Elephone U Pro Unboxing, Hands On, An Impressive Snapdragon Device!

I’ve just received my Elephone U Pro and I’m so impressed with it that I’m already considering making it my daily driver without fully testing it. That’s obviously a fool’s errand, as further testing will reveal flaws in a device, no matter how good the first impressions are.

Elephone U Pro

Elephone was founded in 2014 with many ups and downs. Gizchina veterans will remember the P3000, P7000, P9000 fondly, while keeping in mind the missteps that Elephone has made, and Elephone’s first Snapdragon release carries many implications. Not only is it expensive to negotiate with Qualcomm for their Snapdragon processors, but it is also expensive to use, and the Elephone U Pro is a perfect example of that.

Starting at $450, this is the most expensive phone Elephone has ever produced by a long shot, and the Qualcomm chipset is only part of that.

Amazing on Paper

Elephone U Pro Specifications

Processor	Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 Processor
Display	6.0” 2160×1080 AMOLED display
RAM	4/6GB
Storage	64/128GB eMMC
Operating System	Android 8.0 Oreo
Cameras	13MP Camera, 5MP Front
Battery	3,500mAh
Physical Dimensions	15.4 x 7.2 x 0.84 cm, 166g

Big thanks to Gearbest for providing this review unit.

Elephone U Pro Unboxing

The unboxing experience is rather ordinary, a regular box with sparse accessories. The phone itself holds promise, but the packaging and accessories are rather mundane.

Ordinary Unboxing Experience

Elephone U Pro Phone

The phone feels decent, but not amazing. Many flagships from other manufacturers like UMiDiGi and Ulefone will take down the build quality here by a mile. The frame is made of metal, the front sports Gorilla Glass 5, but the back is most likely plastic as a metal cover would interfere with wireless charging. There is no headphone jack as is the trend nowadays, and we have a USB-C port also.

How the phone looks is a completely different story. Its curved on the back and the front and it looks absolutely gorgeous. Anybody not eyes deep in Chinese Tech would instantly think this was a Galaxy S8 (barring the logo on the back of course) and with good reason. It resembles its Samsung namesake almost completely.

The bezels are slim, the screen is curved beautifully, as Elephone takes its design aesthetics to the next step (albeit copied).

Elephone U Pro Software

Elephone has mentioned that it took them almost 300 days to bring this phone to market, due to the many challenges they faced, and getting Oreo on this phone is certainly one of them. General use is fairly fast and fluid, not as fast as the Oneplus 5T, but fast enough. I get the strange feeling that the animations are built completely for speed with little to no thought given to fluidity, which gives some animations the feeling of choppiness.

Face unlock and the fingerprint sensor are both adequate but fall far behind even the Mi Note 3 in terms of speed, and the vibration engine feels a tiny bit weird.

Elephone U Pro First Impressions

As you could probably tell, I’m trying pretty hard to nitpick problems with the Elephone U Pro here, and at first glance there really aren’t many. When I use a Xiaomi phone, I know I can expect a certain level of quality, however with Elephone, no such level can be expected. Elephone has sometimes failed me and sometimes gone far beyond my expectations, and I sincerely hope its the latter. Stay tuned for my full review coming up very soon.

Elephone U Pro Video

Elephone U Pro Gallery