I’ve read a little about the Cubot X16 for the past few weeks but honestly wasn’t expecting too much, but once in your hand you realise that the Cubot X16 is cut from a different cloth.
Cubot are selling the X16 now for around 150 Euros through resellers, this is a price point were we see a lot of phones running 2GB RAM and a 1.3Ghz Mediatek MT6735A chipset so it is becoming increasingly difficult for Chinese phone makers to build a device that can stand out from the crowd.
It’s still to early for me to whole heartedly recommend the Cubot X16, but so far I am really impressed by the phone. It ships in a quality package, is wrapped up nice and securely in a thick plastic wrap, and comes with some useful (to newbies) guides and instructions.
Unboxing the Cubot X16 I was struck by the similarity between it and Vivo’s packaging. Cubot have obviously taken a look at Vivo (Oppo and OnePlus) to see how to package a phone correctly and it has paid off. Not only is the phone presented in a professional manner, but the device itself feels like something hitting higher than its price point might suggest.
The 5-inch phone boasts a 1920 x 1080 display from JDI, slim 6.2mm alloy chassis and glossy rear panel (I’m not sure if it is glass or plastic on the rear at this time). The Cubot X16 is 145g, which for its compact size feels a little heavier than usual in the hand, but this adds to the overall feel of quality that the already great build introduces.
Hardware includes the aforementioned 5-inch FHD JDI IPS display, 2GB RAM, 1.3Ghz Mediatek processor, dual SIM (micro and nano), SD card support (takes the place of the micro SIM), 16 mega-pixel rear camera (interpolated), 8 mega-pixel front camera (also interpolated), dual LED flash, and 2500mAh non-removable battery.
The OS on the Cubot X16 is Android 5.1 and it is mostly stock with the exceptions of added gesture support, and a few added features and neat UI in the camera application.
To see a phone of this build quality from Cubot is impressive. Cubot are generally a quiet phone maker but now and then they do show up with some interesting phones (remember the Qualcomm powered Cubot Zorro?). To compare to other recent phones of a similar price, the Cubot X16 looks and feels better than the UMi eMax mini and the Elephone M1.
Watch out for my Cubot X16 review coming soon.
QUICKLY NOW , Andi Chap :p !
we’re waiting on some exciting reviews !
The video ends while you are talking, I think that ain’t correct?
oh weird, need to see why, but all you missed was “thanks for watching”
Nice to see a different phone brand on here for a change that isn’t Elephone, OPO, Xiaomi or Doogee. They’ve managed to create a nice, thin and stylish looking phone, let’s hope it’s not let down by a poor rom.
i owned a Cubot in the past and the ROM is nearly stock android, not bad at all
I had one once too, the screen was awful and the camera was even worse! This looks a lot better though.
to be honest my camera made surprisely beautiful pictures.
the problem was that it stopped working in less than a month.
I’m curious to see how this phone does, hopefully they learn from their mistakes.
Andi – has Cubot stopped putting malware on their devices? After the scare, pretty hard to recommend this brand..
when will you unbox the letv 1s?? can’t wait
Looks really nice that phone there Andi. I have found out that the off screen gestures use about 5% of battery on standby, So to keep in mind, but really nice to impress the uneducated … Also REALKY LOOKS NICE
i had a Cubot in the past and in my opinion you get what you pay for.
the phone might look good at a first look but true is that it’s really cheap made.
my rear camera stopped working about 25 days after the purchase of the phone and i had a dead pixel on the screen about 2 months later.
I owned one Cubot and it was pretty good. My only complaint was the camera was not good. Build quality was excellent and the software was pretty much stock and never had any issues.
My experience with the cubot x9 was average to slightly negative. Software had a lot of bugs. The phones are unpopular meaning a lack of custom roms. Hardware is okay except the camera wich is awfull.