iOcean X9 hands on and first impressions


iocean x9 review

We get our hands on the iOcean X9, currently the only 5-inch FHD phone boasting the powerful Mediatek MT6752 chipset.

After the release of the iOcean M6752 Rock, we really wondered which way iOcean would go. It’s safe to say that they took us by surprise though with the iOcean X9 which looks, feels and is made to a totally different standard.

iocean x9 review

iOcean have taken what we like about the Rock and placed it in a better body made of better materials. So between the dual glass and CNC alloy chassis we have 3GB RAM and an octacore Meditatek MT6752 chipset.

Size has been greatly reduced by making the phone with a 5-inch 1920 x 1080 display, and using a CNC Nano molding technology for the 6.5mm chassis, iOcean have created a phone that is easy to use one-handed, yet boasts a powerful MT6752 processor!

In addition to the chipset, RAM and display, the iOcean X9 also boasts a 5 mega-pixel front facing camera, 13 mega-pixel rear camera, infrared module for taking control of your TV, 4G LTE and dual SIM trays.

Keeping the chassis at just 6.5mm and adding that additional SIM slot has taken its toll though and we only have a 2100mAh battery in the phone, but so far we are not too worried as it appears the ROM in the X9 is well optimised and we hope for a good battery life.

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Speaking of the ROM, the iOcean X9 still ships with Android 4.4.4 Kitkat. We have no issue with this as it is a well sorted install, very smooth and fast performing, however the hardware is screaming for a Lollipop build which we believe will come sooner rather than later.

Read Also:  Samsung Welcomes Apple to the Future of Messaging with RCS

iOcean X9 Hands on and first impressions

The presale of the iOcean X9 has started with an asking price of $249.99 which is a little more expensive than some other phones on the market. We actually asked iOcean about this and was surprised to receive an answer from the iOcean’s General Manager John Lee:

“(the) iOcean X9 is a synonym of quality and good taste, that is why people are willing to wait and pay more for it”,

he continues to explain that

“We have to come back to design and technology, not only think on the price. We should provide the best product for our users. If we compare the iOcean X9 to the Huawei P8 lite, the price is similar but, look at the differences, although P8 lite looks like metal, in the end you get a plastic-body phone and is at least 1mm thicker.”

Those of you interested in pre-ordering the iOcean X9 can do so from today until July 3rd. More details can be found on the iOcean website.

Keep posted for our full review of the iOcean X9 coming soon. Thanks to iOcean for sending us the X9 for review.

Disclaimer: We may be compensated by some of the companies whose products we talk about, but our articles and reviews are always our honest opinions. For more details, you can check out our editorial guidelines and learn about how we use affiliate links.

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72 Comments

  1. saor
    July 1, 2015

    Nice phone but battery a bit on the small side. 249?? A bit steep …

  2. Spec
    July 1, 2015

    “Infrared Remote Control”! Nice!

  3. SnowyCat
    July 1, 2015

    looks nice but kitkat kinda keeps me away

    and 2100mah battery is like galaxy s6 level ^^ but with dualsim i cant image the battery life to be decent at all

    • jsbless
      July 1, 2015

      on their website, you can find the lollipop beta version for X9

  4. Patrick Van Reusel
    July 1, 2015

    DaKeLe Big Cola 3 and Siswoo i7 Cooper are also a 5 inchers with the same CPU.

    • Emma Swift
      July 2, 2015

      i7 is 2GB RAM and just 720p HD; dakele3 is 7.25mm thicker

      • Patrick Van Reusel
        July 2, 2015

        ” the only 5-inch phone boasting the powerful Mediatek MT6752 chipset.”

        Please read the staement above.

        • July 2, 2015

          yup, need to change that to “the only 5-inch FHD….”

          • Viktor Lucza
            July 2, 2015

            THL 2015 is 5″ FHD with MTK 6752

  5. Burs
    July 1, 2015

    If they only put capacitive buttons instead of soft-keys, I would be sold.

  6. Joe mont
    July 1, 2015

    2100mah is abysmal. I have a nexus 4 with a 2100mah battery and only a 4.7″ screen, with Lollypop its battery life is very short. 2600mah is probably the minimal I would consider for a 5″ screen, scaling up with screen size.

    • Channing Moore
      July 2, 2015

      it might be small, but actually it depends on different usage, and the most important, its hardware design and system optimization.

    • balcobomber25
      July 3, 2015

      Lollipop is the culprit there. It is horrible on the Nexus 4 and 7, completely kills the battery life. 2100 isn’t a great deal but in the right system with the right specs and can last all day. With an FHD screen this thing is lucky to last 7 hours.

      • Tremaine Underwood
        July 3, 2015

        Thats a very valid point, I personally don’t get the hype surrounding Lollipop, what does it actually get you. The 64bit thing will only come into affect when phones start going over 4gb of ram. Until then I would take an optimized version of KitKat any day. OS’s generally get heavier with each new version and it takes time for the developers to iron out all the kinks(especially with the vast amount of hardware that they run on).

        • balcobomber25
          July 3, 2015

          Once 64 bit is properly utilized it will be a clear cut advantage. But we are still at least 2 years away from that happening. The majority of apps are still written in 32 bit and some dont work at all with 64 bit. Personally I would take Jelly Bean over every other version of Android.

        • Ben Liu
          July 6, 2015

          Totally wrong. 64bit does not only mean 64bit address bus “I can address more than 4GB of RAM”, but it is to do with 64bit registers and 64bit calculations. 32bit chips calculate and process in 32bits – 4 bytes at a time. 64bit can do 8 bytes at a time. Pair this with some good processing ALU’s and other internal logic and application code, you will get up to 50% increases in performance. This is why a slower clocked dual core iPhone 5S/6 in 64bit will be on par with much faster Android quad core phones. Its about getting more performance per cycle.

          • Tremaine Underwood
            July 6, 2015

            Dude I don’t know where you get your info from but do a little research before you start telling people that they are completely wrong. 50% performance increase? Cool I update to Lollipop and I should instantly see a 50% increase over KitKat 🙂 If an IPhone processor beats a faster cpu that means that the instruction set and architecture are better. Clock speed and amount of cores mislead people. AMD and intel played the clock speed war for how long until we reached the 4ghz bottle neck. Obviously on 2 identical chips upping the clock speed will improve performance. These things are all buzz words to sell new stuff to people. The architecture and instruction sets mean the most.

            • Ben Liu
              July 6, 2015

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit_computing
              Educate yourself in real computing and in machine code before you spit out garbage like that. It has got nothing to do with clock speeds or the Intel vs AMD wars. It is how the CPU processes machine code instructions internally. Underneath it all, the CPU consists of circuits that do arithmetic, move memory around and generally calculate. 64bit can calculate more than 32bit within one clock cycle, as long as it is optimised to do so. This IS the theory behind the “better architecture” that you are talking about.

              Updating to 64bit lollipop will not necessarily give you 50% performance (I said “up to”). It will give a modest 10% because Android is very far from being anywhere near optimised to make use of the extra register spaces within the CPU or that you can cram multiple instructions at the same time.

            • Tremaine Underwood
              July 6, 2015

              I will just end this now, only people with zero integrity argue on social media. I am well aware of the extra registers, I studied for 4 years and have a BSC degree in computer science. I have actually coded in assembly for a year and am aware of the extra registers since I have written code utilising them. You would make a brilliant campaign manager for the guys selling 64bit. Keep up the good work 🙂

            • Ben Liu
              July 6, 2015

              Too funny. Lets rip out our experience and credentials to win an argument? I would seriously question your BSc and your university if you claim “Why would I want 64bit computing for less than 4GB of RAM” when 64bit computing is not just about 64bit memory addressing (>4GB) but also 64bit processing which is more the point about optimisation and architecture.

    • MacArthur
      July 10, 2015

      5 hours and 10 minutes in the GeekBench 3 battery test with wifi on. That is +70% compared with an iPhone 6 for example. It easily lasts a day of normal use in my tests.

  7. saor
    July 1, 2015

    Nice phone but battery a bit on the small side. 249?? A bit steep …

  8. Guest
    July 1, 2015

    “Infrared Remote Control”! Nice!

  9. SnowyCat
    July 1, 2015

    looks nice but kitkat kinda keeps me away

    and 2100mah battery is like galaxy s6 level ^^ but with dualsim i cant image the battery life to be decent at all

    • jsbless
      July 2, 2015

      on their website, you can find the lollipop beta version for X9

  10. Patrick Van Reusel
    July 1, 2015

    DaKeLe Big Cola 3 and Siswoo i7 Cooper are also a 5 inchers with the same CPU.

    • Emma Swift
      July 2, 2015

      i7 is 2GB RAM and just 720p HD; dakele3 is 7.25mm thicker

    • Patrick Van Reusel
      July 2, 2015

      ” the only 5-inch phone boasting the powerful Mediatek MT6752 chipset.”

      Please read the staement above.

    • Andi Sykes
      July 2, 2015

      yup, need to change that to “the only 5-inch FHD….”

    • Viktor Lucza
      July 2, 2015

      THL 2015 is 5″ FHD with MTK 6752

  11. Burs
    July 1, 2015

    If they only put capacitive buttons instead of soft-keys, I would be sold.

  12. Joe mont
    July 1, 2015

    2100mah is abysmal. I have a nexus 4 with a 2100mah battery and only a 4.7″ screen, with Lollypop its battery life is very short. 2600mah is probably the minimal I would consider for a 5″ screen, scaling up with screen size.

    • Channing Moore
      July 2, 2015

      it might be small, but actually it depends on different usage, and the most important, its hardware design and system optimization.

    • balcobomber25
      July 3, 2015

      Lollipop is the culprit there. It is horrible on the Nexus 4 and 7, completely kills the battery life. 2100 isn’t a great deal but in the right system with the right specs and can last all day. With an FHD screen this thing is lucky to last 7 hours.

    • Tremaine Underwood
      July 3, 2015

      Thats a very valid point, I personally don’t get the hype surrounding Lollipop, what does it actually get you. The 64bit thing will only come into affect when phones start going over 4gb of ram. Until then I would take an optimized version of KitKat any day. OS’s generally get heavier with each new version and it takes time for the developers to iron out all the kinks(especially with the vast amount of hardware that they run on).

    • balcobomber25
      July 3, 2015

      Once 64 bit is properly utilized it will be a clear cut advantage. But we are still at least 2 years away from that happening. The majority of apps are still written in 32 bit and some dont work at all with 64 bit. Personally I would take Jelly Bean over every other version of Android.

    • Ben Liu
      July 6, 2015

      Totally wrong. 64bit does not only mean 64bit address bus “I can address more than 4GB of RAM”, but it is to do with 64bit registers and 64bit calculations. 32bit chips calculate and process in 32bits – 4 bytes at a time. 64bit can do 8 bytes at a time. Pair this with some good processing ALU’s and other internal logic and application code, you will get up to 50% increases in performance. This is why a slower clocked dual core iPhone 5S/6 in 64bit will be on par with much faster Android quad core phones. Its about getting more performance per cycle.

    • Tremaine Underwood
      July 6, 2015

      Dude I don’t know where you get your info from but do a little research before you start telling people that they are completely wrong. 50% performance increase? Cool I update to Lollipop and I should instantly see a 50% increase over KitKat 🙂 If an IPhone processor beats a faster cpu that means that the instruction set and architecture are better. Clock speed and amount of cores mislead people. AMD and intel played the clock speed war for how long until we reached the 4ghz bottle neck. Obviously on 2 identical chips upping the clock speed will improve performance. These things are all buzz words to sell new stuff to people. The architecture and instruction sets mean the most.

    • Ben Liu
      July 6, 2015

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit_computing
      Educate yourself in real computing and in machine code before you spit out garbage like that. It has got nothing to do with clock speeds or the Intel vs AMD wars. It is how the CPU processes machine code instructions internally. Underneath it all, the CPU consists of circuits that do arithmetic, move memory around and generally calculate. 64bit can calculate more than 32bit within one clock cycle, as long as it is optimised to do so. This IS the theory behind the “better architecture” that you are talking about.

      Updating to 64bit lollipop will not necessarily give you 50% performance (I said “up to”). It will give a modest 10% because Android is very far from being anywhere near optimised to make use of the extra register spaces within the CPU or that you can cram multiple instructions at the same time.

    • Tremaine Underwood
      July 6, 2015

      I will just end this now, only people with zero integrity argue on social media. I am well aware of the extra registers, I studied for 4 years and have a BSC degree in computer science. I have actually coded in assembly for a year and am aware of the extra registers since I have written code utilising them. You would make a brilliant campaign manager for the guys selling 64bit. Keep up the good work 🙂

    • Ben Liu
      July 6, 2015

      Too funny. Lets rip out our experience and credentials to win an argument? I would seriously question your BSc and your university if you claim “Why would I want 64bit computing for less than 4GB of RAM” when 64bit computing is not just about 64bit memory addressing (>4GB) but also 64bit processing which is more the point about optimisation and architecture.

    • MacArthur
      July 10, 2015

      5 hours and 10 minutes in the GeekBench 3 battery test with wifi on. That is +70% compared with an iPhone 6 for example. It easily lasts a day of normal use in my tests.

  13. jsbless
    July 1, 2015

    As far as it seems, X9 is the most valuable 3GB phone on the Chinese Android phone market

  14. fido futte
    July 2, 2015

    Andy -How many point out of 10 will you eastimated give it ?

    • July 2, 2015

      difficult to say at this moment. Keep posted

      • fido futte
        July 2, 2015

        Andy – could you make an test review of the new Elephone S2 ?

      • fido futte
        July 2, 2015

        Andy – Re: you review of voice Log-On of the UMI Iron that did not work.

        I have test Voice Log-ON on this model here : http://unicomputer.dk/da/329-5-myphone-f9-4g-lte.html and it work OK ( May 25 Firmware Android 5.1L )- you just need to remember to make min. 3-6 word log-on otherwise it does not work, also not be to loong away from phone when you voice log-on- Cool-thing

  15. jsbless
    July 2, 2015

    As far as it seems, X9 is the most valuable 3GB phone on the Chinese Android phone market

  16. Channing Moore
    July 2, 2015

    just found iocean facebook page has the screenshot of X9 battery practical use condition

  17. fido futte
    July 2, 2015

    Andy -How many point out of 10 will you eastimated give it ?

    • Andi Sykes
      July 2, 2015

      difficult to say at this moment. Keep posted

    • fido futte
      July 2, 2015

      Andy – could you make an test review of the new Elephone S2 ?

    • fido futte
      July 2, 2015

      Andy – Re: you review of voice Log-On of the UMI Iron that did not work.

      I have test Voice Log-ON on this model here : http://unicomputer.dk/da/329-5-myphone-f9-4g-lte.html and it work OK ( May 25 Firmware Android 5.1L )- you just need to remember to make min. 3-6 word log-on otherwise it does not work, also not be to loong away from phone when you voice log-on- Cool-thing

  18. Sébastien Kondov
    July 2, 2015

    About comparaison X9 and P8 Lite don’t forget that X9 has a better CPU and FULL HD Screen while P8 Lite has better photo. This why i took X9

    • MacArthur
      July 10, 2015

      What sensor is it in the P8 Lite then? The X9 has the 13 MP Sony Exmor RS IMX214 sensor. Same sensor as in some of the phones that are really famous for having excellent cameras, like the OnePlus One and Vivo Xshot.

  19. Channing Moore
    July 2, 2015

    just found iocean facebook page has the screenshot of X9 battery practical use condition

  20. Sébastien Kondov
    July 2, 2015

    About comparaison X9 and P8 Lite don’t forget that X9 has a better CPU and FULL HD Screen while P8 Lite has better photo. This why i took X9

    • MacArthur
      July 10, 2015

      What sensor is it in the P8 Lite then? The X9 has the 13 MP Sony Exmor RS IMX214 sensor. Same sensor as in some of the phones that are really famous for having excellent cameras, like the OnePlus One and Vivo Xshot.

  21. Susana
    July 3, 2015

    It does look tempting! Seems lollipop is on its way also.

  22. Marc
    July 3, 2015

    About this infrared, do we need to install an app to use it as control?

  23. balcobomber25
    July 3, 2015

    THL 2015 is 5 inches and has FHD…..

  24. Susana
    July 3, 2015

    It does look tempting! Seems lollipop is on its way also.

  25. Marc
    July 3, 2015

    About this infrared, do we need to install an app to use it as control?

  26. balcobomber25
    July 3, 2015

    THL 2015 is 5 inches and has FHD…..

  27. jsbless
    July 4, 2015

    Good-looking phone, great photos 😀
    X9 is really an unique model within these design+inspec so far in chinese androd phone market

  28. jsbless
    July 4, 2015

    Good-looking phone, great photos 😀
    X9 is really an unique model within these design+inspec so far in chinese androd phone market

  29. monakh
    July 4, 2015

    They lost me at back in March when the X9 was delayed till June. And 5 inches? She wants more 😛

  30. monakh
    July 4, 2015

    They lost me at back in March when the X9 was delayed till June. And 5 inches? She wants more 😛

  31. RRRobert
    July 8, 2015

    Andi, did you make any progress on writing the review? I’m eager to see the battery life, because with the other specs in mind, 2100 mAh seems to be a recipe for a disappointment. And honestly, I sincerely hope I’m wrong on that subject as I really like this phone.

    • MacArthur
      July 10, 2015

      5h 10m in the GeekBench 3 battery test in my first test with wifi and mobile radios on.

  32. RRRobert
    July 8, 2015

    Andi, did you make any progress on writing the review? I’m eager to see the battery life, because with the other specs in mind, 2100 mAh seems to be a recipe for a disappointment. And honestly, I sincerely hope I’m wrong on that subject as I really like this phone.

    • MacArthur
      July 10, 2015

      5h 10m in the GeekBench 3 battery test in my first test with wifi and mobile radios on.