A budget 5.5″ phablet phone
Cubot NOTE S is a budget smartphone in the position of low price about under 80 USD in AliExpress. But this amazing valuable phone is not like other similar priced models.
Now I am describing what makes this budget phablet phone to worth than other.
Cubot NOTE S has 5.5″ large screen size and 720×1280(720p, HD) resolution. Yes, this is not a Full HD. But if you don’t care about hight definition pixels in your hand and phone must be really detailed screen, you may not buy this, or this kind budget smartphones. But if you are, this is maybe a good choice.
About external shape
Cubot Note S made with harden glass – I don’t know this glass is famous Gorilla glass or not – and covered with bundle protective film on it. Each side of frame is looks like metal, but I don’t convince it is really metal. Back cover – normally known as battery cover – is harder than others like Siswoo or Doogee.
LCD size and bezel is smaller than Siswoo C55 (as same size 5.5″ phablet phone), so Total size is little bit smaller. And each side of edge rounded as like iPhone or UIefone Paris. It make touch to smooth on the end of each screen.
Siswoo C55 (left) and Cubot Note S(right)
Volume rocker and sleep(or power) button is not make rattling noise like Oukitel K4000. It much better – feels more harder, well placed.
Each buttons arranged to as like normal smartphones from China. Down side single buttons is sleep/power and upper long buttons is volume rocker.
Each navigation keys are touch, menu-home-back. There’s no LED back light, but it may not a problem to using well in your life. Actually there’s no breathe LED like as indigator.
SIM trays & TFlash
Cubot NOTE S supports two different micro SIMs with combine 2G and 3G. 4G-LTE is not supported this model. I just put my 3G SIM and it works well even I didn’t configured APN in South Korea. And it must be sure each two SIMs are work together if not 3G and 2G combination.
Battery
Maybe the battery is major feature of this phablet phone as long long standby life.
3.8V 15.77Wh means about 4150mAh. It is much big battery as we know. Specially the CPU of this phone is not a hot runner, low power profiled Mediatek’s MT6580 32bit ARM cortex-A7, 4 cores model with Mali-400 MP 1 core. It means your actual using time may strongly far from it been charged. Maybe it works over 2 days if you are just using calls.
AOSP base
NOTE S running under Android 5.1 and it is based on AOSP (Android Open Source Project) with Mediatek close source kernel. Mediatek never open their CPU kernel sources becaused it is property to sales for hardware manufacturers. So each manufacturer like Cubot not open their source even they are using AOSP.
Cubot modified a little of AOSP launcher3 (usually for Android5 models) with some rounded rectangle iconize with override original icon image. There’s no malware or bloatware installed. I could use it for easily by factory reset in first time for secure from abnormal environments.
Setting menu is not changed from AOSP based UI. Also there’s nothing like effective menu of ‘Auto start manage’ or ‘Permission control’. It is a point to disappointed, but maybe OK for 2GB system memorty.
NOTE S also mostely same as like other Android device such known to Ulefone, Doogee, Siswoo, Oukitel or more. But this model is really rarely closed to un-modified AOSP. Rooting not allowed but some people may find way to unlock bootloader and change emergency recovery binary a.k.a TWRP or CWM – But I couldn’t found.
Performance and more detailed info.
Most of budget smartphones from China using similar models of MMC chipset of Samsung, even their models are mostely Q823MB. Cubot Note S also like them.
Performance to write on A1 Benchmark was 17MB/sec to 23MB/sec (it is depends on difference of mounted position). My external SD was scored 11MB/sec write speed. It is MLC 32GB SDHC class10/UHS-1 but performace not fully works on NOTE S – On USB3.0 PC bench scores write speed about 22MB/sec in writing. DDR2 or DDR3 memory is just 1.4GB/sec in writing speed – I don’t know what DDR memory built in NOTE S. Normally 1.4GB/sec is just similar speed of Mediatek 4 cores CPU devices as my experience.
Antutu 6.1.4 scored 24272. Mali-400MP is an old ARM graphic accelerator and it is not supports OpenGL ES 3.x, so Antutu 3D benchmark is under 1000 point. But other performance enough to doing anything. It means large 5.5″ is screen is not for all games.
Other more detailed Antutu benchmark informations are below.
Cubot Note S is just a budget phablet phone that you can buy it under 80 USD. It can not support 4G-LTE but enough to use in any 3G/HSDPA/H+ in the world. Calling quality is good for hearing and speaking. Large 5.5″ LCD helps your reading or watching something easily. Not for heavy games for using splendid 3D graphics.
Conclusion
If you don’t care fastest speed of 4G or LTE in the air, Cubo Note S may a good device to searching information in anywhere – Specially I usually like to 3G than 4G-LTE in building. If you don’t playing heavy games, but need big screen ? Maybe this phablet phone is good choice under 80 USD.
720p HD display is maybe too less to show detailed information, but actually I can’t sens what is difference between Full HD (such as like doogee F5) and HD resolution in normal life. I can read anything from internet, I can watch any video and streaming. Specially Cubot Note S display is my favor IPS LCD and it is totally clear than other expensive models.