Oukitel officially entered the Malaysian market earlier this week. They not only shared the meaning of the Oukitel brand, they also revealed three new 2017 smartphones – the Oukitel K6000 Plus, the Oukitel U16 Max and the Oukitel U20 Plus.
Who & What Is Oukitel?
Shenzhen OUKI Digital Electronic Co. Ltd has been in the business of designing and manufacturing smartphones since 2007. Two years later, they ventured into the consumer market with their Ouki brand in China.
The brand, Oukitel, was created in 2015 specifically for the international market. So what does Oukitel mean? Believe it or not, it is short for U & I for OK Life.
The 2017 Oukitel Smartphones Presentation
This video offers a short primer on the Oukitel C, K and U series; and the new Oukitel K6000 Plus, the Oukitel U16 Max and the Oukitel U20 Plus smartphones.
The Oukitel Smartphone Series Explained
Oukitel smartphones are divided into three series :
Oukitel C Series – affordable smartphones
Oukitel K Series – smartphones with large batteries
Oukitel U Series – premium smartphones
The Oukitel K6000 Plus
Announced in MWC 2017, the Oukitel K6000 Plus is a 5.5″ smartphone with a full HD LTPS display. It runs on Android 7.0, and is powered by the octa-core MediaTek MT6750T. It has 4 GB of memory and 64 GB of internal flash storage.
The Oukitel K6000 Plus has a 16 MP main camera, which uses the Sony IMX298 sensor; and an 8 MP front camera with 80° wide-angle lens. But arguably, its biggest feature is the large 6,080 mAh battery that supports 12V/2A fast charging.
The Oukitel U16 Max
The Oukitel U16 Max has a 6″ HD LTPS display, with an aluminium alloy body. It runs on Android 7.0, and is powered by the 1.3 GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6753 SOC. It has 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of internal storage.
The U16 Max features a 13 MP main camera, with a 5 MP front camera. It also boasts a large 4,000 mAh battery, which supports 5V/1.5A quick charge.
The Oukitel U20 Plus
The Oukitel U20 Plus (Amazon | Lazada) features a 5.5″ Full HD display, with a polycarbonate body. It runs on Android 6.0, and is powered by the 1.5 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6737T SOC. It has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage.
The Oukitel U20 Plus (Amazon | Lazada) has a dual-lens camera with a 13 MP Sony IMX135 sensor, and a 0.3 MP secondary sensor. For selfies, it has a 5 MP front camera. It also boasts a 3,300 mAh battery, which supports 5V/1.5A quick charge.
The Oukitel K6000 Plus, U16 Max & U20 Plus Price & Availability
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The Oukitel K6000 Plus is available in Malaysia this April with an official price of RM 999 / ~US$ 219. Oukitel will offer it in two colour options – Gray and Gold.
The Oukitel U16 Max is available in Gray and Gold colour options as well this April, for RM 889 / ~US$ 199.
The Oukitel U20 Plus (Amazon | Lazada) is available right now at RM 639 / ~US$ 139, with three colour options – Jet Black, Gray and Gold.
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The ASUS ZenFone 2 family of smartphones and phablets was notable for its use of Intel Atom processors, as well as their ambidextrous design. While the Intel Atom processors were powerful, they guzzled power and had trouble gaining traction in the smartphone market.
Hence, it comes as no surprise when ASUS revealed in Computex 2016 that the new ZenFone 3 series would be powered by Qualcomm processors instead. That decision probably contributed to Intel’s decision to quit the smartphone market for good.
Here is how the ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) compares against the other two ZenFone 3 models :
Specifications
ZenFone 3 Deluxe (ZS570KL)
ZenFone 3 Ultra (ZU680KL)
ZenFone 3 (ZE552KL)
Display
5.7" Super AMOLED
(1920 x 1080 pixels, 386 ppi)
79% screen-to-body ratio
3,000,000 : 1
contrast ratio
ASUS TruVivid technology
Bluelight Filter
6.8" IPS display
full-screen lamination
(1920 x 1080 pixels, 324 ppi)
79% screen-to-body ratio
178˚wide-viewing angle
ASUS TruVivid technology
Bluelight Filter
5.5" Super IPS+ display
(1920 x 1080 pixels, 401 ppi)
500 nits brightness
77.3% screen-to-body ratio
2.1mm slim bezel
Protection
Corning Gorilla Glass 4
Corning Gorilla Glass 4
2.5D contoured Corning Gorilla Glass
Operating System
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
ASUS ZenUI 3.0
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
ASUS ZenUI 3.0
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
ASUS ZenUI 3.0
SoC Platform
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820
(MSM8996)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 652
(MSM8976)
Qualcomm Snapdragon 625
(MSM8953)
Processor
Quad-core Kyro (2.15 GHz)
4 x ARM Cortex-A72 (1.8 GHz)
4 x ARM Cortex-A53 (1.4 GHz)
4 x ARM Cortex-A53 (2.0 GHz)
4 x ARM Cortex-A53 (1.4 GHz)
Graphics Processor
Qualcomm Adreno 530 (624 MHz)
Qualcomm Adreno 510
Qualcomm Adreno 506
Memory
Up to 6 GB
Up to 4 GB LPDDR3
Up to 4 GB LPDDR3
Storage
Up to 128 GB (UFS 2.0) internal flash storage
microSD slot (Supports up to 2 TB)
Up to 128 GB internal flash storage
microSD slot (Supports up to 2 TB)
Up to 64 GB internal flash storage
microSD slot (Supports up to 2 TB)
Front Camera
8 MP, f/2.0 aperture
85˚ wide-viewing angle, Auto Focus
8 MP, f/2.0 aperture
85˚ wide-viewing angle, Auto Focus
8 MP, f/2.0 aperture, Fixed Focus
Rear Camera
23 MP Sony IMX318 sensor
0.03 second TriTech auto-focus
6P Largan f/2.0 aperture lens
4 Stop OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)
3-Axis EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization)
Dual-LED real tone flash
Sapphire lens protection
23 MP Sony IMX318 sensor
0.03 second TriTech auto-focus
6P Largan f/2.0 aperture lens
32 second long exposure
4 Stop OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)
3-Axis EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization)
Dual-LED real tone flash
16 MP Sony IMX298 sensor
0.03 second TriTech auto-focus
6P Largan f/2.0 aperture lens
32 second long exposure
4 Stop OIS (Optical Image Stabilization)
3-Axis EIS (Electronic Image Stabilization)
Dual-LED real tone flash
Sapphire lens protection
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The ASUS ZenFone 3 (ZE552KL) Smartphone
With a 5.5″ display, the ASUS ZenFone 3 (ZE552KL) is the smallest model in the family. However, because all three ZenFone 3 models have the same Full HD resolution of 1080 x 1920, the its display boasts the highest pixel density of 401 ppi. The much larger ZenFone 3 Ultra (ZE680KL), for example, has a pixel density of only 324 ppi.
The ZenFone 3 (Amazon) has a very premium feel, thanks to its use of 2.5D contoured Corning Gorilla Glass that seamlessly fits the metal frame carved out of aerospace-grade aluminium alloy. It has a nice heft at 155 g / 5.5 oz – not too light, and not too heavy.
Unlike the ZenFone 3 Ultra, the ZenFone 3 (Amazon) uses a more conventional design – the Volume buttons are placed on the right side, with the Power button. The SIM card tray is placed on the left side. So this is no longer the ambidextrous design that ASUS ZenFones are known for.
The ZenFone 3 also features an improved 5-magnet speaker with Hi-Res Audio support. Not only does it deliver higher fidelity audio, it is now 20% louder with 42% less distortion.
Hybrid SIM & Fingerprint Sensor
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) has Dual SIM, Dual Standby capability, with both SIMs supporting 4G. The SIM card tray is located along the left edge, and supports two nano SIM cards. The second SIM card tray is a hybrid SIM tray, which allows you to install a microSD card instead. In other words, it supports either a second nano SIM card, or a microSD card, but not both at the same time.
Unlike the ZenFone 3 Ultra, the ZenFone 3 (Amazon) uses a fingerprint sensor that is located at the back, just under the main camera. This is an all-aspect fingerprint sensor that unlocks the smartphone in just 0.2 seconds. It can also be programmed to activate specific apps (like the camera) with different fingers.
PixelMaster 3.0 Cameras
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) sports a decent 8 MP front camera with f/2.0 lens for selfies. While not as good as the 16 MP front camera of the OPPO F1s “Selfie Expert” smartphone, it has a higher resolution than the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, and is capable of recording 1080p videos. The only downside? It doesn’t support screen flash.
The killer feature of the ZenFone 3 (Amazon) is the much improved PixelMaster 3.0 camera at the back. It features a 16 MP Sony IMX298 sensor with new features like fast hybrid autofocus and 3-axis electronic image stabilization.
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ASUS paired it with f/2.0 Largan lens with 4-axis, 4-stop optical image stabilization, and a second-generation laser auto-focus sensor.
What all that means is you can capture very high resolution photos and videos in poorly-lit conditions. Any blurring that occurs due to hand shakes and wobbles will be greatly reduced or eliminated.
Focusing is also much faster, thanks to the new laser sensor that accurately detects the range of objects in low light at up to 1.5 m away.
In addition to 1080p videos, the PixelMaster 3.0 camera can also shoot 4K videos. To top it off, it encodes the 4K videos using HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) to keep the file size small while maintaining a high level of image quality.
Finally, the ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) does not have any noticeable limit on how long you can record videos, or how large their file sizes are. We have recorded videos of over 120 minutes in length, and over 11 GB in size. Most smartphones have a 4 GB limit, even if they do not have a time limit.
Setting Up The ZenFone 3
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, which should be familiar to many Android users. It is very easy to setup. If you are setting it up as a new device, it should take you only 5 minutes to finish the setup process.
If there’s one thing we dislike, it’s the additional apps that the ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) automatically downloads, even if you skip the “free apps” offer at the end of the setup process. Our sample downloaded Need For Speed : No Limit, SimCity, Lazada, Beauty Plus, iReader and Google Slides.
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Ergonomics
When you power it up for the first time, you will be struck by how beautiful its display is. This may not be a QHD display like those on the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (Amazon) or the HTC 10 (Amazon), but you won’t be able to tell the difference. The Super IPS+ display also offers a boost in brightness (up to 500 nits), which is especially useful outdoors in bright sunlight.
The smaller form factor means it is an easier fit for most hands. The ZenFone 3 (Amazon) is also much lighter than its big brother, the ZenFone 3 Ultra – so holding it in one hand is not a problem at all. That said, the Gorilla Glass back makes it just as slippery to grip as the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (Amazon).
Available Memory & Storage
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) comes with either 3 GB or 4 GB of LPDDR3 memory. Our review sample came with 4 GB of memory. Only 3.5 GB was usable, of which 1.1 GB was used by the Android operating system and background apps. This left 2.4 GB of free memory for us to use. That’s more than enough memory to run multiple memory-guzzling apps simultaneously.
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) also comes with a generous amount of internal storage – 64 GB. Out of the box, just under 52 GB was available for use. That should be plenty enough for most users, but is expandable via a microSD card (up to 2 TB). It also comes with 100 GB of free Google Drive storage for 2 years.
Camera Performance – Photos
The resolution of the new PixelMaster 3.0 camera is very good. The full 16 MP resolution is attained with the 4:3 aspect ratio. Each picture has a resolution of 4656 x 3492 and a file size of 3.5-5 MB.
Here are six high-resolution samples for you to check out. Click on them to load the full-sized photos, which you can also download to examine.
The Sony Exmor-RS IMX298 is a really good sensor. The colours are vivid but not unnaturally so. However, the highlights are blown out. This was not so much of a problem with the IMX318 sensor used in the ZenFone 3 Ultra.
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Camera Performance – Video Recording
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) is capable of recording 1080p and 4K videos, with both 4-axis optical and 3-axis electronic image stabilisation enabled. To test its video recording capabilities, we recorded a street market and a koi pond in daylight, and a night dance as well. They were all recorded in both 1080p and 4K resolutions. Check them out!
The videos show how helpful the advanced optical and electronic image stabilisation is in the ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon). While it may not be quite as smooth as an actual gimbal like the DJI Osmo Mobile, it is a great improvement on what we saw with the previous-generation ASUS smartphones, like the ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser.
The amount of detail captured, especially in the 4K videos, is amazing. However, you can also see how the highlights are blown out. This is especially noticeable in the bright background of the Piano and Night Dance videos.
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Work Performance – PCMark
We tested the ZenFone 3’s performance using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
ASUS ZenFone 3
ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra
HTC 10
honor 8
Work Performance Score
(Average)
6405
6313
6105
6350
Web Browsing
8045
6257
5782
8073
Video Playback
3469
4287
3321
4396
Writing
7316
7166
7463
6231
Photo Editing
8246
8262
9694
7352
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor powering the ZenFone 3 (Amazon) did very well in this test, besting the ZenFone 3 Ultra (Snapdragon 652), the HTC 10 (Snapdragon 820) and the honor 8 (Kirin 950).
Battery Life – PCMark
We then tested the ZenFone 3’s battery performance using PCMark. It basically ran the PCMark work tests until its battery capacity dropped to 20%.
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) only comes with a 3,000 mAh battery, but it lasted almost 12 hours in this test! This is 22 minutes longer than the battery life of its big brother, the ZenFone 3 Ultra, which boasts a 53% larger 4,600 mAh battery. This is excellent battery life.
Battery Recharging Performance
The ASUS ZenFone 3 comes with a 10 W fast charger. Take a look at how fast it recharges the 3,000 mAh battery.
It took us 99 minutes (1 hour 39 minutes) to recharge the ZenFone 3 (Amazon) from 19% to 100%. That’s a battery life : recharging ratio of 7:1 – very impressive!
As the charger does not support any fancy fast charging technologies like Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, the charging profile is a relatively flat curve. It showed slightly faster charging up to the 70% charge level, before tapering off a little.
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Overall Performance
AnTuTu is a nice benchmark for testing various performance aspects of Android devices.
ASUS ZenFone 3
ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra
HTC 10
honor 8
TOTAL SCORE
62761
76096
113813
90737
3D SCORE
13022
18816
50700
17706
– 3D (Marooned)
7906
10861
34778
9829
– 3D (Garden)
5116
7952
15922
7877
UX SCORE
23789
26794
30890
34550
– UX Data Secure
5847
5077
6319
7338
– UX Data Process
3109
4198
3379
5513
– UX Strategy Games
4254
7503
5433
9745
– UX Image Process
7443
6879
9521
5017
– UX I/O Performance
3136
3137
6238
6937
CPU SCORE
20342
23689
21915
32255
– CPU Mathematics
4226
6950
8494
10483
– CPU Common Use
6593
6311
5931
8543
– CPU Multi-Core
9523
10428
7490
13229
RAM
5608
6797
10308
6226
The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) is not going to win any gaming awards. It was fast in 2D graphics and CPU processing, but performed poorly in the 3D tests. It was far slower than top-of-the-line smartphones like the HTC 10, and even some mid-range smartphones like the Kirin 950-powered honor 8.
Gaming Performance – 3DMark
We tested the ZenFone 3’s gaming performance using 3DMark, using the Ice Storm Unlimited test.
ASUS ZenFone 3
ASUS ZenFone 3 Ultra
HTC 10
honor 8
Gaming Score
13956
17719
23171
18659
Graphics
13484
21124
27512
19993
Physics
15903
11328
14925
15127
Graphics Test 1
80.5 fps
115.2 fps
136.6 fps
122.5 fps
Graphics Test 2
46.1 fps
76.3 fps
106.4 fps
67.4 fps
Physics Test
50.5 fps
36.0 fps
47.4 fps
48.0 fps
The Qualcomm Adreno 506 GPU in the ZenFone 3 (Amazon) is no 3D powerhouse and it shows. It was half as fast as the HTC 10 (Adreno 530), 36% slower than the ZenFone 3 Ultra (Adreno 510), and 33% slower than the honor 8 (ARM Mali-T880).
Our Verdict
The ZenFone 3 smartphone family represents a concerted effort by ASUS to break into the premium smartphone market. The ASUS ZenFone 3 (ZE552KL) model itself represents the tip of the spear. After all, it is the most affordable variant in the family.
Now, we must point out that this is not the best smartphone for 3D gaming. The ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) is very fast at 2D games, and work applications, but it falters in 3D gaming performance. But if you do not intend to play 3D games on it, this is a very good smartphone for everything else.
It has a really good front and back cameras. Yes, the highlights are overblown (can ASUS fix this in a firmware update please?), but the optical and electronic image stabilisation has been greatly improved. The resulting pictures and videos are quite amazing. They are sharp, and the colours vivid.
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The ZenFone 3 (Amazon) also supports 4K video recording, in addition to 1080p recording. And some of you might like to know that it can record videos of indefinite length and file size. No more 30 minute limit. No more 4 GB limit. Just awesome for recording events like your child’s football game or a friend’s wedding!
You will also love the long battery life and the short recharge time – something you will appreciate if you are always on-the-go and have little access to a power point. The same goes for its large memory and storage capacity. With 4 GB of memory, and 64 GB of flash storage, you will find it hard to run out of both.
And last but not, the ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) is a work of art. It exudes luxury with the 2.5D curved glass on both sides melding into the solid metal frame. That is a luxury that comes with a price premium – one that many will feel well worth it.
We are so impressed with the ASUS ZenFone 3 (Amazon) that we feel it deserves no less than our Reviewer’s Choice Award. Congratulations, ASUS!
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