Hi my self prabhat rajput Our Le 2 review unit stood out most for its Rose Gold colour, which definitely grabs attention. LeEco’s website also lists gold, silver, and grey as options, so if you don’t like it, you can get something a bit more conventional. The front is glass with body-coloured panels above and below the screen, while the sides and rear have a buffed metal finish except for bands of shiny polished metal where the sides meet the front and back. Surprisingly, this phone still has the old LeTV logo on the back, unlike the which launched at the same time.
The power and volume buttons are on the right, and a tray for two Nano-SIMs is on the left. The only thing on top is an infrared emitter. There’s a USB Type-C port on the bottom flanked by two symmetrical grilles, though only the one on the right is a speaker. The main thing to note is the absence of a 3.5mm audio socket - we’ll discuss the ramifications of that later on
The back is where you’ll see the most changes compared to the the Le 1s generation. The camera module is now much larger and is also slightly extruded from the rest of the body. The fingerprint sensor is squared off but still has its mirror finish.
The phone is fairly easy to hold and use, but you might find the edges a bit too sharp. LeEco ships this phone with a flexible clear case which makes it much easier to grip, but also tended to stick to other objects in our pockets. The weight of 153g is a slight improvement over the Le 1s’s 169g. One-handed usage is fairly easy thanks to the narrow sides.
Specifications and software
LeEco has gone with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 652 processor, a fairly beefy choice for this price segment, especially considering that the similarly equipped costs nearly twice as much as this phone. You get 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, which is unfortunately not expandable. A variety of 4G bands are supported, including bands 3 and 40 which are commonly used in India. You can use 4G on either SIM, but both can’t be active at the same time.
The Le 2’s screen measures 5.5 inches and has a resolution of 1080x1920, just like the screens of its predecessors. Colours are fairly punchy although blacks aren’t as deep as we would have liked. We had no complaints with brightness, even outdoors in the daytime. There’s a 16-megapixel rear camera with a dual-tone flash, and an 8-megapixel front one. You can record videos at 4K resolution with the primary camera.
And so we come to the Le 2’s most divisive feature, its lack of a standard 3.5mm audio port. It’s possible that the idea for this move stemmed from is planning to do the same thing with its upcoming iPhone refresh this year. This might be an attempt to steal Apple’s thunder, and sure enough, LeEco is promoting itself as the first company in the world to have ditched the port. The real issue is what this means for users, and unfortunately,
The whole rationale for this move is that LeEco claims to have developed its own standard for digital audio delivery through the USB Type-C port. This is not industry standard and it is unlikely ever to be widely supported which you can read about here in our and says you will be able to enjoy much higher quality audio than you would with standard analogue connections. If you buy a Le 2 or Le Max 2 in the first wave of sales, you’ll get one of these headsets for free, but they cost Rs. 1, 990 otherwise. You can use standard Bluetooth headsets but those also cost at least that much and need to be kept charged.
We’re happy that CDLA exists, but we don’t see why it needed to come at the cost of the 3.5mm socket. The Le 2 is not significantly slimmer than its predecessor, and doesn’t have a bigger battery. No great use has been made of the space freed by eliminating one connector. Buyers will be greatly inconvenienced by having to carry around an extra adapter, not being able to use a headset while their phone is charging, and not being able to use USB-OTG storage for media playback with a headset. The Type-C to 3.5mm adapter bundled with this phone is not a standard USB audio device, and so you can add all of that to the confusion around the USB Type-C standard.
For most buyers, especially at this price point, high-resolution audio isn’t likely to be at the top of any wishlist. Most buyers won’t even have high-def audio files, though that is somewhat taken care of by the Le Ecosystem content subscription you get with each phone ( or at least will be when Hungama services commence later this year, as promised) . Even so, it’s an inconvenience and a nuisance to be forced to use LeEco’s own headsets - like a throwback to the early days of mobile phones.