It’s been a trying few months for developers of quad-core MT6589 phone, their handwork is paying off now though as quad-core Chinese phones with 2GB RAM are now arriving on the market with the first being the Big Cola 2.
The Big Cola 2 (aka Da Kele) officially launched yesterday, and has already been scooped up by reviewers here in China and is being placed on pre-order soon.
Looking over the phone their isn’t anything not to like (apart from the bad name) the display is a 5.3-inch 720 unit (yes, 1080 would have been better), a quad-core 1.2Ghz CPU, 2GB RAM, 32GB ROM, 13 mega-pixel rear camera, 3 mega-pixel front and 3000mAh battery all for just 1499 Yuan ($242).
Gizchina News of the week
There is one concern, and it’s something which has cropped up with other MT6589 phones running 2GB RAM and that’s the performance based on Antutu benchmarks. Although the Big Cola 2 has double the RAM of the Hero 7500+, Zopo 810 and Jiayu G4 Youth, the Antutu score isn’t all that impressive at 12,898. In comparison the Hero H7500+ with the same CPU and just 1GB RAM scores 12,745, is cheaper and has been on sale for months already!
For international buyers the Big Kola 2 could be a great alternative to more mainstream Chinese phones, the brand has less of a following and could get less demand meaning lower reseller pricing!
With the 2GB Big Cola launched, the 2GB UMi X2 on preorder and the P7 mini Pad coming soon we can only keep our fingers crossed that JiaYu, Neo and others won’t be to far behind.
Some AliExpress stores already trying to sell the Dakele 2 for $300.
The narrow 3.9mm bezel is advertised too:
imagebam.com/image/63d14a249088436
Now back to chinese advertising of no-name smartphones:
all previous posts here on GizChina were about a Big Cola which will cost about $160. Examples:
gizchina.com/2013/03/22/big-cola-2-will-launch-april-15-will-boast-5-3-inch-display-and-quad-core-cpu/
gizchina.com/2013/02/21/quad-core-big-cola-2-rumoured-to-be-a-quad-core-5-3-inch-umi-x2-eater/
Then Dakele was thinking more and announced the price of the 2GB version to be $192:
gizchina.com/2013/03/06/beidou-big-cola-2-will-also-ship-in-premium-and-youth-versions/
Today we discovered the price is not $160, not $192, but $242. And for international sales (the users which read the GizChina) the price is $300.
What will do the GizChina readers do now?
Will wait for another fake prices from the Neo, JiaYu, UMI, iOcean to see if some of them will be at least close to $192? They already will realize the $166 price is not possible for an international buy of 1080p 5″, which was very advertised here. The 720p solution had not any chance here.
Who will win in the final? The users. Why? Because their dreams will be broken after the latest (for examle JiaYu) will announce the international price to be $300 or more.
Explanation: when readers will see that all smartphones advertised here to be under $190 are more expensive, they will look back. And will discover that an already launched smartphone was going down because of too many clones right under their target price: $190.
This will happen with the Star S5 clone of HTC Butterfly and this is the reason people will buy it for example.
And fatality: the Star S5 was t presented here only one time before launching it and the price… was correct. Yes, the Star S5 is under $230 as described here: gizchina.com/2013/03/26/leaked-photos-of-white-star-s5-butterfly-posted/
Not needed a hundred posts, hundred screenshots, rumors and questions to launch a real smartphone. Good job, Star!
Instead of S5 can be any smartphone under S190. And yes, with 720p resolution. People will not pay more than $100 for a 1080p display which will eat more battery and memory.
It’s a HTC clone from an OEM.Phones from bigger China brands like UMi and JiaYu tend to have more original designs and better quality materials. Does the Star S5 have gorilla glass? No. Does it break easily? Yes. They should be like Goophone, where they have knock offs like the Goophone I5 and original designs like the Goophone I9.
Jiayu and Umi are not big in China at least not yet and they have a long way to go..
i believe that this hype is more for international buyers
Does it have gorilla glass?
Is there a good store that anyone can recommend?
where can i order it??
People are crying about lack gorilla glass like every phone without it in the world broke cause it didn’t have it.
Gorilla glass is a very positive point. It’s scratch resistant and good for those who don’t want to put a cover and increase the bulk like me.
The Gorilla Glass have another reason starting this year: the size of the display (much bigger) and the weight of the smartphone.
A poor quality display (touchscreen) will break at the first major shock, but with Gorilla Glass maybe you are lucky.
I don;t care about scratches. I have 1 year old chinese no-name smartphone, used daily a lot and it have no scratch. The screen protectors era is finishing even without Monkey Glass.
Also I am not sure if some chinese will say they put Gorilla Glass and that display really is like advertised. Maybe some no-name chinese factory is making some Gorilla clones. Who knows?
It is NOT Big Cola 2 !!! IMHO It is Dakele 2 !!!
Why translate Chinese characters into English?
On officially’s web site – Dakele 2:
http://www.dakele.com/cola2.html
Even that link you says “cola2”