MWC 2016: Zopo Speed 8 Helio X20 launched


zopo speed 8 launch

We were promised Helio X20 phones at MWC this year, but its up to Zopo to actually come through and launch the Helio X20 powered Zopo Speed 8.

If you were hoping to see some photos of the new Speed 8 with that Moto GP rider chap who definitely isn’t Guy Martin then I do apologise. Due to the scheduling of the Zopo Speed 8 launch and the launch of the Xiaomi Mi5 I had to actually get my hands on Zopo’s latest flagship on Monday, but promised not to release the details till today.

zopo speed 8 launch

So the Zopo Speed 8, what is it like and what features does it have to offer? Well there really aren’t any variations from what the leaks told us to expect to what was actually launched.

zopo speed 8 launch

The phone features a 5.5-inch FHD display (not a 2K panel), it runs a Mediatek Helio X20 chipset with 4GB RAM, and there is a rear fingerprint scanner. The camera in the Speed 8 is a 21 mega-pixel model but the samples at MWC would only allow us to use up to 16 mega-pixels.

zopo speed 8 launch

Zopo made is clear from the start that the Speed 8 on show is an engineering model and not a final production version which is probably the reason for the 16 mega-pixel issue. Camera performance is pretty weak on these engineering samples, so let’s hope for better on the production model.

Gizchina News of the week


zopo speed 8 launch

For the design, Zopo have played it safe and made a phone that looks like a Zopo device (for better or worse) but they have included dual front facing speakers which is a nice touch. It’s also nice that the Android 6.0 install is pretty much stock.

Read Also:  UMIDIGI's first Note Series- Note 100 will debut with 6.8" 120Hz display, sleek design and long battery

zopo speed 8 launch

What isn’t so nice though is the fact that Zopo are still playing with plastic! That’s right, this ‘flagship’ phone has a metal ‘look’ frame and a full plastic body.

Zopo Speed 8 hands on Gallery

Zopo Speed 8 Specifications

Tech specs of the Zopo Speed 8 are as follows:

  • 5.5-inch IPS display
  • FHD 1920 x 1080 resolution
  • 4GB RAM
  • 32 GB internal memory
  • Dual SIM
  • Fingerprint scanner on the rear
  • 3500mAh battery
  • Mediatek Helio X20 processor
  • Sony IMX230 21 mega-pixel rear camera
  • Dual LED flash
  • 8 mega-pixel front camera
  • Android 6.0

Zopo didn’t give me the sale price of the phone, and as I am at the Xiaomi Mi5 launch at the this time I still don’t know what it is, however I will update this post once I find out what it’s going to be.

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.

Previous MWC 2016: Watch the Xiaomi Mi 5 launch LIVE here!
Next Xiaomi Mi 5: All you need to know!

38 Comments

  1. Assefa Hanson
    February 24, 2016

    meh

  2. Tarantino
    February 24, 2016

    Its shape is more like a phone in 2014.

  3. K-Paxian
    February 24, 2016

    no interest at all for zoppo..!

  4. Adam Irvine
    February 24, 2016

    Lol…

  5. MattD
    February 24, 2016

    Is the rear (and battery) removable? I don’t mind plastic (I actually like it more than metal for some aspects) but a plastic unibody is a little dumb.

    However front speakers are always welcome, but the shape is a little odd, and I would definitely rather softouch buttons instead of that crappy logo (we’ve been saying this to htc for years, when people will finally learn a f*ckig logo is nothing fancy, just dead space for the user?!)

    • February 24, 2016

      If I remember rightly you cannot remove the rear.

      • Vlada
        February 24, 2016

        Then it is absolutely stupid. Removeable battery is a very nice and practical feature. I’ve always had a spare battery for my phone and I swap them if I needed to.

        • Joel Adames
          February 24, 2016

          O course you mean from the point that it us plastic right?

          • Vlada
            February 24, 2016

            Right. Of course the best solution is a metal frame with removable battery like the Jiayu G5S had.

      • balcobomber25
        February 24, 2016

        If you can’t remove the plastic it is Zoppo being cheap and eliminates the few minor benefits of plastic.

      • MattD
        February 26, 2016

        Dear zopo, that is retarted… I guess they’ll advertise the thing like: “all the limitation of metal unibody, but with the unmatched touch & feel of cheap plastic” lol

  6. David Košič
    February 24, 2016

    Just like every other Chinese phone the price and the stability of the software is going to make or break this phone.

  7. E8hffff
    February 24, 2016

    I’m looking for community support and frontline specs, v looks. Whilst Zopo has a good community backing the Oukitel is looking to be a leader for me with their quick software support out the door for the likes of CM, etc. They just need front runner hardware to make me interested. They have promised it in the K6000 Premium. If Oukitel fail then Zopo Speed 8 is a real contender. The Xiaomi MI5 looks like a winner too but they are restrictive to community homebrewing.

    • balcobomber25
      February 24, 2016

      Xiaomi is restrictive to home brewing but they have probably the best community support in this industry. The MIUI forums are among the most active (from a user and developer standpoint) supportive and informative in this business.

  8. Joel Adames
    February 24, 2016

    Hopefully this and the DooGee will mánager to deliver good stuff and moderate promises… Camera execution and design studyness should reign at the end.
    I would love to see this dual-front-speaker phone + nice camera touting a great price and call it my own at some point. But not if it will give me headaches

  9. tauerman
    February 24, 2016

    With a nice sales price this could be an interesting device (helio x20)

  10. balcobomber25
    February 24, 2016

    I actually don’t mind the styling of it and the use of plastic (although I do prefer the durability of metal/glass). The one thing I love about plastic backs is Aliexpress will have plenty of swapabale rear covers. I don’t use cases so being able to change the color is a nice bonus.

  11. realjjj
    February 24, 2016

    Spotted some youtube vids yesterday from italian and spanish sites, they mentioned 300 euros pricing.

    • David Košič
      February 24, 2016

      Well it’s zopo so it probably is correct.

  12. 3llawi
    February 24, 2016

    There is a 3 phones:
    1-Archos dimond 2 note /this one is perfect but it’s Helio x10 :'(
    2-Zopo speed 8 / this one the best but it’s 5.5 :'( I want 6 inch
    3-doggee f7 best of the best but :'(
    It’s internal storage 16 gb :'( :'(

    Please someone help me here :'(

    • Riccardo Benzoni
      February 24, 2016

      you’d be pretty fine with an helio 10, so stop crying! 😀

    • realjjj
      February 24, 2016

      What’s the rush? Just chill for a month or two , wait for more phones to be released with the new SoCs. There are very few options for now with P10, SD65x, X20, SD820.

    • Blatt Ferenc
      February 25, 2016

      I did not see any news about the F7. Do you have some news?

      • 3llawi
        February 25, 2016

        Only I found this

  13. Marco Lancaster
    February 24, 2016

    Hmm.. Maybe I’m wrong, but there must be something wrong with the X20, can be availability or perhaps like some previous rumors suggests heating?… Only small Chinese have made announce of phones sporting it. Obviously they should take a long time to actually launch those devices, and probably Meizu or LeTV will be the first ones to debut a phone with it.

    In the end, this is just a guess, maybe it’s too early.

    • realjjj
      February 24, 2016

      There was the earthquake too recently that could have delayed it.

      Hsinchu, Taiwan, R.O.C. – February 17, 2016 – TSMC (TWSE: 2330, NYSE: TSM) today updates first quarter 2016 guidance after further examination of the impact of the earthquake that struck southern Taiwan on February 6, 2016. Although there was no structural or serious electric, water, and gases supply damage to the Company’s fabs in Tainan (Fab 6, Fab 14A and Fab 14B), the damage to wafers in progress was greater than our initial assessment announced on the day of the earthquake. In addition, the equipment recovery in Fab 14A, and to a lesser extent Fab 6, would take longer than the initial estimate.
      Consequently, TSMC has devoted maximum resources to make up for all the impacted wafers. Nevertheless, we still expect to see wafer delivery delays in the first quarter. More precisely, for Fab 14A, the wafer delivery will be delayed by 10 to 50 days, and delivery of about 100K (12-inch) wafers will be delayed from 1Q to 2Q. For Fab 6, the wafer delivery delay is 5 to 20 days, with 20K (8-inch) wafers delayed to 2Q. For Fab 14B, the delivery delay is negligible. All other fabs located in Hsinchu and Taichung Science Parks are unaffected.

  14. Riccardo Benzoni
    February 24, 2016

    for a moment I thought it was an Acer for the look it has. I believe that zopo could deliver the x20 in reasonable time (quite a few times they were among the first to use the newest mtk chipsets), for sure I’d trust them more than doogee.
    I hope the back is removable, otherwhise I hope they could change it with a more appealing faux leather or metal/glass combo.

  15. tauerman
    February 24, 2016

    Thank god it is a plastic body. And the specs are nice as well. If it isn’t too expensive, this could be my next phone.

  16. tauerman
    February 24, 2016

    Aha:
    “ZOPO Speed 8 will be available to pre-order around 7th March, Price will be around USD299.99”

    http://www.zopomobileshop.com/369-zopo-speed-8-smartphone.html#/color-black/shipping_insurance-no

    • Vlada
      February 25, 2016

      I hope the battery can be replaced, but it seems it won’t be possible. Also a metal frame would be nice. Other then that it seems to be a very nice phone.

      We’ll have to wait for some reviews to see how the camera behaves. A good chip doesn’t make a good camera. The optics and SW is also very important.

      I also don’t get it why many other Chinese phone makers (mainly Xiaomi, Meizu and LeEco/LeTV) block the 800 MHz band. It is very important in Europe.

      • tauerman
        February 25, 2016

        Maybe the SoC can only support a limited number of LTE bands. So they choose the bands which they need in China (and they dont need 800mhz there. They also use TD-LTE instead of FDD-LTE). I guess the Helio X20 can support more LTE bands than the other SoCs.

        • Vlada
          February 26, 2016

          That is definitely not the case. Some people were able to unlock the additional LTE bands. So it is blocked on purpose.

          But I don’t understand why.

    • 3llawi
      February 25, 2016

      It’s dual sim with sd card?

      • tauerman
        February 25, 2016

        I don’t know, it isn’t that clearly stated on the page.

    • Nilzie
      March 3, 2016

      if thats true the its game over already. You can get a lot of phone from other brands for 300 dollars.

  17. someone who knows
    February 26, 2016

    Zopo = eXtreme overpriced + super bug’s in rom + real bad, bad sw support !

    Buy zopo now and complain later !

  18. Nilzie
    March 3, 2016

    wish it had metal frame. how much do you guys speculate it will cost?