LeEco Le 1s Review - After a month's use

LeEco(or Letv as it was formally called) launched its first two smartphones in India in the beginning of February this year. Some people may look at it as just another Chinese company trying to make inroads in India but, to be frank LeEco is slightly different as it is one of the first or maybe only Chinese company to follow the concept of creating an ecosystem of products called-Le Ecosystem(hence,the name change). Now coming to the smartphone i.e the Le 1s,company seems to have created quite a good product to performance ratio with its Inr 10,999 price tag,here in India. So,let's find out if it is any good.

Build & Design

As far as build goes I can quite easily say that it's one of the first smartphones in India to sport a metallic unibody build at a budget price. Yes,now there are phones like the Huawei honor 5x and the Redmi Note 3 but this one seems to be the best as far as build goes. In design department,LeEco further stamps its authority with a symmetrically designed almost bezel less front which also helps in distinguishing itself from a certain fruity smartphone brand as the back is quite similar to that brand. The little touches like mirror finish on the fingerprint scanner and the capacitive buttons that light up only when you use them also add to the overall look.

In short,yes,although the design seems a little inspired,there is nothing to complain as the build is top notch. Infact,I would call it the best designed phone in this price category currently.

Software:

Power up the le 1s,and you get to look at the Eui 5.5 based on Android 5.0.2,which like all the other chinese oem's skips the app drawer and brings some very iOS like design elements. LeEco has gone a bit overboard with in mimicking iOS and has brought something called control central(remember,iOS control central,the design is very very similar to that). But,this control central has a little bit more utility as it is a combination of traditional control central(i.e quick toggles and app shortcuts) and multitasking panel. At first,it seemed quite a daunting task to use something like control centre but after a few days of use,this implementation seems a bit more convenient than the traditional android setup.

The software runs quite fast with almost no lag,but still there is a scope of improvement considering how capable the hardware is. The Chinese version of Eui has a dedicated button which takes you to the streaming service of LeEco which has a massive collection of programmes and live tv shows. But,the Indian version has nothing of that sort,as of yet. But,seems that company is trying to offer an similar service in India sometime in the near future(q2 2016) as it has partnered with the likes of Eros Now,Yupp tv etc and promised an OTA update for the same.

Although,the software needs a bit of polishing but the good thing is that it is free from any bloatware.

 Also,the ram management is very good unlike some xiaomi and samsung phones.

Update: As promised Leeco launched its streaming service in India with Leeco Membership on 30th May 2016, which basically brought apps like Levidi and LeLive.

Levidi: Levidi is basically a mashup of  internet content aggregation and Eros Now, wherein you can get access to 2000+ movies from Eros and trending videos from the Internet.
Lelive: LeLive powered by Yupp TV, brings over 100 premium channels like Ndtv India,Cnbc Tv, Sony etc to your le smartphones.

Camera

This is one department where the le 1s shows that it is a budget oriented smartphone. I would say that the 13 mp Isocell camera on the back performs well in natural lighting and even manages to capture some decent low light shots. It is a very decent camera for its price. But the main problem is with the front camera,which is of a 5 mp camera. Again,the outdoor shots are pretty good but shots in artificial light produces somewhat blurry pictures and requires very stable hands to get blur free pics.

In short,the camera is very decent for its price but nothing exceptional. A thing to note is that phones like oneplus x sport a very similar optics to le 1s but manages to produce better looking photos more often than not. Hence,there are chances that the above mentioned problems can be fixed via an OTA update.(Camera performance has greatly improved after an OTA update in the last week of Feb,but still there is scope for improvement.)

Performance and Battery life

Performance is the forte of le 1s.LeEco le 1s sports a top of the line Helio X10T processor from Mediatek.Helio X10 consists of 8 cortex A53 cores clocked at  2.2 Ghz coupled with a powervr G6200 GPU and 3 gigs of ram. This is quite a similar configuration to the Htc One M9+ which speaks volumes about the hardware capabilities.

The gaming performance is amongst the best in its price range as the phone manages to run heavy games like asphalt 8,nova 3 etc without any major issues. Some games due show a bit of frame drops here and there but it's got more to do with lack of optimisation  rather than the lack of power.
Now,let's take a look at the battery life of Le 1s. The standby time is again of the best as the smartphone hardly drops about 1-2% throughout the night. While moderately using the phone,you can get about 4 hours of screen on time. However,the good thing is that the phone supports fast charging and the 3000 mAh battery charges from 10% to 100% in about 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Extra Features

IR blaster: Le 1s has IR blaster which can be used to control many of the appliances like ACs,Tvs etc.I tried it on my Samsung Tv and it worked perfectly fine. A thing to note is that,IR blaster works only with the built-in Remote Control App and not with 3rd party apps like peel remote etc.

Fingerprint Scanner: The mirror finish fingerprint scanner is placed on the back of the phone and works very well.I would say that it has an overall accuracy of about 90%

Usb Type C: I can quite easily say that no other smartphone in this price category sports a type c port which offers amazing data transfer speeds and charging times at the expense of compatibility,as this is a very new standard and most phones still use the micro usb.

Conclusion:

So,if you are looking for a premium looking smartphone at a budget friendly price,which ticks all the boxes(almost), leEco le 1s can prove to be great option for you.

Incase,you are looking at alternatives than you look the newly launched Xiaomi Redmi Note 3(12k Inr),which offers quite a few essential improvements over le 1s like a larger battery,expandable storage and maybe a better camera(on paper). But,for that,you will have to prepare yourself to participate in flash sales.

To buy le 1s from flipkart,please use the link given below:
https://goo.gl/YvYFwe