LeEco(the company formerly known as LeTV) is the latest to join the long, long list of Chinese smartphone manufacturers trying their luck in India. The company doesn’t have any of the advantages of being an early mover, and no matter how shockingly low it can push prices, it won’t be the first to be doing so. Still, there’s a lot to like about the Le 1s, which is quite full of interesting features considering its budget price tag.
Rather than the Qualcomm processors that have become commonplace in this segment, LeEco has chosen the MediaTek Helio X10, also known as the MT6795T. This is a pretty powerful chip, with eight cores clocked at up to 2.2GHz and integrated PowerVR G6200 graphics. There’s also 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, which is sadly not expandable.
The 5.5-inch screen has a resolution of 1080x1920 which is now standard at this price level. There’s a 13-megapixel camera on the rear and a 5-megapixel one in front. Unfortunately, the 3000mAh battery is sealed in. 4G is supported across both SIM cards, and there’s also Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.1, and A-GPS. FM radio appears to be missing.
The Le 1s runs the rather dated Android 5.0.2 with LeEco’s heavy eUI skin. Predictably, it dispenses with the app drawer and there aren’t as many customisation options as we’ve seen before. The most difficult thing to get used to is that all shortcuts and quick settings have been moved to the app switcher screen. It looks like a mashup of iOS 7’s Control Center and app switcher and is functional enough, but it seems as though LeEco wanted to be different just for the sake of being different.
There aren’t very many preloaded apps - you get Yahoo Weather, and an app called My LeTV which is a gateway to the company’s cloud storage and security services. The only other non-default app is called OK Remote Control, which can use the IR emitter or work over Wi-Fi with compatible TVs, most notably LeTV’s own). There are no Indian TV and set-top box brands in the list of compatible products, and third-party apps like Peel do not work with the Le 1s.