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MWC 2016: Zopo Speed 8 hands on video

AndiFebruary 25, 2016

Zopo managed to be first with the Helio X20 train when the launched the Zopo Speed 8 at MWC yesterday. Here’s my short hands on video with the phones from the start of MWC.

I wasn’t able to get to the official launch of the Zopo Speed 8 at MWC, but I was given the chance to get hands on with the phone before the launch and took a few moments to make a short hands on video.

As the video was made ahead of launch I didn’t have all the full details at hand, but it seems that Zopo plan to sell the Helio X20 powered flagship for around 300 Euros through physical stores across Europe, while online resellers will offer the phone for $299.99.

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Having spent time with the phone I’m not convinced that the phone is worth the asking price. Yes, it has a powerful processor and 4GB RAM, but that’s about all it does have. The build is plastic, which is fine, but the materials don’t feel premium like they do on Oppo’s plastic phones.

It remains to be seen if the final production version’s of the Zopo Speed 8 will have better camera performance than these engineering models, and I’m also interested to see how Zopo deal with updates, but even if these details are worked out the asking price is too much for me to swallow.

Zopo Speed 8 Hands on video

What do you guy’s think of the Zopo Speed 8?

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About the author
Andi

Adam Irvine
February 25, 2016
It’s just not good enough is it, I can’t quite put my finger on why, but when you’ve got phones like the Xiaomi Mi5 for the same price at it’s entry level, it gets completely overshadowed…
What are Zopo playing at?
- Muhammad Yasir
  February 25, 2016
  isnt mi5 a $100 dearer?
  point is , one should skip Zopo if they really want to make em think about their pricing policies and go for better priced phones. the summation of phones shown at the CES , MWC and prolly the first week of March will leave us with a motherload of viable and feasible choices with possibly great value for money.

coolgreek
February 25, 2016
300 euros is 330$. Just too much to pay for a phone that is made of plastic. I mean there are ton of phones coming with Helio x20, most of them metallic, id touch, same camera etc for less (example doogee F7). So 300 euros for a plastic phone made by Zopo? Updates (not much i guess). Rather spend that money on Xiaomi Redmi note 3 Pro (and save some money) or spent a few more and get the Mi5 which is WAY better (at everything).

Steven Fox
February 25, 2016
Zopo have never, ever built a great phone for their asking price, and they tend to skip updating software on many devices.

Vlada
February 25, 2016
It seems that Zopo is targeting Europe with this phone. Here are phones much more expensive and the choice is bad. If you buy from China you have to pay not only the VAT tax (20%) but additional about $20 to the courier for making the custom clearance.
So a phone which originally costs 300USD will cost you almost 400USD in the end. You will have only one year warranty and to send the phone back to China for reclamation will cost you almost 50USD and 2 months.
So if I could buy a phone worth 300USD for only 300€, that would be great. The question is, if this phone is really worth 300USD. You can buy better and cheaper phones. But they will be crippled with missing European LTE frequencies.
It is interesting that only the low quality phone manufacturers like Zopo, Elephone or DooGee support European LTE, while companies like Xiaomi, Meizu, LeEco or Vivo all block the most important 800MHz band.

MaxPower
February 25, 2016
I’m not expecting a small company like Zopo to compete with the big ones when we speak of prices.
So at the end I think the price is not terrible.
They offer global availability, they offer full LTE support for Europe (Band20 is included) and SD card support.
I’ve seen many people saying “pass” to the best phones that Chinese market can offer for lack of band 20 or because they feared custom fees while buying from China.
There you go guys, a true Chinese phone meant for the European market. Enjoy
(I’ll stick with Xiaomi,Meizu or LeTV)
- MattD
  February 25, 2016
  Exactly: maybe it will be not worth 300€, but on paper offers a nice hardware and all of those plus you listed above.
  People compare its price with xiaomi mi5’s one, not taking in account all of the issue of buying a chinese phone (lack of some european bands) from china (fees, warranty).
  And, most of all, they compare with mi5’s CHINESE price, not thinking about hundreds of dollars resellers will add to the final price, plus sending costs and fees. That’s a little dumb.
  Here, in the same conditions, if i’d want to I can have this zopo for 300€, or else a moto g 2gb ram for 250… That’s the comparison I can make directly!
  Thay said, zopo still have to prove to be worth 300€, but only real life will tell!
- Marco Lancaster
  February 25, 2016
  My only concern with Zopo is that they usually uses an average build quality, with cheap components and in the end overprice the whole mess, to grow up their margin over the phone, without mention the zero support you get, you can see the case of ZP999 with MT6595, a big regret for most of owners. (Btw Last year, they published some sources, of MT6753 and MT6595, and that was a really great thing.)
  But don’t take me wrong, I’m still waiting to see they improving their old strategy.
  They are really old ones, just like Jiayu, have made a good name in their past, and have a lot, a lot of money.
  - MaxPower
    February 25, 2016
    I have no doubt that this one is going to be cheap-built just like the zp999.
    And that’s why I said I’ll stick with Xiaomi,LeTV and Meizu.
    - Joel Adames
      February 26, 2016
      i fully agree with you on the usability comment. no point to buy a full 4g phone that wont be able to use the web the way it was designed to. i love so many chinese phones but so many of them have no band 4 for me that´s a big no-no

realjjj
February 25, 2016
Any chance you checked the clocks of the X20. The few Geekbench results from this device are not great, it looks like 2.3GHz at best but even then the results are a bit weak.
3llawi
February 25, 2016
Is this dual sim with SD card?

tauerman
February 25, 2016
Sadly, according to the answer they posted in their shop page, the phone arrives around 22nd April in their warehouse. That’s too long. I need a phone right now! Or in the next 2 weeks maybe. Back to start…
Xiaomi Mi5 too small display. Zopo Speed 8 too late. Gionee S8 too expensive. Doogee F7, no clue when it comes.
no news about ZUK Z2.
Umi Touch to weak maybe.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (pro) locked bootloader (this leaves a bad taste about xiaomi for me).
- Nilzie
  February 26, 2016
  get a redmi note 2 for sure and save some money. theyre dirt cheap on aliexpress now.
tauerman
February 26, 2016
Have you seen the benchmarks? It isn’t faster than a SD650 http://www.gizmochina.com/2016/02/25/mediatek-helio-x20-benchmark-scores-revealed/
LeEco
February 26, 2016
Zopo = eXtreme overpriced + super bug’s in rom + sw real bad, bad support !
Buy zopo now and complain later !
- nick p.
  February 26, 2016