Exclusive Elephone interview reveals new Elephone P7000 photos and stunning new features

Elephone P7000 news has been as rare as rocking horse teeth and there has been a reason for that, and as Elephone explained to us, users will be excited!

Elephone are known for having a diverse range of phones from the most simple $50 units, to some more ‘unique’ phones with features from finger print scanners to LTE. For 2015 they want to up their image a little and so are working on an all new model that might finally boast a design language of their own.

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The Elephone P7000 quickly became the talk of the Chinese smartphone world a few weeks back when we published the first leaked photos of the device. Today we have more information and also spoke to Elephone as to why the release was taking longer than expected:

Elephone P7000 Interview

GC: When we first saw the Elephone P7000 we hoped that the launch would be sooner. What has happened?

Elephone: The images we released were of a prototype model, and although we were very happy with the design and aspects of the features we believed we could do better.

GC: Better? Could you tell us what improvement you have made?

Elephone: Most of the changes have occurred on the rear of the phone. We realised that the P7000 would attract power users so we wanted to increase the size of the battery and needed to modify the design a little.

GC: So what size battery does the Elephone p7000 have now?

Elephone: By increasing the thickness of the phone slightly we have managed to boost the battery size to a 3450mAh unit. While we were working on the battery we found a new supplier of Li-Polymer units that we are happy with.

GC: Are there any more details added to the rear?

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Elephone: As our fans know us for our fingerprint security features, we wanted to add this to the flagship P7000 too. You can see in the new photos that the rear of the phone has a touch finger print scanner.

GC: Did you make any other changes to the Elephone P7000 during development?

Elephone: From a design point we haven’t changed other aspects of the phone.

GC: What about hardware or the operating system? Android 5.0 is the OS most fans are excited to use on their 64bit phones.

Elephone: Actually we have some exciting news about this. Our plan is to releases the Elephone P7000 with Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. Originally the plan was to update the phone, but as the launch will be a little later we can use the time to provide Lollipop or something else.

GC: You said “something else”. What do you mean by that? Ubuntu or another Android version?

Elephone: Another Android version.

GC: A custom ROM? Like Cyanogenmod or MIUI?

Elephone: Yes, like Cyanogenmod.

GC: Can you elaborate on this?

Elephone: At this time we cannot confirm anything, but our engineers and developers are seeing if it is possible to bring CM12 to the Elephone P7000. It is still unconfirmed though.

GC: Exciting news! Well thanks for your time and we look forward to the release.

Elephone: Thank you.

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So there we have it! The Elephone P7000 is still in development and has had some very excting changes added and even the possibility of CyanogenMod 12 too. With the Chinese Spring Festival a few weeks away we likely won’t see the launch for a while now, but it could be well worth the extra wait.

[ Elephone.hk ]

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About the author
Andi

Darevintage
January 24, 2015
Now this is getting really interesting. Elephone wants to give Jiayu a really bloody nose with this it seems. Jiayu obviously won’t be making any changes to the S3 as it’s already shipping out. Elephone just in case u are reading this, add a dual-tone flash. I know that means destroying all the back covers u have made already (most likely) lol. OIS and dual flash would have given other competitors a K.O

ufg
January 24, 2015
Looks better than I thought, but the antenna lines on the side are slightly off the top and bottoms of the screen, it’s really annoying to look at for some reason

Airyl
January 24, 2015
Lots of interesting points to discuss here. First, let’s talk about the design. The front is gorgeous with the minimal bezels and alloy look, reminds me of the lovely JiaYu G3’s design, which I have been begging to see updated for a long time. The sides look like they could be chrome, but I’m crossing my fingers that they’re metal and will feel great in hand. The rear however looks uninspired and dull compared to the front. I wish they had given that a second thought. Also, having the speakers (stereo?) on the bottom instead of the rear is a nice touch. I also wonder if the fingerprint scanner is similar to the one on the Ascend Mate 7, which has been my favourite implementation of the feature so far.
The phone shipping out with Lollipop is very interesting, but even more interesting is the possibility of the phone having CM12. This could seriously bring the tides to Elephone’s favour, especially since the JiaYu S3 is shipping with LeWa which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Lollipop out of the box would be fantastic for a Chinese maker, I just hope they don’t stop there and continue updating the phone as time goes on.
Also, the redesigning of the phone to give it a larger 3450mAh battery is admirable, especially when other manufacturers don’t seem to even bother much about the battery (*cough* iOcean M6752 *cough*). While this is interesting, I do want to know if the battery is a removable unit or not. Also, no confirmation on whether the phone supports SD cards and 4G LTE or not is slightly worrying.
Overall, the P7000 is looking like a really good option with it’s interesting design, large battery, Ascend Mate 7-esque fingerprint scanner and 16MP camera. If the price is right, they’ve got a winner on their hands. I hope they don’t pull a Zopo, Nexus 6 or Mi Note Pro and overprice it to oblivion. Aside from that, really interesting stuff. The Chinese phone wars are going to be great this year, I can feel it.
- Rob
  January 24, 2015
  I agree with you wholeheartedly, the front is gorgeous but the rear looks like it belongs to a really cheap entry level device! Will be interesting to see how it performs once released and see how good that 16mp camera really is (assuming it’s not an interpolated 13mp sensor).
- Yeti hand
  January 24, 2015
  Yeah!! Yes absolutely!! Fuck you iocean with that poor battery!! You can dive and drown in the ocean for all I care!
  - Aurelian
    January 25, 2015
    - Yeti hand
      January 25, 2015
- desponent
  January 24, 2015
  It’s a 5.5″ phone with 76mm width, you can bet that the bezel will be there when the display light up. The 16MP camera is most likely an interpolated 13MP shooter too.
  - Muhammad Yasir
    January 24, 2015
    true that bro… I HATE PHONES with interpolated cams.
  - Airyl
    January 24, 2015
    True, but it’s still quite the spectacle with the screen turned off. Like the Huawei Ascend Mate 7.
- Jim
  January 24, 2015
  I wonder about the quality of the Elephone brand phones. Does anyone have good experiences with them?
  I really want to like this brand. I think that the design is excellent, but the first Chinese phone I was ever disappointed with is my Elephone P2000.
  The GSM connection randomly drops. Sometimes when I turn my phone on I realize that I have no connection and the only solution is to turn the Sim card on and off. That’s unacceptable. The behavior was even worse before the firmware update and I had to reboot the phone.
  Then the Bluetooth connection is unreliable and constantly disconnects and can’t find the device anymore.
  The battery is terrible. It’s a 2600mah battery and if I surf in the evening for an hour, it means that I will start the next day with less than 60% battery. I have the screen brightness as low as possible through a third party app. I even exchanged the battery and tested it with a clean firmware. The battery drains like crazy.
  But it seems that there is good firmware support on the forum. I like the fingerprint scanner and the gps connection is reliable.
  Phones aren’t cheap so I don’t want to risk to buy another phone with the same problems. What’s your opinion about the brand?
  - Ruby
    January 24, 2015
    I had two P8 devices. Both had quick battery drain issues from day 1. I bought a 2nd battery for each but the USB charging port failed on both units within three months. At $230 each, it was an expensive lesson but I’ll never purchase an Elephone again. Caveat emptor.
    - Jim
      January 25, 2015
      I browsed the Elephone forums yesterday. It seems that they generally have big issues with their phones.
      Yesterday I tested my phone and I was unreachable several times when the screen was turned off.
    - theAsingularity
      January 28, 2015
      My P8 has battery issue too. Found a couple more and I’m about good, but that’s a bummer. They bettered the usb port, I had several accidents with my unlucky P8 but the usb port doesn’t give it up, though it’s almost wearing off 🙁
      And does anybody had absurd heating on a P8 as me? Bigger battery and a thicker design maybe could’ve helped. Slightly O.T.: I’m looking forward P5000 reviews because it seems yummy. I’m done with one day batteries on cellphones, really sick of it.
  - Airyl
    January 24, 2015
    So far the only Elephone phones I’ve used for more than a week are the G4 and G6. Both were fairly solid devices. The G6 had the tendency to heat up quickly and the battery life was below average, but the G4 was a decent phone.
    - Marco Lancaster
      January 25, 2015
      I Was thinking in get a G4 like a backup phone, because is cheap and decent.
- Simon
  January 24, 2015
  If you had to choose between this and the Jiayu S3 which are you going for and why ?
  - Airyl
    January 24, 2015
    Tough question, but I’d still stick with the S3. As good as the Elephone sounds, the brand has had multiple issues with many of their smartphones. The ones I’ve used have turned out fine, but even in this comments section you can see people complaining about battery drain and design flaws. JiaYu on the other hand have had solid release after solid release for quite a while, and are a pretty reliable brand. The Elephone could be flawless, but until it’s launched and people start reviewing it, we don’t know about that. Regardless, if I could only pick one of the two it will always be the JiaYu.
    - Simon
      January 24, 2015
      Thanks, I trust your judgement :). I’m just hoping for some Lollipop roms for it – CM12, Liquid Smooth, Euphoria (formerly Mahdi) etc
      - desponent
        January 25, 2015
        Well since P7000 and S3 share the same chipset if anyone port CM12 to P7000 then the community will work itself and may make it available to S3 too depending on their size.
        I think Lewa is already pretty good anyway.
        
        Simon
        January 25, 2015
        I don’t know much about Lewa, i’m guessing it will come on the Jiayu S4 as well.
        Evgenij Nebotov
        January 25, 2015
        btw, i thought s4 could be the ideal phone for me and it just disappeared ino thin air. make it 5″, elephone or s3 and all my requests in the phone are fulfilled 🙂
        Simon
        January 27, 2015
        I’m sure it will reappear in due course.
  - ksafan0
    January 25, 2015
    I hate the old form-factor of the Jiayu S3; the only thing that will keep me away from that phone.
- Marco Lancaster
  January 25, 2015
  I hope the battery is removable, because Jiayu has. Also I guess it’s almost impossible to see a supported CM12 version for this phone, I doubt Cyanogenmod could work on a Rom for MTK device, as the sources codes and drivers are so strictly closed. BTW $$$ is the answer, like Micromax Made with the YU phone. If no Cyanogenmod would be nice see a Miui 6 on it. All MTK6752 and MTK6732 support LTE, it’s on SoC.
- stan
  January 28, 2015
  CM12 on Mediatek SoC ? Don’t think so …
desponent
January 24, 2015
So there’s still no glass protection on the screen? And I guess they don’t use OGS too.
- Manos
  January 24, 2015

Steve B
January 24, 2015
- Robbie
  January 24, 2015
  hehe,yeah…at the news section of their site,it was mentioned few weeks ago:”The release to be confirmed later” Now this statement is missing there and even on the product page,the P4000 was cleared…So it seems,that they will not give a birth to this phone 🙁 PS: Andi,you should ask them..
- junior_poa
  January 25, 2015
  Cancelled, sadly… I was waiting for this release. But with this news, i bought the S3.
ArPi
January 24, 2015
If you elephants want bigger success in Europe, then put 800 MHz fdd-lte ( band 20 ) into this device !

xjiayux
January 24, 2015
For some reason, I could just never get into Elephone. But after seeing the style on this phone and attention to battery and things like touch fingerprint (ala ascend mate 7) I must say that my mind is changing… at least a little. 😉
roni24
January 24, 2015
why didnt you ask about adding GPS glonass, everybody start to add it, so why not them too.

balcobomber25
January 24, 2015
Looks like someone took an iPhone, Mi4 and an Mx4 and merged them together.
Nishikanta
January 24, 2015
Elephone lives up to the punch line and gives timely surprise, a truely an innovative set of people but one thing they lag in their flagships is a great audio. Getting an older generation audio chip to get the costs down might be an idea to consider

Damkey
January 25, 2015
I bet they had to change the manufacturing to include what they have promised, gorilla glass, compass, proper camera, battery etc.
Judging from posts around the web Elephone again and again put up specs that aren’t true for their phones and then remove them from their site without offering anything for it.
Stay away from them if you want ANY quality and a serious manufacturer.
- desponent
  January 27, 2015

Licu
January 26, 2015
Does anyone know the release date or presale date ?
vhd
January 26, 2015
rear design is very bad
please change that elephone!
Renan Souza
January 26, 2015
When does it will be released?
Fayoom
January 31, 2015

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