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LeEco Le 2 Review
by Jamshed Avari
Hot on the heels of the Le 1s and the Le 1s Eco, Chinese smartphone upstart LeEco has launched their successor, the Le 2. We’re all for keeping things fresh, especially since new competitors come out every week or two, but this launch is still surprisingly quick. Hopefully, those who bought either of the previous two models won’t feel too miffed, while those who are trying to decide which phone to buy will feel like they’re getting extra value.
With that kind of balance to maintain, LeEco hasn’t done very much to change its formula. The Le 2 is fairly similar to its predecessors, with just a few tweaks and twists. It carries forward the metal body and fingerprint reader which made the Le 1s stand out, as well as the Le Ecosystem content and membership which gave the Le 1s Eco its identity. However, it’s also slightly more expensive and has at least one feature that will polarise potential buyers. Read on to see what’s new, and whether LeEco has managed to keep things interesting.
Look and feel
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 Le Max 2(Review) 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 Vivo V3Max(Review) 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 numerous reports and rumours that Apple 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 user.