Cubot’s latest entry-level phone has a great price tag, HD display and 2GB RAM!
With component prices steadily dropping it appears that we might finally be seeing the end of phones with 1GB RAM or less. Not only that though but it looks like lower than HD resolution displays might be going the way of the dinosaur too.
Why do we say this? Well the Cubot S308 is the reason. This Android smartphone checks all the right boxes including 2GB RAM and 5-inch 720p display, and costs only $130.99! What’s more the camera specs are not bad too with an 8 mega-pixel up front and 13 MP on the rear, but we believe that the actual sensors are 5MP and 8MP, still not bad at this price.
A quad-core MT6582 is actually more than pokey enough for a low-cost phone, and even the lack of LTE doesn’t worries us at this price/
The Cubot S308 is available to order for this price until 14th November on 1949deal.com.
אני מעדיף להוסיף כמה דולרים יותר ולקנות את ה coolpad f1
So which Mali gpu does it use?
Mali400MP2
Most of the Chinese phones using the MediaTek chips are absolute crap. And nobody knows this better than the Chinese themselves. Xiaomi for example, China’s largest selling cell phone manufacturer stopped using MediaTek chips in all their devices in favor of Qualcomm’s Snapdragon SoC. No premium cell-phone Chinese manufacturer (OnePlus, Huawei, OPO, ZTE-Nubia) will ever use a MediaTek device in any of their devices. You’ll NEVER see these el-cheapo devices offered by carriers in the US or Europe because the reliability is so poor. In short, they’re made for uneducated consumers in developing nations who think they’re getting a great deal. Want a cheap phone? Go for the Xiaomi 1S ($150), Xiaomi RedMi Note LTE ($184) or the Motorola G – 2014 ($180). Caveat emptor.
Someone seems to have had a reaaaaaly bad experience with a MTK phone right? …
Anyways, except for the chronical problem of poor gps I’d say the latest mtk SoCs ain’t that bad. And this comes from someone who has had experience with different SoCs from MTK, Qualcomm and Rockchip… IMO the main problem with chinese phones is the scarce parts sources that are available out there, and this applies to pretty much any brand, even with a premium Xiaomi Mi4 or a O+1 I can’t just get parts locally if I need to fix something, and someone with no expertise in microelectronics will have even trouble to deal since most places that fix phones don’t work with imported stuff.
But NVM me, I’m just an uneducated consumer from a developing nation…
Good luck with your decision. The fact remains that these cheap quality Chinese phones are hardly sold in the West because for a few dollars more one can buy the Moto G with the latest OTA updates from Google and as you pointed out, no parts or service problems. Bad experience with Chinese phones? Yes, I purchased two $100 MTK based phones in the past 6 months – both are as reliable ad a broken watch. Never again.
No need for luck. My decision was calculated based on the fact that even if I got myself a mid-end Moto G with fancy google updates (that I really don’t want ’cause lollipop is gonna break Xposed Framework), I will still want a new phone on a year and a half from now due to the ever developing app market and the need for a hardware that can keep up with it… See, even a high-end phone from 2 years ago will probably not be able to run some demanding stuff like that port from gnu-octave and that DC emulator. So unless hardware get to a really stable level, I really don’t see the point of spending money on a product that will last if I don’t need it to last.
And the fact is that these phones do sell in the west, not sure if you noticed but this website is basically aimed towards people who live in English-speaking countries and are interested in buying chinese phones, including the cheap ones.
And last, my 97 bucks star w450 has been with me for almost 1 year and survived stuff like a falling from the pockets of a coat and the biggest problem so far has been a faulty battery.
So you bought two $100 phones and now all of Chinese phones are poorly made? What were the phones? I had a Snapdragon phone once made by the “high end” OPPO and the the thing last 3 weeks before breaking down. Does that mean all Snapdragon phones are cheap and poorly made?
The phones were made by Goophone and No.1. All were clones of either the GS5 or the Note 3.
Sorry to hear about your OPPO crapping out. They normally make good phones. No it doesn’t mean that all Snapdragon based phones are poorly made but the fact remains that all the current flagship phones on the market that are sold in Europe and N. America use Snapdragon chips for good reason.
There was your first problem, you bought cheap knockoffs. Goophone and No.1 make some good phones but they also make a lot of junk. This article/phone has nothing to do with flagships, this is a $130 phone and for that price a Mtek processor is more than capable. The reason most (not all) North American flagships have Snapdragon is mostly due to availability. Mtek has never marketed their chips to phones meant to be sold in North America. Meizu and Lenovo used an Mtek 6595 in their latest flagship. Samsung and Huawei use their own chips for their flagships sold in Asia. All that will change soon though as they just opened an office in San Diego and have announced their will be phones sold in the US with MTek chips by 2015.
“No premium cell-phone Chinese manufacturer (OnePlus, Huawei, OPO, ZTE-Nubia) will ever use a MediaTek device in any of their devices.”
Xiaomi Hongmi 1S – MTK6582
Xiaomi Redmi Note – MTK6592
ZTE Grand Memo – MTK6589
Huawei Honor 3C – MTK6582
Huawei G700 – MTK6589
OPPO U2 – MTK6589
ZOPO ZP999 – MTK6595
Lenovo Vibe X2 – MTK6595
You were saying something? And then of course there is the ultra premium Meizu Mx4 which uses a Mediatek processor.
Yes, I was saying that MediaTek is a Qualcomm wannabe company that can’t compete with the big boys. Oh, and regarding the ‘ultra-premium’ Mx4… it’s already been replaced with the Samsung Exynos SoC. My comments below.
Xiaomi Hongmi 1S – MTK6582 (Replaced by the Qualcomm MSM8228)
Xiaomi Redmi Note – MTK6592 (Replaced by the RedMi Note 4G – also uses the Qualcomm MSM8228)
ZTE Grand Memo – MTK6589 (European model uses a Qualcomm SoC – look it up on GSM Arena)
Huawei Honor 3C – MTK6582 (Replaced by Honor 3C 4G – uses HiSilicon Kirin 910 SoC)
Huawei G700 – MTK6589 (Was a good phone when it was announced in September 2013 – but I can’t think of any good reason anyone would choose this phone over today over a Moto G using LP 5.0 at $180)
OPPO U2 – MTK6589 (Obsolete – came out 2 years ago. “a Timex watch in a digital age”. OPPO doesn’t manufacture a single phone today with an MTK chip).
ZOPO ZP999 – MTK6595 (Just announced Nov. 10 – time will tell but not a single US carrier offers any model made by ZOPO).
Lenovo Vibe X2 – MTK6595 (Read the reviews on GSMArena – would you still buy this phone? Now look at the Qualcomm based Vibe Z2 Pro).
Bottom line – watch what the leading manufacturers are currently using and more importantly, what SoC they stopped using and ask why?
The Mx4 still uses the 6595, the Mx4 Pro which is a completely different model uses a Samsung chip.
Most of those phones weren’t replaced by anything, they came out with a different version for the international markets. And due to availability/regulations they use Qualcom chips. Every single one of those that I listed I was able to find a site that was selling the MTK version. Your original claim that none of them make phones with MTK processors is wrong.
Most US carriers don’t offer any of the phones listed on this site, what does that have to do with this? This is a site dedicated to Chinese phones, not US phones.
“OPPO doesn’t manufacture a single phone with an MTK chip” Once again your making stuff up. Browsing OPPO’s official website I find the following:
OPPO R1 – MT6582 (Released December 2013)
OPPO YOYO – MT6582M (Released May 2014)
Not a single one of the leading manufacturers have stopped using Mediatek. Mediatek has just never been available outside of Asia and up until this year they didn’t support LTE. You may not like Mediatek because of a bad experience with bad products but that is just your opinion. I work for the OEM;s who actually make the phones for many of them there are very strict regulations to sell in certain countries (especially US and Canada). This is the reason there are so many different versions of some phones all of them with the same or similar specs.
$130,other website has already sale for 119usd yet.http://vifocal.com/cubot-s308-smartphone-2gb-16gb-mtk6582-android-4-2-5-0-inch-screen.html
Vifocal tacks on another $10 for the same shipping method other Chinese resellers don’t charge for (registered China Post). So, essentially it’s the same price.
1800mAh Battery… mmmhh… is so poor
With a 720p screen and that processor you should be able to get 6-8 hours of normal use out of it. Not the greatest but for $130 it is worth it.
my thl w100s with 4.5″, 960×540 and 1800mAh get only 4 hour for screen.
(MTK6582)
My Blu Life Play with 720p screen, 1800mAh battery and MT6589 would get 8-10 hours of normal use. Most reviews of the W100s (which actually has the 6582M different than the one in the phone above) got 6-7 hours on a looping video test, which uses a lot more battery than average use would. If you are only getting 4 hours on normal use there is either a software bug or an app running in the background all the time.
w100s have a battery bug, in all w100s… maybe this is a error,but 8 hour screen with 1800 is… mmhh rare
Not rare at all especially on phones under 5 inches with 720p displays or under. It depends on your usage. I use my phone to take pictures and occasionaly listen to music, I am not a power user at all so I can easily get upwards of 10 hours on an 1800.