mobile

Hi,
this is my review of the Mlais M52 Red Note. You can read it in my main language (German) on chinamobiles.org (http://www.chinamobiles.org/threads/...ed-note.44274/), too.

Order
Gearbest.com has sent me the Mlais M52 Red Note (http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_152602.html) for this review.

You can get this phone for 141,98$ + shipping costs + taxes (depending on your country) using the coupon code: M52JY

I have received the phone on Wednesday (25.3.15) after it was sent out with DHL Express on Monday (23.3.15).

Specs (from Gearbest)
Brand: Mlais
Model: M52 Red Note
Networking: 2G: GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) / 3G: WCDMA (850/900/1900/2100MHz) / 4G: FDD-LTE (800/1800/2100/2600MHz)
SIM-card: DualSIM with DualStandby
CPU: MTK6752 Octa Core, 64 Bit, 1.7GHz
GPU: ARM MALI-T760
ROM: 16GB
RAM: 2GB
External memory: TF card up to 64GB
Display: 5,5‘‘ IPS OGS Display
Resolution: 1280 x 720 (HD 720)
Camera (back): 13MP
Camera (front): 8MP
Notification LED: Yes
Radio: Yes (with headphones)
GPS: Yes
WIFI: Yes
Bluetooth: Yes
Size: 152 x 78 x 8.2 mm / 5.97 x 3.07 x 0.32 inches
Weight: 0.158 kg

Unboxing: What’s in the package?
Cellphone, battery, manual, data-/charging-cable and power adapter

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Casing and build quality
First of all it is a big phone with its 5.5” display.
The front is all black. There is only the 4G sign in silver and the light-red shimmering menu buttons under the touchscreen. It that it looks really good. Top left you can find the 8mp front camera and in the middle there is the earpiece. If you look a little bit closer then you will see two small sensors besides the camera and a notification led next to the earpiece.

Attachment 3248637Attachment 3248638

The Mlais M52 Red Note is available in four colors and I have received all of them (normally you will only receive the color you have chosen on your order). The gettable colors are black, white, blue and peach-red.

Attachment 3248639

Continuing with the back of the phone you will directly see the 13mp camera at the very top in the middle. Underneath there is the flash and the loudspeaker is at the bottom. Above the loudspeaker there is the Mlais writing.
If you take of the back of the phone you will see that the loudspeaker is only bottom left and not across the whole width like the holes in the backcover might let you think. Over that you can find the place for the battery. Moreover there are slots for the two sim card and for the tf-card. Finally there are the back camera and the flash.

In the middle of the upper surface there is the micro-usb port and next the 3,5mm headphone jack. The volume keys are on the left and the on-off switch on the right side of the phone. The microphone is on the underside and there is a small notch, too, to make the removal or replacement of the backcover easier.

As mentioned previously there are three capacitive buttons under the touchscreen. They will light up (color: red) if you touch them. The home-button is in the middle. The back-button on the right and the menu-button on the left side.

All in all the build quality is good but everything is made of plastic. There is no clearance, the buttons have a good pressure point and nothing clacks because some loose parts or something like that.

The size of the Mlais M52 Red Note is 152 x 78 x 8.2 mm and my measurements confirmed that. But the declared weight with 158g is too little. With kitchen scales I have weighted 171g that’s 13g more (≈8%). The battery weighs 41g.


Display / Touchscreen / Multitouch
The 5,5“ screen has a resolution of 1280x720 and it is an IPS HD-Display with OGS. There are no pixels noticeable and the colors are very natural and look great. The viewing angles are good, you can adjust the brightness of the screen very high and definitely use this phone in the sun. The automatic brightness adjustment also works well and reacts fast on changing ambient light conditions. So far there have been no ghost-touches or something like that. The touchscreen is very snappy and precise. Finally I have to say that it is a five point multitouch screen.


Processor & storage
The processor of the Mlais M52 Red Note is the MTK6752. It’s a 64bit octacore processor, supported by the ARM MALI-T760 GPU and 2Gb RAM.
There are no lags or long loading times noticeable. Every app that I have tested started quickly and worked well. I could even play graphic intense games like Asphalt8 and RealRacing3 on highest settings without any problems. 2Gb RAM are enough space to run various apps at the same time. For example it is possible to hear music in the background and to surf on the internet at the same time.

The phone has 16Gb of internal storage and you can expand it with a tf-card with up to 64Gb. I have tested a 64Gb micro SD card from Sandisc and it worked like a charm. USB OTG (on the go) is supported as well and you can easily connect an usb-stick with your phone



2G / 3G / 4G
DualSim and Dual-Standby are supported. Sim1 has to be a standard sim card and in the second simslot there only fits a micro sim card. You choose freely if you want to use 3G/4G LTE with Sim1 or Sim2 but the other slot then only supports 2G. I have tested 4G LTE with Vodafone in Germany and it worked in both slots and the signal was good.


Sensors
In the following screenshot you can see the supported sensors.



WLAN
The Wlan range is ok but could definitely be longer.



Bluetooth
Everything is all right with bluetooth. I could test it with several devices and the connection was easy and without problems.

Camera
The front camera has 8mp and the main camera on the back of the phone 13mp.
Please choose by your own if the camera quality is enough for you. I can say that you can definitely make some good snapshots and using skype and other chat programs are no problem for the front camera.
Here you can see some pictures that I have made with the preinstalled camera app. All pictures were made with the back camera.


Benchmark Tests
Antutu:



Geekbench 3:



Vellamo:



3D Mark:



GFXBench:



CPU-Z:




Firmware
At the moment you will receive the Mlais M52 with Android 4.4.4 KitKat but I have heard that there will be an update to Android 5.0 Lollipop at the 10th of April. The phone comes with stock Android. There is no heavy modded launcher or user interface like you can find on HTC or Samsung devices. The Google PlayStore is preinstalled and so you are able to download thousands of apps and games. Of course you can install a different launcher. I have for example installed the NovaLauncher with the design of LevaOS. Everything works really quickly and switching between different home screens is very fast without any lags. Out of the box there are a lot of various languages supported just like English, Spanish, German and French.
Within the few days while I own the phone there have already been two small OTA (over the air) updates but I can’t tell the things that have changed. There was only „bug fixes“ written as a comment. It is very positive that Mlais is working on the software.
Smart gestures are supported, too. Some really helpful gestures are available e.g. “double tap to screen on”. The screen will turn on if you tap two times on the display.
Moreover you can start apps and games directly from standby mode. All you have to do is to link up a letter (e, m, o, s, w, z, ^) with an app. For example you draw an “o” and start the opera browser. Of course you can choose every other app. It’s a nice feature and works good.

Root
At the moment there is no method to root this device. I have tried several programs but nothing worked.

Audio
In this section is everything all right. My opposite can understand me and I can unterstand him/her, too. The loudspeaker could be better but to watch a short movie on youtube it is enough. If you lay the phone on its back then the loudspeaker will be covert and the volume will get very low. The sound with headphones is good, there are no abmormalities.

Notification LED
Next to the earpiece is a notification LED that supports the following colors.


Battery
The battery says 3200mAh and it is removable. I think the declaration is fake because of the weight of only 41g but it should definitely last one day of moderate using. but you know that it heavily depends on the user.

GPS
In the next pictures you can see the GPS results:



Compass
The phone has a compass and it works well.

Radio
There is a radio built in that supports DRS. You can only use the radio with headphones.

Conclusion
In my eyes is the Mlais M52 Red Note a solid phone for a cheap price. You get a lot for the money and everything works out of the box. The use is without any lags and it is very probable that there will be an update to Android 5.0 Lollipop. It comes with the Google PlayStore preinstalled and so you are directly able to download thousands of apps.
I see room for improvement in the large bezels around the screen so that the single-handed operation gets easier, in a stronger Wlan antenna with a longer range and a better loudspeaker.

Pro:
- cheap price
- powerfull processor
- 4G LTE supported in both sim card slots

Contra:
- the whole phone is made out of plastic
- at the moment there is no root
- no accessoires come with the phone

If you have any questions or want me to test something special then please leave a comment in this thread.

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