Does iOcean’s latest pro level version of the iOcean X8 Mini meet the companies high standards? We take a look at the compact device in a hands on and first impressions.
iOcean are a name that anyone familiar to the Chinese phone world will instantly recognise for their range of affordable and high-tech phones. The company really started to gain popularity with their iOcean X7 smartphone which boasted a 5-inch 1080 display and quad-core processor. The X7 proved it could stand up to the competition and at that time battled with similar phones such as the UMi X2 and JiaYu G4.
The X7 is still around, but it is no longer the flagship phone of the iOcean pack, that title goes to the iOcean X8, and it’s little brother the iOcean X8 Pro, the phone I have in front of me right now!
iOcean X8 Mini Pro – unboxing
Receiving the box from iOcean and we get a sense of what is to come straight away. The packaging is simple yet elegant. All white with a touch of silver here and there, much like the white version of the iOcean X8 Mini Pro inside.
iOcean make both white and black versions of this phone and shipping them with a USB data-cable, mains charger, SIM ejector tool and a transparent plastic rear cover with smoke black finish. You will have noticed that there are no earbuds in the packaging and personally that is fine by me as I would prefer to save the cost added to the phone for including them and buy some decent third part earphones.
iOcean X8 Mini Pro – the phone and specs
iOcean might not like to admit this, but they do like to look to Oppo for inspiration when designing a new phone. The iOcean X7 was an Oppo Find 5 inspired device, and the new X8 and iOcean X8 Mini take their aesthetics from the Oppo R1.
The X8 Mini Pro’s boxy design is backed with a glass panels both front and rear. iOcean say they are using Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the Mini to protect the 5-inch 1280 x 720 display and the rear of the phone. That’s good news for me as I dislike using a screen protector and I don’t really want to cover this beauty of a phone up with the included case.
A metal backbone keeps the iOcean stiff, however I’m not convoked that the silver areas we see along the sides bottom and top of the phone is actually structural metal. Instead it appears to be plastic coated in a good quality metal finish.
The sides are where we find a SIM tray on the left with room for dual SIM cards, lesson learned by iOcean! A volume rocker and power button are on the right with 3.5mm headphone jack and USB data plug found in their traditional locations (top and base).
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Usually when a phone maker gives their device the Mini branding savvy customers will want to take a closer look. The problem in the past have been that phone makers have linked ‘mini’ to both smaller and lower spec meaning that if you preferred a smaller phone you ended up with lower hardware.
Well iOcean have the regular X8 mini for budget shoppers, this is the iOcean X8 Mini Pro, and as the name suggests it gets a higher specification level of trim. Specs include 2GB RAM, 32GB internal memory, octacore MT6592 1.7Ghz processor, Android 4.4 KitKat, and fully laminated OGS display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection! Not bad.
There are a few missing features such as the lack of a Micro SD card, and there is no 4G LTE, but we do believe that iOcean will add at least one of these features in the future (hint it won’t be an SD card).
At 7.6mm the phone is right in the middle of the pack for thickness. It doesn’t go to the extremes that Gionee have with the S5.1 and it isn’t a porker like the IUNI U3. Sitting in the middle of the playing field in size means the battery does too. At 2200mAh it is about on par with similar phones, only time will tell how well it lasts.
Cameras both front and rear are interpolated to 13 mega-pixel rear and 5 mega-pixel front. The actual ratings for each are 8 mega-pixel rear and 2 mega-pixel front. The rear camera getting an LED flash, auto focus, 1080 video capture and an aperture of F2.2, we would have preferred F2.0 but let’s see how it performs.
The Android 4.4 Kitkat ROM has a MIUI look to it and appears to be a very similar system as the one which Zopo have been loading in to many of their phones this year. From the settings we can see there are setting for NFC, which is odd as the official specs say the phone doesn’t have it!
iOcean X8 Mini Pro – first impressions
First impressions aren’t bad at all. The phone itself looks great and feels comfy, despite the angular design. It is a quality looking product, but with overall dimensions of 70.1 x 142 x 7.6mm we would say that it is a little long and wide to really be classed as a ‘Mini’ device.
Specifications are good, but it remains to be seen if NFC is part of the package or not, how well the battery will last and what improvements iOcean have made to the rear camera when compared to the full size iOcean X8.
The iOcean X8 Mini Pro will be set off for a full review now so keep posted for our full findings coming soon.
[ iOcean.cc ]
That looks really really nice.
@andi : Can you please do a video review? Thanks.
That looks really really nice.
@andi : Can you please do a video review? Thanks.
Not sure if I’d trust Iocean again my x7 had terrible GPS. The camera was buggy, sometimes camera would start and you couldn’t see anything but a green screen. This would only be remedied on a power reset and battery removal. Also it suffered from the network data stopping working, again remedied only by reset and battery removal. Sometimes the battery suddenly decided to drain much quicker than usual again remedied with reset… Yada yada . All that removing of the battery resulted in the case of the phones clips snapping. Really dissapointing at the time the x7 was one of the more expensive Chinese phones. I emailed them about this and they only asked if I’d like some parts to fix my phone or details how to flash new software, very poor customer relations.
Have since replaced this with a very much cheaper (half the price) Doogee Dagger dg550 and no such bugs exist and overall feels a much better made device.
Never owned an Iocean but GPS has been a problem with lots of Chinese phones although it has gotten a lot better over the last year. That sounds like decent customer service compared to some of the companies I have dealt with lol. Dealing with OPPO was like banging my head against a brick wall. Something like you were experiencing (software bugs, phone freezing) would happen on my Find 5 (after a week of usage) and instead of offering any solution they would get defensive and blame me.
Wow! That doesn’t sound helpful at all. With Iocean they were just so unremorseful and offered parts that where no different to the ones that were failing.
Oppo would of been another brand I may have bought at the time as they also seemed to be rated highly, thanks for the insight, and another company for me to avoid.
My wife has a doogee pixels which uses one of the old chipsets (mtk6582) that were in these phones then. Again the gps works really well and the phone is bug free and that only costs £60. After seeing that phone I decided to replace my annoying x7 with doogee dagger.
At the time just about everyone I knew who had an Oppo warned me not to get one, I ignored them all and regretted it. The brands I have had that had good customer service/quality is THL, ZTE (current phone), Xioami, Blu (Gionee), Meizu (wife current phone) and TCL (Alcatel in the US).
Not sure if I’d trust Iocean again my x7 had terrible GPS. The camera was buggy, sometimes camera would start and you couldn’t see anything but a green screen. This would only be remedied on a power reset and battery removal. Also it suffered from the network data stopping working, again remedied only by reset and battery removal. Sometimes the battery suddenly decided to drain much quicker than usual again remedied with reset… Yada yada . All that removing of the battery resulted in the case of the phones clips snapping. Really dissapointing at the time the x7 was one of the more expensive Chinese phones. I emailed them about this and they only asked if I’d like some parts to fix my phone or details how to flash new software, very poor customer relations.
Have since replaced this with a very much cheaper (half the price) Doogee Dagger dg550 and no such bugs exist and overall feels a much better made device.
Never owned an Iocean but GPS has been a problem with lots of Chinese phones although it has gotten a lot better over the last year. That sounds like decent customer service compared to some of the companies I have dealt with lol. Dealing with OPPO was like banging my head against a brick wall. Something like you were experiencing (software bugs, phone freezing) would happen on my Find 5 (after a week of usage) and instead of offering any solution they would get defensive and blame me.
Wow! That doesn’t sound helpful at all. With Iocean they were just so unremorseful and offered parts that where no different to the ones that were failing.
Oppo would of been another brand I may have bought at the time as they also seemed to be rated highly, thanks for the insight, and another company for me to avoid.
My wife has a doogee pixels which uses one of the old chipsets (mtk6582) that were in these phones then. Again the gps works really well and the phone is bug free and that only costs £60. After seeing that phone I decided to replace my annoying x7 with doogee dagger.
At the time just about everyone I knew who had an Oppo warned me not to get one, I ignored them all and regretted it. The brands I have had that had good customer service/quality is THL, ZTE (current phone), Xioami, Blu (Gionee), Meizu (wife current phone) and TCL (Alcatel in the US).
Hi andi and everyone else,
My sister is after a small yet powerful phone. On the top of our list right now are either the Xiaomi Mi2S and the Nubia Z5S Mini.
She’s after something no bigger than 4.7″ but with 2GB RAM and something similar in performance to a Snapdragon 600 whilst having a smaller width. She doesnt want anything wider than 65mm and obviously price is an important factor. 720p screen is preferred to save power.
Right now we think for the price (~$250) the Nubia Z5S Mini with it’s 4.7″ screen, S600 + 2GB RAM and dimensions of 134.8 x 65.8 x 7.6 mm seems to be pretty perfect. She would prefer the Xiaomi Mi2S but it’s around $150 more for the same specs.
Does anyone else know of a phone around that size with similar spec?
I’ve looked at the 5″ phones and there is plenty of choice but unfortunately due to the physical size of a 5″ display being around 63mm, it’s almost impossible at the moment to get a 5″ phone smaller than 65mm in terms of width.
Thanks!
The Z5s is a good phone especially the specs you get for the price. But some other phones you get in that price range:
Huawaei Honor 3 – $200. A little thicker than you want at 9mm but also about $50 cheaper.
Xioami Redmi 1s – $150. It is only 1 GB of ram but with MIUI it will run just as fast if not faster than most 2gb phones in this price range.
Nexus 4 – $260 on Amazon, possibly cheaper elsewhere.
Moto G – $179-199. Excellent budget phone.
If she wants to spend just a little bit more and get a phone with flagship specs and just a little bit bigger screen (really won’t even notice the difference) you can find the Xioami Mi3 for as low as $270 on some sites.
Thanks, I’ve got both the Mi3 and Mi4 myself (I love my Mi4 and just haven’t had the chance to sell my Mi3 yet hence I’m still holding it) and I do love MIUI. Not sure if it was due to me being a bit more of a heavy user, but on both my Mi3 and Mi4 I tend to use up between 1-2GB of RAM so I thought it’d be safer just to get her a phone with 2GB of RAM. I don’t think she’ll need over 2 so I’m not bothered at looking at the flagships. Originally I was going to get her the Xiaomi Redmi 1S, but the 1GB RAM and the fact that it was roughly the same size as my Mi4 has put her off. (Mi4 is 139.2 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm, the Redmi 1S is 137 x 69 x 9.9 mm)
She’s not worried about how thick the phone is, just how long and wide it is. She can’t get on with my Mi3 or Mi4 at all and tbh I’m not sure if she’ll be able to get on with the Z5S Mini even but for the price and specs, it’s hard to beat.
If money was no object then the Sony Z3 Compact would be the one to go for due to it’s dimensions of only 127.3 x 64.9 x 8.6 mm.
I’ve had another look at prices and I can see the following:
Nubia Z5S Mini for $215 (134.8 x 65.8 x 7.6 mm)
Xiaomi M2S for $230 (126 x 62 x 10.2 mm)
It seems that I got the wrong price for the M2S, I thought it was called the Mi2S so when I did a quick search I saw it for around $400.
I think she will go for the M2S due to the size of it. Personally I don’t like the look of the M2S though haha.
It is called the Mi2s and I have seen it for between $220-270 for the 16gb version and $250-299 for the 32gb version. The problem with the Mi2s is their usually limited stock or none at all (Antelife, Xioamishop and Xioamiworld are sold out).
I owned Redmi 1S, and with MIUI, 1GB RAM is not enough. Background apps like BBM constantly force closed by MIUI, you’ll have a really hard time playing Asphalt 8. Then after some updates, the can fix that problem, but it raise another problem. The CPU Throttle A LOT. Kinda like Nexus 4 problem. The phone get hot very easily. And even if you can finally play Asphalt 8, it will lags A LOT after a few minutes of play (roughly 2-3 rounds of game). So, no, Redmi 1S is not faster than most 2GB phone at that price range, it actually slower than Moto G despite having a faster CPU (1,6Ghz MSM 8228). But in real life, you’ll mostly get 1Ghz or lower CPU.
If you don’t play game, It’s good enough as your daily driver though.
Hi andi and everyone else,
My sister is after a small yet powerful phone. On the top of our list right now are either the Xiaomi Mi2S and the Nubia Z5S Mini.
She’s after something no bigger than 4.7″ but with 2GB RAM and something similar in performance to a Snapdragon 600 whilst having a smaller width. She doesnt want anything wider than 65mm and obviously price is an important factor. 720p screen is preferred to save power.
Right now we think for the price (~$250) the Nubia Z5S Mini with it’s 4.7″ screen, S600 + 2GB RAM and dimensions of 134.8 x 65.8 x 7.6 mm seems to be pretty perfect. She would prefer the Xiaomi Mi2S but it’s around $150 more for the same specs.
Does anyone else know of a phone around that size with similar spec?
I’ve looked at the 5″ phones and there is plenty of choice but unfortunately due to the physical size of a 5″ display being around 63mm, it’s almost impossible at the moment to get a 5″ phone smaller than 65mm in terms of width.
Thanks!
The Z5s is a good phone especially the specs you get for the price. But some other phones you get in that price range:
Huawaei Honor 3 – $200. A little thicker than you want at 9mm but also about $50 cheaper.
Xioami Redmi 1s – $150. It is only 1 GB of ram but with MIUI it will run just as fast if not faster than most 2gb phones in this price range.
Nexus 4 – $260 on Amazon, possibly cheaper elsewhere.
Moto G – $179-199. Excellent budget phone.
If she wants to spend just a little bit more and get a phone with flagship specs and just a little bit bigger screen (really won’t even notice the difference) you can find the Xioami Mi3 for as low as $270 on some sites.
Thanks, I’ve got both the Mi3 and Mi4 myself (I love my Mi4 and just haven’t had the chance to sell my Mi3 yet hence I’m still holding it) and I do love MIUI. Not sure if it was due to me being a bit more of a heavy user, but on both my Mi3 and Mi4 I tend to use up between 1-2GB of RAM so I thought it’d be safer just to get her a phone with 2GB of RAM. I don’t think she’ll need over 2 so I’m not bothered at looking at the flagships. Originally I was going to get her the Xiaomi Redmi 1S, but the 1GB RAM and the fact that it was roughly the same size as my Mi4 has put her off. (Mi4 is 139.2 x 68.5 x 8.9 mm, the Redmi 1S is 137 x 69 x 9.9 mm)
She’s not worried about how thick the phone is, just how long and wide it is. She can’t get on with my Mi3 or Mi4 at all and tbh I’m not sure if she’ll be able to get on with the Z5S Mini even but for the price and specs, it’s hard to beat.
If money was no object then the Sony Z3 Compact would be the one to go for due to it’s dimensions of only 127.3 x 64.9 x 8.6 mm.
I’ve had another look at prices and I can see the following:
Nubia Z5S Mini for $215 (134.8 x 65.8 x 7.6 mm)
Xiaomi M2S for $230 (126 x 62 x 10.2 mm)
It seems that I got the wrong price for the M2S, I thought it was called the Mi2S so when I did a quick search I saw it for around $400.
I think she will go for the M2S due to the size of it. Personally I don’t like the look of the M2S though haha.
It is called the Mi2s and I have seen it for between $220-270 for the 16gb version and $250-299 for the 32gb version. The problem with the Mi2s is their usually limited stock or none at all (Antelife, Xioamishop and Xioamiworld are sold out).
I owned Redmi 1S, and with MIUI, 1GB RAM is not enough. Background apps like BBM constantly force closed by MIUI, you’ll have a really hard time playing Asphalt 8. Then after some updates, the can fix that problem, but it raise another problem. The CPU Throttle A LOT. Kinda like Nexus 4 problem. The phone get hot very easily. And even if you can finally play Asphalt 8, it will lags A LOT after a few minutes of play (roughly 2-3 rounds of game). So, no, Redmi 1S is not faster than most 2GB phone at that price range, it actually slower than Moto G despite having a faster CPU (1,6Ghz MSM 8228). But in real life, you’ll mostly get 1Ghz or lower CPU.
If you don’t play game, It’s good enough as your daily driver though.
I went from normal X8 to this mini version! beautiful, small, elegant! the phone is very fast, and the display gorgeous! Great camera, I have bought from http://www.teknistore.com, great price, fast shipping dhl, received in 4 days
I went from normal X8 to this mini version! beautiful, small, elegant! the phone is very fast, and the display gorgeous! Great camera, I have bought from http://www.teknistore.com, great price, fast shipping dhl, received in 4 days
Do this have 4g or just 3g
Do this have 4g or just 3g
DO NOT BUY IT !!!!!!!!! VERY FRAGILE PHONE .JUST FIND IT CRACKED……. NO GUARANTEE RECOGNITION. THEY SAID TO ME BAD KEEPING. I AM STILL CRYING 235 EUROS
I WISH I HAD BOUGHT A FAMOUS BRANDT….
DO NOT BUY IT !!!!!!!!! VERY FRAGILE PHONE .JUST FIND IT CRACKED……. NO GUARANTEE RECOGNITION. THEY SAID TO ME BAD KEEPING. I AM STILL CRYING 235 EUROS
I WISH I HAD BOUGHT A FAMOUS BRANDT….