out of the box.
I can recall having a pretty similar device in the past but it was a Cubot, and it had biometrics, I have a review about it on my channel! It's amazing these nuggets are still out up for grabs on the market at such outrageous prices!
I think this phone is the example of all of us complaining about the fake spec phones that would actually be a decent device if sold as is with its true specs. Basically let it be itself.
I am hoping to see more surprisngly good aliexpress phones since this one was quite impressive for what it is. maybe someday a 4G android 10 or newer one
this phone has cyanogenmod, i bet it does, i think it has version 12.1 and possibly rooted, and being android 5 device and having a snapdragon processor, it's much easier to root like old times
come to think of it, it would be kinda interesting for you to review old flagships to see whether or not it has volte or not from sammy, nexus etc and since they're super cheap might be an interesting series except sony fuc sony no volte since the Dino's era
@@Falco95 I had custom roms on my phones sometimes. I remembered it wrong 😀, glad you remembered it. But it was definately an app seen in those roms. Cheers.
Not gonna lie, this phone gets a big W from me. I'd like to buy that phone just for the box. I'm a big fan for the design 🤩 Also the navigation button are cool tho. I really love the LED notification. No wonder it has a best quality because it has Snapdragon chipset in it
Looks like the Redmi Note 5A, maybe this this company is the ODM for xiaomi? Judging by manufacture date and overall design and display being incredibly similar
This thing is from what I'd call the golden era of mid-range phones, where even noname-y stuff like this came with a good CPU (ie Snapdragon instead of any other trash), good display, decent amount of RAM and other features they could've easily left out but didn't (USB OTG, NFC etc), but almost none of the devices from that time frame have a) a decent amount of internal storage (32GB at the _very_ minimum) and/or b) a microSD slot. This annoyed me massively back then and still does today tbh
I'm surprised at how decent that phone is. And also; I'm surprised at how decent the seller seems to be. I'd rather stick with buying used flagships and/or heavily subsidized - late model - new - name brand - prepaid phones for the same money. But; for anyone who doesn't have that option I'm glad this Santin exists. It's an atoll in a vast sea of mediocrity.
It looks like it's just using the Trebuchet Launcher which is made by the Cyanogen mod team. I guess it could be a straight barebines build of Android Lollipop someone put out but I think it's just the base version.
That noise that the phone makes when you were testing the NFC, my phone ocasasionally spams that noise when I'm holding it weird. Does it make that noise for any other reason? Is my phones' NFC ocasionally going mad and detecting my debit card or something?
About this logo... Isn't that a Qualcomm logo? That leads me to assume that it's actually a Qualcomm test phone for other manufacturers so they can check the specs under ideal conditions.
This looks quite similar to the BLU phone I had 5 years ago, except that ran I think either android 7 or 8, and also had 4g, and only cost me £50 from amazon. It was a pretty bad phone though and for only £10 more you could get a Vodafone that was much more capable (the one I had was just a rebounded ZTE phone).
If I search the model number on TH-cam, it comes up with a bunch of snapdragon phones. Santin infact. On happyhere’s store page, they have a santin phone, and that phone also comes up on TH-cam when model number is searched. The story continues I guess. The file system looks like a root file manager. Pretty sure it is custom rom capable. All the videos are in Russian too.
Meanwhile in the UK we have: E, 2G, H+, 3G, 4G, in most the country and 4G LTE, 5G, 5G+ in the cities (basically we kept them all running so it's strange to see Australia turning off old networks and making extra e-waste with the thousands of 3G phones still around at least in Australia)
2G = gsm, gprs and edge (E) 3G = umts (3G), hspa (H) and hspa+ (H+) 4G = LTE, LTE-A/4G+ 5G =5G/5G+ BTW in Czechia we got rid of 3G band too. It was replaced by 5G. And because you can connect to the lte or lte-a in 99% of our country, nobody cared about 3G. Mandatory is only 2G because of the best coverage and support from the all phones. (for emergency calls)
@@mirek190 not here it's not as we actually use them and plenty of people with 3G phones still as they work and haven't been forced upgraded by tatics like this 😂😂
Did Australia have a 3G/UMTS Network in Use in 2023? The most of the States / Country's have Ended the 3G/UMTS Networks. So, Only 2G and GPRS and 4G/LTE 5G Support is more Available.
that looks like one of the old vodaphone smarts we had in the uk but im sure they where just stamped with a logo maybe they just used the same stamp copyright isnt a thing in china apparently
*I completely forgot to mention it but others have pointed it out - this does NOT have VoLTE. Which is a bummer*
WELCOME BACK to another installment in the iWish series. I am sure you are expecting garbage...but I think you may be surprised with this one.
Let me know what you thought of this down below!
Thank you also to all the folks who donated to see this, you are all mad lads and I love you all.
Thank you for tuning in and I'll see you in the next one!
TIMESTAMPS:
Intro, Disclaimers & Timestamps: 0:00
The Listing: 1:27
Unboxing: 4:39
Around the Phone: 6:36
Power On, First Look, Wallpapers, Shortcuts & Torch: 7:54
Display Quality, WiFi & NFC: 9:51
It has 4G! Cellular Networks & Notification LED: 10:39
Some issues with 4G, More Testing & Call Quality: 11:59
Settings - Buttons, Display Settings & OTG Test: 13:38
Settings - Battery Test & Apps List: 15:27
Settings - Security, Accessibility & About Phone: 17:06
Performance, Calculator, Calendar & Camera: 19:05
Camera Test: 21:02
Camera Quality: 27:35
Snappy Phone & Browser Test: 29:14
Clock, File Manager & FM Radio Test: 30:49
More Apps, Headphone & Speaker Test: 32:12
Play Store, Other Apps & TH-cam Test: 34:24
Gaming Test - Grand Theft Auto III & San Andreas: 36:22
Checking the Specs: 38:55
QuickShortcutMaker Testing: 41:16
Rambly Conclusion: 43:00
Investigation Teardown: 44:49
Does it still work, Full Specs & Final Thoughts: 50:14
THANKING FOLKS FOR DONATING TOWARDS SEEING THIS!: 51:15
Outro: 52:15
BONUS! Second DJ-1000 Quick Test: 53:02
Be good people!
Where do you buy these I legit want one for a throw away phone
The bee incident: 24:00
Why do you upload at 12am?
On some smartphones EIS or some form of stabilization will reduce the fps like instead 30fps you get 15fps or instead 60fps you get 30fps .
I got one question.I have one question. Why do you ware band-aids on your thumbnails?
I am pretty sure, they mass produced many of them and just enabled/disabled some features. Thats why there is the handbiometrics. It potentially could have had fingerprint scanner.
Yeah, probably an ODM device so it can be configured specifically for carriers and manufacturers
31:55
he's never heard rasputin
This is my favorite channel for someone completely dissecting random cheap phones. Thank you!
If the day comes where you get free samples of every major phone release as well, your channel will be the only phone channel I ever need.
Your reviews go more in depth than 20 different channels spliced together.
For real.
Nah
Having a Snapdragon chipset, let alone 600-series on a no-name brand smartphone is still an achievement. Cheaper phones like this are usually powered by crappy MTK chipsets (prior to Dimensity & G series) & outdated Android OS. This phone, during its release (2015 or 2016?), was on-par with HTC One A9, ZTE Axon 7 Mini & of course, Mi 4i (during Hugo Barra's Xiaomi era). Granted that Mi 4i used the overclocked version of SD 615 but still, it was a mid-range chipset & international market got this instead of the more powerful SD 801 China-exclusive Mi 4.
funny that you mention mi 4i, this phone appears to be a clone of it..
It's Digidou phone, not a no name phone.
This phone might actually be a ZTE Blade S6 Plus. The ZTE has the 615 in it, which is basically the same as the 616, same front and rear cameras, same sized display but ZTE is slightly higher resolution.
its a mi 4i clone
the phones look very similar, but the insides are completely different
its cool to see a clone device without the sketchy fake specs or anything, and thats comparable to the original!
@@catofthekittenIt might be a design copy but I doubt the intent was to make an actual clone. Clones usually have terrible mediatek processors, not snapdragons.
This is honestly a phone I'd definitely buy if I was struggling financially.
Yea or some people aren't looking for the best of the best this will do very well.
I bet consumer cellular or some of those other networks marketed towards older generations carry something like this. Seems perfect for most non tech savvy people.
if I was struggling I'd buy an iPhone 6 or an SE, they're that price and work fine
@@LovelyAlanna yeah, if you want iMessage
I could just buy an used Galaxy S8 or even an S9 for about the same money but much more value.
You found a genuinely decent yet outdated device, love to see it! It's a real shame that there's no SD slot though, otherwise this looks like it'd make a pretty darn good little music player or such.
well, you would still fit a decent bunch of music in 16gb, and can also stream some more, so should be alright
@@jan_harald On 16GB, assuming the system eats away 2GB, the system cache after some time weights 2GB, and a few apps to fit your needs (EQ/Booster, VLC, Spotify, TH-cam, etc) weigh around ~2-3GB, you already only have 9GB left. To me and for people who have big libraries, that's already not enough, and that's *only* if we use this as a music player. Also, if said people had money for something better like an iPod Classic+Rockbox, they wouldn't get this.
On the other hand, CyanogenMod out of the box for ~57$ would be a great daily driver for someone who needs less distractions/things they can do on their phone besides normal tasks.
100% sure you could frankenstein some more storage on there with a little bit of soldering work.
@@jan_haraldThe main problem is that 16GB is the total storage. What's available for you to use is usually only around 10GB or so, and for a more or less dedicated music player that's pretty much nothing
@@Knaeckebrotsaege 320kbps mp3 is estimated to be 40KB per second, 2.40MB per minute, or 144MB per hour, 10GB/144MB = 69.44 HOURS of music
tell me again about "pretty much nothing"
not like it'd be worth putting your flac collection on there, anyway, and even if you did, a 24bit 96khz stereo raw PCM file (basically a wav), is still only about 2.0736GB per hour, so you'd STILL get like 4.823 HOURS of RAW audio
so "pretty much nothing" is bullshit, especially given that the cheapo devices aren't worth using raw audio on anyway
and another place finds that CD audio is 288KB/s (you'd get 9.645 HOURS OF RAW CD AUDIO), spotify extreme (Ogg Vorbis 320 stereo) is same as my mp3 math (40kbps), "apple lossless" (ALAC 757 kbps stereo) would last 29.354 HOURS, and so on
the fact you can't have 100+ hours of high-quality music does *NOT* mean it's "pretty much nothing", ya dumbo, a normal person could hold AT LEAST ~30 hours of music, and most likely around 60 hours, in any case, more than a full day of non-stop playback, which would probably still let you listen without repeat, for at least 2 or 3 days (since about half the day you're sleeping, or at home, anyway, and could use better equipment)
We defintely had this and one other similar with better CPU and more RAM as Vodafone brand phone. You could only buy it with their mobile plans.
I'm pretty sure the back plate is also the Vodafone logo upside down!
Vodaphone smart turbo 7
What a journey it has been. The first 4G Welcome phone has been discovered. After a couple of years of you making these videos you have finally made it haha. This was by far the best Welcome phone you've reviewed so far. Thoroughly enjoyed the video as always.
Maybe because it isn't a Welcome phone.
No, the soyes was the first 4G welcome
@@account-now-closed Ah I don't remember that one to be honest. Still I'd guess this thing is better than any previous phone he's reviewed in the past. Probably the first to feature honest specs as well.
@@nsp6590 This is far from the first to feature honest specs
@@nsp6590 yes but it's not a welcome device😅
"I miss aero effects" I don't have to miss them at all because I'm watching this on a Vista machine! I don't give up what I love for the sake of updating!
I still use Vista daily at work. What a gorgeous OS. I love it.
@@hrq007 Unfortunately where I work we're stuck with Windows 10, with about a couple hundred icons on the desktop across two monitors. Boss, have you ever heard of pinning to taskbar?
Good gracious! The number of details and the dedication that you've put in this video is superb. On the topic for this phone, yeah it's a good one if it's still 2016.
When I saw Trebuchet I knew it was going to be a CyanogenMod rom. That's pretty wild.
5.1.1 I think was CM12.1? That's actually pretty sweet.
Wait, so this phone already comes with a Custom ROM from the manufacturer? Without having to install manually?
*I NEED IIIIIIIIT!!!*
@@ShadowGD_OfficialYT It doesn't have a standard CM build number, but when he is flipping through the shortcuts there are a lot of CM programs in there and Trebuchet is Cyanogen's default launcher.
It's possible they pinched some of it, but it was probably just as easy to rework a CM12.1 build made for a similar device
I think that's the main reason it doesn't have volte
@@yeshuinfinity5963 CyanogenMod "sometimes" had volte settings. It has been a while so I don't recall if it was even available by default or if it had to be flagged during the build.
Not to mention around that time (2015/2016) a lot of devices that "supported" volte had it disabled in the baseband by default.
@@greyshadow9498 it had to be flashed separately I remember it as I had to do that enable it in one of my old device back in the day
Considering the launcher is Trebuchet and the file manager is the one from CyanogenMod/LineageOS, it's safe to assume the ROM is based on a custom ROM.
Also, that exact camera app is used on LineageOS. I have LineageOS installed on a phone right next to me. It has that camera app pre-installed.
I think it's called Snapdragon Camera.
Makes sense. The amount of customization is greater than the usual android OS.
That is the best mic I ever heard on your channel from any phone. This is shockingly good with a nice looking box!
Hmm I noticed on the listing image for the box it says "公测版", which rougly translates to like "Public Beta"
Could explain the weird bands, mention of no play store, cayanogen mod and root access
Isn't Google Play Store disabled in China? Or at the very least a very limited play store? So maybe a a very cheap domestic Chinese phone repurposed to be sold internationally? EDIT: Wait NVM it does have Google play despite the listing saying it doesn't
Maybe they put a custom rom on it because the Chinese version uses barebones android without most google stuff
I think this video was great. Maybe a series where you try to find decent cheap phones from China instead of the fake/clones?
Your telstra call failed because this device doesn't support VoLTE, tried to fall back to 3G but Telstra 3G is 850MHz which this doesn't support. On Optus and Vodafone the calls are going over 3G 900, but data is 4G 1800/2100. After July 2024 this either won't do calls at all or only on Optus
I am just waiting for this channel to explode.. And deserved :)
Man what a throwback, this phone feels straight out of 2015ish
Hold down on the torch icon in the notification bar, some phones let you change the torch brightness and usually start on 2/5.
That file manager on that phone that you said supposedly is stock is actually the Cyanogenmod file manager, which means the phone could be custom rommed, however it’s quite rare to have a custom rommed phone from Aliexpress
i think it's not running a custom rom, but it's definitely running a qcom flavor of AOSP. came with trebuchet launcher and some of phones running this software also came with cyanogenmod profile switcher (i previously had a phone called andromax and i can tell it right away that software feels almost the same)
and there's cyanogenmod/lineage file manager too.
I'm reminded of when I poked around around in the hidden AOSP settings on BOOX tablets and e-readers, I found some references referencing Qualcomm AOSP builds, like Qualcomm bug reporting, and in CPU-Z, the device manufacturer name being reported as Qualcomm instead of Onyx (likely in order to get Google Play Services working without certification, since Android doesn't officially support e-paper from what I can tell).
Greetings from Manchester.
Haven't you heard the song Rasputin? That was the tune you just played. Top tune back in the days.
This poor cat of yours have you considered leaving her out in the garden whilst you're there with a light lead so you'll have her under your control?
If you can flash a newer version of Android on this it will be a perfect budget phone.
That would be a good follow up video to this
Android 5 can run most if not all major apps. I am using 4.4 and downloading older versions of apps is enough to get by without another device.
@@mal0gen Funny that, because my main phone (Moto Z Play) is on android 8 and I'm already starting to lose app support for a ton of things. Trying to use an android 6 or older device these days is quite painful because you have to start digging for older, still compatible app versions, and even then they likely rely on some online service that blocks you from using it, telling you to update the app which you can't. That's what made my 2nd gen Moto G, my HTC One M7 and my LG G3-on-life-support pretty much useless, which is annoying because especially the G3 has _excellent_ specs, but you can't flash a more modern custom ROM cause no more bootloader unlocks (LG mobile is dead), so it's stuck on ancient 4.4 kitkat
The fact that this phone is better than the current old phone I am using (since I broke my newer one, lmao) surprises me, the only thing my old phone is better than is that it runs a newer version of Android... lmao.
Me:"What are you? 616? 615? 400? Why cant you be reliable?"
The phone:"yes"
They used Cynogenmod custom rom by default in this phone denoted by the launcher, file manager and the customization options in the settings.
Happy Saturday SMOOREZ! Great upload / content as always.
That start up sound is the ZTE blade start up
The song you Heard w on radio was a disco song from the 80's call " Raspoutine"
I was gonna say sounds like a sad song that would be in a 80s movie
31:50 - this song is Rasputin by Boney M.
1977, in case that matters to anyone.
Hey mate, I actually decided to purchase one of these phones from your Aff link cause you done a great review of covering everything, I paid AU$89 bucks though and it arrived to me today which was decently quick, but it is totally defective. When i first turned it on it vibrates and controls itself and closes apps automatically and also any app or setting i try open up on the phone it will vibrate and go back to the home page. The home buttons on the phone seem to be the issue like they are over sensitive (even though I am not even touching them!) and causing this fault to happen. Then the phone turned itself off while there was still plenty of charge in the battery, because i noticed like yours in this video, my phone was also sent to me with 100% full charge. Now after turning itself off the phone will now not turn on at all. I have contacted the seller and hopefully they will reimburse me my $90 bucks, the phone is totally fkd and unusable. Keep up the great videos mate, Happy New Year to ya from Perth WA
Damn its nice phone... I love those boxes for those cheap Chinese phones... I just love boxes :D I have whole closet of every phone I had. Also I think games suck a bit mostly because slow and low memory as Snapdragon 6xx or even 4xx should run GTA smooth(as I tried few times). As for IMEI, all sites say its simcom A318 that is bigger wireless/GPS module for laptop... a bit weird...
Thanks so much for that :)
I thought the box was nifty. Considering nowadays boxes for phones aren't fun at all. This came with an actual story!
Simcom a318. What a journey of finding out what this thing is. Others already told me but yeah it has like 4 different names.
That listing description might be the most honest wish description yet.
Your timestamp disclaimer just got you another subscriber!
16:16 is snapdragon own battery management app, it is found in old snapdragon chip-set phones.
I love how the listing page just tells you "this is a cheap phone, pleas don't play games on it" haha I wish apple had that sincerity
Yeah , even it was written that they couldn't add sd card because of cost
Honestly this phone would be perfect as a music player since it has an analog headphone jack. If it had an expandable SD card slot, you could do so much more with it.
How do you not have more subs? Your videos are amazing! 10:51
Cool!!!....Smoorez vid!.. haven't had a good laugh or seen any good content since his last video... Whenever I'm depressed or in a bad mood I just watch me some Smoorez..and realize how good I got it lmao..😂
31:48 I'm surprised you've never heard Rasputin 😂
6:00
"you better leave this place
Leave DUANG"
Have you looked up those Hanzi using Google Translate app?
5:45-6:01 The "DUANG" word is an onomatopoeia first spoken by Jackie Chan in 2004 Bawang Shampoo ad. It became popular in 2015 when a netizen uploaded a remix video consisted of the shampoo ad and tune from Pang Mai Lang's viral song "My Skate Shoes (我的滑板鞋)" to Bilibili website. (paraphrased from Wikipedia and CGTN America) 😁
The track on the radio was "Rasputin by Boney M"..I'm old enough to remember the track when it was released.
Just discovered your channel. I enjoy the content. Keep it going.
Brings back memory of the moto e 1st gen!
it's not bad for such a low budget device, i still have a lollipop smartphone and yeah he died with that. cool tbh a little to "low" but at least it's way better that any welcome device. cool to see the dj phone again! and i was thinking the same thing, swapping the black with blue lol it looks way cooler than black.
My old phone just died this summer, after serving for 11 fucking years. It was of the same type - cheap and noname, but honest, not trying to look like something else or to sell some gimmick and running stock android 4.0.4. And it has been through some rough shit - its been dropped countless times, used as an improvised blunt tool and as a hard surface, i have gotten caught by rains and fallen into water with it in my pocket many times, and it survived all of it, but sadly couple months ago it slipped out of my pocket and fell into a swampy shallow when i was fishing and i failed to notice it for like 30 seconds. And thus, it will forever remain and my memory as a hero that it was (and it's corpse will forever remain in my desk)
Trebuchet is the cyanogen mod launcher (now lineage os). Crazy throw back to see this icon lol. Remembering installing it on my old arc s 😂
I didn't expect this phone to actually have a good heat dissipation, especially for the price.
This is the first time i see a generic phone with Cyanogenmod preinstalled.
MSM8939 is software compatible with the MSM8916 from which they partially reused the software. That's why the two different model numbers show up.
I wonder if this phone has secure boot off considering that it came with CyanogenMod out of the box.
I can recall having a pretty similar device in the past but it was a Cubot, and it had biometrics, I have a review about it on my channel! It's amazing these nuggets are still out up for grabs on the market at such outrageous prices!
The catto said his name is Simon 😸
Also that was Boney M you Philistine lol 😋
I think this phone is the example of all of us complaining about the fake spec phones that would actually be a decent device if sold as is with its true specs. Basically let it be itself.
25:31 - You should consider getting the black stripes on Ripley's head done as a tattoo on you!
first time i hear you excited about the iwish device.
Nice looking phone, I had a cubot note S years ago, very cheap, it worked well for two years.
IMEI shows as a Simcom Wireless Solutions Co Ltd A318, which isn't the most snappy of names
It reminded me of a Samsung J6 I had in 2017 , that didn't have NFC but did have a finger print sensor
That notifications light actually really cool
10:06 did anyone notice "HMz" instead of "MHz" in the radio app icon?
Hegamertz
The lack of microsd card slot is a deal breaker.
I am hoping to see more surprisngly good aliexpress phones since this one was quite impressive for what it is. maybe someday a 4G android 10 or newer one
You could solve your lemon problem by putting them in a box and leaving them on the footpath saying free.
Damn, functional, cheap, clean. What the hell is going on... this would be perfect for a kid.
Ah yes, the hegamertz radio frequencies...
this phone has cyanogenmod, i bet it does, i think it has version 12.1 and possibly rooted, and being android 5 device and having a snapdragon processor, it's much easier to root like old times
all I can see is the Camera-Speaker-Sensor as the ._.-emoji
I like that
what a beautiful little phone! I would love this phone as my secondary, or even my main
the button he called "recents" is actually the "menu options" button
That company logo is literally just the vodafone logo in black/grey and rotated 180°.
come to think of it, it would be kinda interesting for you to review old flagships to see whether or not it has volte or not
from sammy, nexus etc
and since they're super cheap might be an interesting series
except sony fuc sony no volte since the Dino's era
I recieved my own, good lord , the definition of cheap had to be updated in my mind to this thing.
It's a custom rom, jufging from trebuchet , thats a file manager by " cyanogen mod " now lineage.
Cyanoogen Mod... i havent heard that name since circa 2014
Trebuchet is the launcher actually, but yeah it seems to be a custom rom. Shame it's such an old one 🫤
@@Falco95 I had custom roms on my phones sometimes. I remembered it wrong 😀, glad you remembered it. But it was definately an app seen in those roms.
Cheers.
Not gonna lie, this phone gets a big W from me. I'd like to buy that phone just for the box. I'm a big fan for the design 🤩
Also the navigation button are cool tho. I really love the LED notification. No wonder it has a best quality because it has Snapdragon chipset in it
Looks like the Redmi Note 5A, maybe this this company is the ODM for xiaomi? Judging by manufacture date and overall design and display being incredibly similar
Wow this was a very nice surprise! ;D
This will make a really good phone to sell at my local CVS Pharmacy.
@SMOOREZ I see you with the bliss os iso! How's your experience with it?
This thing is from what I'd call the golden era of mid-range phones, where even noname-y stuff like this came with a good CPU (ie Snapdragon instead of any other trash), good display, decent amount of RAM and other features they could've easily left out but didn't (USB OTG, NFC etc), but almost none of the devices from that time frame have a) a decent amount of internal storage (32GB at the _very_ minimum) and/or b) a microSD slot. This annoyed me massively back then and still does today tbh
I'm surprised at how decent that phone is. And also; I'm surprised at how decent the seller seems to be. I'd rather stick with buying used flagships and/or heavily subsidized - late model - new - name brand - prepaid phones for the same money. But; for anyone who doesn't have that option I'm glad this Santin exists. It's an atoll in a vast sea of mediocrity.
My guess is that they put AOSP (Android Open Source Project) on them, and then marketed them as new phones.
This is what my mom got when she bought Blackberry Aurora, a stock 7.1 but with "Blackberry" brand.
btw if you looking for faraway AC : 22:37
This phone are kinda remind me to my secondary phone which are using CyanogenMod 12.1
The camera is surprisingly good!
Agreed .i was not expecting this camera to be good though 😂
The logo on the plug is actually the Logo for network provider VODAFONE in the UK 😂😂
It looks like it's just using the Trebuchet Launcher which is made by the Cyanogen mod team. I guess it could be a straight barebines build of Android Lollipop someone put out but I think it's just the base version.
That song is Rasputin By Bony M, pretty good old song though.
That noise that the phone makes when you were testing the NFC, my phone ocasasionally spams that noise when I'm holding it weird. Does it make that noise for any other reason? Is my phones' NFC ocasionally going mad and detecting my debit card or something?
likely
About this logo... Isn't that a Qualcomm logo?
That leads me to assume that it's actually a Qualcomm test phone for other manufacturers so they can check the specs under ideal conditions.
you should probably flip the timestamps and descriptions in the description, so that youtube can auto-make chapters on desktop!
This looks quite similar to the BLU phone I had 5 years ago, except that ran I think either android 7 or 8, and also had 4g, and only cost me £50 from amazon. It was a pretty bad phone though and for only £10 more you could get a Vodafone that was much more capable (the one I had was just a rebounded ZTE phone).
If I search the model number on TH-cam, it comes up with a bunch of snapdragon phones. Santin infact. On happyhere’s store page, they have a santin phone, and that phone also comes up on TH-cam when model number is searched. The story continues I guess. The file system looks like a root file manager. Pretty sure it is custom rom capable. All the videos are in Russian too.
Strange to have the function buttons on the left side of the device. I wonder if this was branded as a phone for lefthanders...
Meanwhile in the UK we have: E, 2G, H+, 3G, 4G, in most the country and 4G LTE, 5G, 5G+ in the cities (basically we kept them all running so it's strange to see Australia turning off old networks and making extra e-waste with the thousands of 3G phones still around at least in Australia)
keeping old infrastructure is also wasting energy , band and money
2G = gsm, gprs and edge (E)
3G = umts (3G), hspa (H) and hspa+ (H+)
4G = LTE, LTE-A/4G+
5G =5G/5G+
BTW in Czechia we got rid of 3G band too. It was replaced by 5G. And because you can connect to the lte or lte-a in 99% of our country, nobody cared about 3G. Mandatory is only 2G because of the best coverage and support from the all phones. (for emergency calls)
@@mirek190 not here it's not as we actually use them and plenty of people with 3G phones still as they work and haven't been forced upgraded by tatics like this 😂😂
@@romanc189 different versions all over the country hence why I labeled all the ones we have
@@BaileyMagikz always excuses ... Keeping old systems like 2g or 3g is expensive and slowing down and limiting newer 4g or 5g in speed and coverage.
Did Australia have a 3G/UMTS Network in Use in 2023? The most of the States / Country's have Ended the 3G/UMTS Networks. So, Only 2G and GPRS and 4G/LTE 5G Support is more Available.
that looks like one of the old vodaphone smarts we had in the uk but im sure they where just stamped with a logo maybe they just used the same stamp copyright isnt a thing in china apparently