Oukitel K4000 Plus review: great battery life for the average user

Oukitel is one of many China-based smartphone OEMs and during the past few years has managed to launch some really interesting devices that boast impressive standby times and all-in-all decent performance. The Oukitel K4000 Plus is the mid-ranger of the “K series” family, and perhaps the best balanced device of their portfolio, (only) if you are on a “tight” budget.

It’s the smallest (as far as battery capacity is concerned) of the K Series family, with the K10000 Pro and K6000 Plus aimed at more experienced (and more demanding) users. Our little friend here packs a 4,100mAh battery inside, providing impressive stand by/talk time results that you will surely enjoy, but it’s still low priced (just $99-$102) and has decent everyday performance, with no problems or mishaps.

Let’s have a closer look on what this small “monster” can do, OK?

Solid Build, basically unbreakable

Oukitel K4000 Plus review – Technical specs

The Oukitel K4000 Plus packs a 5-inch 720p (1280 x 720) display which is extremely tough (up to 9H hardness), being able to withstand more than 800MPa of stress value. It’s equipped with Mediatek’s MT6737 SoC, paired with a Mali-T720 MP2 GPU, 2GB of RAM as well as 16GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD card up to 32GB) for apps, games, and media. On its back we can find an 8-megapixel snapper (13-megapixel interpolated) with a LED flash next to it and a 2-megapixel shooter (for… really “basic” selfie shots I am afraid) is available up front.

The device runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and it’s almost stock, with Oukitel only adding some of their very own features (mostly gestures), along with some additional pre-installed applications (360 Security, UC Browser, Freezer, Quick Touch).

Oukitel K4000 Plus main Features:

• Display: 5.0 inch, 1280 x 720 pixels HD screen
• CPU: MTK6737 Quad Core 1.3GHz
• 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, microSD slot
• Operating System: Android 6.0
• Camera: 8.0MP (SW 13.0MP) rear camera + 2.0MP (SW 5.0MP) front camera
• Ambient Light Sensor, Gravity Sensor, Proximity Sensor, Touch Sensor
• Dual SIM dual standby, Micro SIM / Micro SIM
• 4100 mAh battery
• GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz – WCDMA 900/1900/2100MHz -FDD-LTE 800/900/1800/2100/2600MHz

Hardware And Build quality

Let’s start with the easy stuff OK? The first thing you notice when this phone appears in front of you (out of its box) is how heavy and thick it is. The Oukitel K4000 Plus weighs 215 grams and it’s approximately 10mm thick. However these numbers feel normal on this type of phones – specifically the ones with large batteries like most Oukitel smartphones. This one packs a 4100 mAh battery so it’s more or less expected to be this heavy, but it’s also really durable with a shatter proof display and an extremely solid build.

Oukitel decided to create a number of videos recently, in order to promote this device, and pretty much every one of them boasted about its battery life and durability. Here’s one of them just for… the fun of it:

The company actually hit the device with a hammer, used it as a hammer to knock nails into wood and even decided to use it to crack walnuts! Don’t worry, the device did great, its display is quite durable, but obviously these things are not to be made for fun so don’t try them at home. It’s a pity to damage a brand new device, isn’t it?

In everyday use, the K4000 Plus may be heavy but still, there’s a reason one will choose this phone isn’t there? It has a small footprint however thanks to its 5 inch display, so it can easily fit into most pockets, or allow for one handed use with impressive performance (for a budget Android smartphone that is).

Oh, let’s not forget that there’s a fingerprint scanner placed inside the Home Button of the device. It can be found just below the display, providing quite fast fingerprint recognition with almost 90% success rate. You can use it to lock applications, unlock the phone and it can “read” fingerprints in 360 degrees.

Connectivity/Call performance

It’s one of the most important (and deciding) factors for me, when I test a phone. How good it sounds, what type of signal reception it has and how well its speaker works. The Oukitel K4000 Plus did quite well in this test by my standards. The phone call quality was satisfactory, but nothing that is worth bragging about. I was able to call others and receive calls on this device without any issues, with quite good sound quality and volume.

I found its speaker to be “rough” I guess, with loud “noise” when ringtones were played back, but nothing that could disappoint me I guess. I have to say that the microphone was quite solid and the overall connectivity via both data and Wi-Fi networks was consistent. I didn’t experience any problems with 3G/4G or Wi-Fi during my tests, all web pages/social networks were easily accessible via WiFi but the signal strength when I was a bit far from my router dropped quite easily.

I didn’t face any disconnections thankfully but the WiFi range drops rapidly after 10-12 meters walk from the WiFi router. The 4G speeds were average, with good reception wherever I went, zero dropped calls/connections and a decent all in all performance.

Battery consumption

Well here’s where this phone (and most Oukitel devices) shine! One of the main selling points of the Oukitel K4000 Plus is its battery life, and for a good reason. It comes with 4100 mAh capacity, but the Android 6.0 operating system is beautifully optimized to offer great standby and talk times, that will surely – SURELY – satisfy you.

The K4000 Plus can stay away from its charger for more than 2 days if you use it wisely, and offers great stand by times when you put it to rest. I “pushed” the device as much as I could: I played some games, browsed the internet, did tons of messaging and YouTube, phone calls as well but it just went from 74% to 55% by the end of the first day, confirming that it’s a decent “energy” phone.

In any case, I know you will ask yourselves, so here it is:

if you’re looking an affordable handset with really good battery life, the Oukitel K4000 plus should definitely be one of your options.

Operating System – Marshmallow inside

If you’ve ever used a Chinese handset by Chinese OEMS (UMIDIGI, Doogee, Cubot) or any other similar brand, you’ll feel at home with this model. The Oukitel K4000 Plus runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with a simple icon theme and a beautiful lockscreen made by the Chinese company, so it’s not “pure” Android, but it’s really “light” and easy to move around in the menus.

Oukitel uses their own launcher with some special effects, desktop settings for those of you who love to tweak a bit their phones and includes a set of Gesture Options. You can, for example, double tap the capacitive home button in order to wake up the device, and you can do the same in order to lock it. All of these gestures can be disabled in settings by the way.

As far as the notification shade, settings and a number of other parts of the software are concerned, this is stock Android. It’s one of the reasons Oukitel K4000 Plus manages to perform as it should, and it’s definitely a huge “plus” for this smartphone.

Camera: not that bad at all…

First of all: don’t choose the phones of this category (devices with large batteries) purely for their imaging features. It’s not where they’re good at, and they know it. You should know it too. So the K4000 Plus confirms all of the above and proves to be an average camera phone equipped with an 8-megapixel snapper (13-megapixel interpolated) on the back, and a 2-megapixel camera up front.

Its main camera can shoot decent photos in good lightning conditions (the colors could be better overall), but it tends to provide somewhat colder images than it should. When the light isn’t that good, however, it doesn’t perform that well, as expected with most Chinese smartphones in this category and price range. It can also shoot HD videos at 25 fps, with average quality and some high contrast issues as you can see below.

The same goes for the selfie camera that’s placed in front, just above the display. The images lack details and are nothing to brag about, that’s for sure, but it will do more than a good job if you shoot selfies from time to time, and the same goes for video calls. There’s also a LED flash placed next to the main camera. It manages to light up the images, but it doesn’t do what it should: it basically ruins selfies, letting them turn out unnatural and you’ll probably opt not to use flash, at least in most situations.

So, is it worth it?

Oukitel is surely one of the decent manufacturers if you’re in the market for an affordable device with really solid battery life. This Oukitel K4000 Plus is exceptional in its battery performance, it performs well in average – everyday use, and most novice or semi-experienced Android users will enjoy it – no doubt about it. After all its price nowadays (approximately 100$) is great for those who have limited budget to spend on a phone.

Keep in mind that it’s a bit heavy (thanks to its massive 4100 mAh battery), but on the other hand it’s super durable, it has a shock proof display with awesome brightness and offers great build quality that will allow for harsh use without the constant fear of ruining your phone.