By the time you read this review, the flash sale of Le 2 must have begun and if you are not lucky enough to get the device in the first sale then you can certainly try to get it in next sale if you are in the market for a budget phone. LeEco’s budget-segmented phone has all the trappings of a great device as it comes with very impressive hardware features such as 5.5-inch bezel-less In-Cell HD display (1920×1080 pixels), 1.8GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor combined with 3GB RAM and 32GB of internal storage,16MP rear camera, 8MP front shooter, fingerprint sensor and 3000mAh battery.
Besides the powerful hardware, this phone also comes with entertainment content package worth Rs. 4900 free for one year, which is slicing on the cake. This phone is priced Rs. 11,999 and let us see whether it is worth its price?
Design : From design perspective, this phone scores sixer as it has beautifully crafted full metal design and metal used in this phone is of premium quality. It has almost similar design language as of iPhone 6 on the back. Their is slightly bulging rear camera on the back and behind it is fingerprint sensor. Logo of the company is printed on the back which reads : Letv which is old name of LeEco. Their are two grey colored stripes on the top and at the bottom to give an effect to the design. On the right hand side of the phone are power button and volume rocker. The SIM tray is given on the right hand side having provision for inserting two SIMs. On the top front is front camera and navigation keys are behind the display which can’t be seen when the display is not on.
This phone is the first device to be provided with the USB type C audio headset, which the company calls it CDLA – Continual Digital Lossless Audio – for immersive audio experience. Whether this really worth the price as you will have to buy specialised audio headset for it worth Rs. 1990 from LeEco, which fortunately is coming bundled with the first sales, we shall share our experience later in this review. At the bottom of the phone is USB Type- C charging slot and two speaker grilles.
This is not bulky phone and the design of this phone is appealing and gives a very high-end device look.
Display : This phone has full HD display of 5.5 inch which has resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. Because of its bezel-less design the display looks even bigger. The display is very vibrant and sharp; it has brilliant color output and it is really treat to watch movies, all types of content and playing games. You can even enjoy browsing and watching content in the open. The display is suitable for most of the situations as it has various modes such as vivid, soft and natural and LeEco, which you can easily set-up in the settings section. The display of this phone is the best among various budget phones currently available in the market.
Camera : This phone is equipped with a 16MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture, Sony sensors, PDAF, Closed Loop, HDR and Dual-LED flash.The rear camera protrudes out slightly from the rest of the body but that does not look irritating. You can shoot videos with rear camera in 4K or full HD and is also capable of shooting slow motion videos. It also houses an 8MP front shooter which is more than enough for taking good selfies. The camera is quite fast as the moment you click it the image is captured. I have clicked some images with it without using any filter keeping in view of the fact that majority of us snap images at the spur of the moment and you can see the quality of these images for your self. The results are excellent, vibrant and bright. What else do you want from a camera when you are spending just Rs. 12,000?
Like any other phone, the camera of this phone also struggles when you shoot in low-light or in the night, but still the images turn out to be ok as far as detail is concerned but the colors reprodution is not upto the mark.
Software and Entertainment Content : This phone runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0 OS with LeEco’s own UI interface which provides themes and customs optimisation. It is very easy to handle the company’s own UI and we did not observe any bloatwares while operating the phone for few days. What we have liked the most was that when you press the recent navigation key behind the display, the display shows all the recently opened apps and icons of important functions such as camera, music, flash light etc. to operate it from there itself.
LeEco is the first company to provide variety of entertainment content on this phone which is one of the plus feature of this phone. The company is offering India specific entertainment package worth Rs. 4900 free for one year on purchase of this device which consist of 2000+ movies from across the world including 3000+ hours of curated shows, 150+ live TV channels and huge amonut of songs. Through LIVE and LeVies widgets, you are taken to the content page to select the TV shows or other content as per your choice.
Battery and Call Quality : This phone gets power from 3000mAh battey which is good enough for full day modest usage. The saving grace is that this phone has UB Type – C port for charging which is quite fast. Since this phone runs on Marshmallow, it has Doze mode feature and also incorporates other battery saver features which enable you to turn on seleted apps for prolonging the battery life.
This phone supports all 4G LTE bands of Indian networks and call quality is good and we did not notice any failure even in basements and in areas where signal quality of 4G was not good.
Fingerprint Scanner : has been provided on the back which is the most appropriate place to take your finger for opening the phone. It is quite fast and accurate and we did not experience any difficulty in awakening the phone.
Audio Quality : In the latest Le 2 and Le Max2, LeEco has replaced the traditional 3.5mm headphone port with the world’s first CDLA(Continual Digital Loseless Audio) Type-C headphone port. With this technology, the users will get immersive audio experience. We have tested the audio quality with CDLA Earphones which were provided to us alongwith the review unit and believe me the results were excellent. We can say that the sound reproduction is superb and is the best we have ever seen on a smartphone. It will be a treat to watch movies, TV shows and other content with these CDLA earphone. Even if you have to spend Rs. 2000 for this earphone, it is worth it.
Overall Performance : This phone is driven by new Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 octa-core processor which is very powerful with Adreno 510 GPU. It comes with 3 GB RAM and 32GB internal storage which is not expandable. We have not faced any lags or overheating issues while playing games such as Asphalt 8, Temple Run etc. Switching between the apps was quite smooth and the phone performs like a breeze in all respects.
Conclusion : LeEco’s latest offering is one of the best devices in mid-segment and its plus points are its design, very sharp display, mesmerizing rear camera, powerful processor and its CDLA Type-C headphone port. These features get boost from the huge amonut of content offering which make this phone must have for entertaining yourself with powerful features. The downside could be non-expandable internal storage and to some extent batttery back-up which in our opinion should have been 3500mAh upwards as majority of the users will use it heavily for watching contents on it.
We highly recommend Le 2 to those who want to spend just Rs. 12,000 and you will certainly love this device to hold and it will perform beyond its price.
How does LeEco Le 2 compare to other offerings in the same price range?