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Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds (Review)

Derrick Miyao
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Exercise is a daily activity for many of us. Whether it be walks at the park, running at the track or lifting weights in the gym, we all try to get in exercise to improve our health. I am a regular gym user as I like to lift weights and perform cardio on indoor machines. Music is a must have for me. I have been working out for almost 20 years now, 5-7 days a week, for 45-90 minutes per session. Exercise makes me feel better, allows me to eat more( I love food) and also clears my head from a long day at work. Walking my dog every night is also something I do regularly.

I remember getting my first mp3 player in 2002 and having music with me whenever I hit the gym. Music helps pump me up and keep me going at a healthy pace. Having plug-in headphones is something I have learned to live with, but is something that can be a nuisance when the cord gets tangled and pulls the phone out of my pocket. Enter the Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds.

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Design

The Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds are designed and optimized for fitness use. Exercise creates sweat which can can wreak havoc on electronics, but the Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds are designed to withstand the abuses associated with fitness training.

The earbuds come with soft plastic hooks that flex to wrap around your ears keeping them in place. They are connected by a roughly foot long rubberized cable, with an integrated inline remote control so you can turn up/down the volume, rewind/fast forward music, and also take phone calls. Everything you need is contained withing the Bluetooth connected headset to help keep your workout flowing.

The cable comes in three colors, yellow, blue or red and is also reflective as an added safety feature. Personally, I like the bright colors as it is easier to spot around my house.

 

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Usage

Honestly, I didn’t expect much when it came to sound quality when I put on the Jabra Wireless Sport Pace earbuds. Last year I tried to use a name-brand set of wireless headphones(not Jabra) and was disappointed at the quality of sound they produced. Sound reproduction should be the focus of any earbuds as we want to truly enjoy our music. Having sound isolation and great sound reproduction is a must when it comes to fitness as music really can help you enjoy your workouts.

First and foremost the Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds sound fantastic. I know sound quality is purely subjective, but I have gone through my tests when it comes to earbuds. I have been a fan of them for years and was quite an active member of the audiophile site Headfi.org. It isn’t uncommon to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on earbuds and equipment dedicated to sound reproduction. Audiophiles can be quite snobby at times when it comes to earbuds, but my take on it is, if you like what you’re listening to, then go with it. And the Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds fit the bill.

jabra sport pace

If you workout for more than five hours at a time, then these earbuds aren’t for you. But I would guess that most of you keep your workouts to two hours or less, in which these can more than handle that amount of time. The Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds are rated at five-hours for talk time and I regularly used mine for two to three days of workouts without recharging them.

Since I claimed to be an audiophile, wireless earbuds haven’t been apart of my tech arsenal ever really. I gave them a shot last year, but have stuck with wired headsets because they sound better. Now that the sound quality has improved, wireless earbuds will now be my go to for workouts as the benefits are tremendous. The Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds are water-resistant(IP54 rating), come with a reflective coating for added visibility at night, and also stay out of my way when I am lifting weights. It’s so nice to avoid accidentally getting tangled in my earbud cord and ripping my phone from my pocket.

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Also having inline remote controls is much easier than pulling out my phone, turning on the screen to fast-forward/rewind the song and to control the volume. All of those features are built into the inline remote along with a microphone for taking calls. I tried a few calls with my mom to test out the earbuds and they performed flawlessly.

If anyone is going to tell me she can’t hear me, it is my mother when she says “WHAT? You’re breaking up. Are you on a headset or something?” Not once did she say this in our hour long phone calls. Jabra has made me a fan.

As the days get dark quicker and nights get colder, I am frequently putting on hoodies now. It is really nice not to have to deal with unplugging my earbuds when I want to take my hoodie off. Wireless is truly the way to go for earbuds if you work out.

Specs

jabra sport pace specs

Summary

If you enjoy the fitness lifestyle and enjoy listening to music, the Jabra Sport Pace Wireless earbuds are for you. They offer incredible sound quality, simplicity by removing your cord, added visibility if you are an outdoors buff and a wireless method for talking on the phone. For $99.99 I find these earbuds to be comfortable and light-weight. They offer an incredible value and I highly recommend them to you.

If you want to learn more head on over to Jabra.com or to Amazon.com to make a purchase.

 

Gmail introduces Smart Reply in Inbox

AndroidGuys
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With so many email addresses, quick accessibility and less dependency on actual phone calls, email is sometimes the most preferred method of communication. This can lead to an abundance of email messages that pile up and create a backlog. It can be painful to reply to all of the emails in your backlog, so Gmail is introducing Smart Reply to help remedy the situation. Smart Reply evaluates your email messages and determines if any of them need responses and will generate a reply for you to choose from.

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Smart Reply will offer up to three responses based on your emails for those that need a quick reply. For emails that need more input, Gmail will help jump start your message. Smart Reply should be rolling out later this week and isn’t for your standard Gmail app, instead you need to be using Google’s Inbox for this new feature to work. It will also only be available in English.

I’m not too technical, so if you’re interested in the details of how it works, here is the explanation from Greg Corrado, Senior Research Scientist at Google:

How it works

A naive attempt to build a response generation system might depend on hand-crafted rules for common reply scenarios. But in practice, any engineer’s ability to invent “rules” would be quickly outstripped by the tremendous diversity with which real people communicate. A machine-learned system, by contrast, implicitly captures diverse situations, writing styles, and tones. These systems generalize better, and handle completely new inputs more gracefully than brittle, rule-based systems ever could.

Like other sequence-to-sequence models, the Smart Reply System is built on a pair of recurrent neural networks, one used to encode the incoming email and one to predict possible responses. The encoding network consumes the words of the incoming email one at a time, and produces a vector (a list of numbers). This vector, which Geoff Hinton calls a “thought vector,” captures the gist of what is being said without getting hung up on diction — for example, the vector for “Are you free tomorrow?” should be similar to the vector for “Does tomorrow work for you?” The second network starts from this thought vector and synthesizes a grammatically correct reply one word at a time, like it’s typing it out. Amazingly, the detailed operation of each network is entirely learned, just by training the model to predict likely responses.

One challenge of working with emails is that the inputs and outputs of the model can be hundreds of words long. This is where the particular choice of recurrent neural network type really matters. We used a variant of a “long short-term-memory” network (or LSTM for short), which is particularly good at preserving long-term dependencies, and can home in on the part of the incoming email that is most useful in predicting a response, without being distracted by less relevant sentences before and after.

Of course, there’s another very important factor in working with email, which is privacy. In developing Smart Reply we adhered to the same rigorous user privacy standards we’ve always held — in other words, no humans reading your email. This means researchers have to get machine learning to work on a data set that they themselves cannot read, which is a little like trying to solve a puzzle while blindfolded — but a challenge makes it more interesting!

The Siam 7X is focused on the next smartphone innovation

AndroidGuys
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[alert color=”green”]UPDATE: Due to a minor copyright infringement, the Siam 7X campaign was taken off of Kickstarter. The problem has been fixed, and a new campaign has been started. The link at the bottom of this article has been changed to the new campaign. Read the entire statement from CRBT below:

[toggles title=”Statement from CRBT”]”On behalf of CRBT Inc., we want to notify you that the Kickstarter campaign for the Siam 7X smartphone has been suspended due to a minor copyright infringement issue with the spelling of its E-Ink display feature. We have quickly resolved the issue and have re-launched the crowdfunding campaign for Siam 7X dual-screen smartphone. This will not affect our promise to deliver the smartphone to backers in early December. Thank you to all those who previously donated. We now ask you to show your support by donating to our new campaign here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/siam-7x-u-s-first-dual-screen-smartphone#/“[/toggles][/alert]

People have been looking for the next big innovation in smartphones for the past few years, but we have yet to find it. Many believed it would be curved displays, but the implementations by companies like Samsung and LG have been less than revolutionary.

YotaPhone_Photo_3Sure, the technology behind actually curving a smartphone screen is amazing, but the features a curved screen adds pale in comparison to the awesome engineering behind the screen itself. Now, curved screens seem more like a gimmick or a party trick than a revolutionary step forward in the smartphone market. So what makes a phone innovative or revolutionary? It allows people do things with it and interact with it like never before.

A few years ago, a small phone manufacturer called Yota released a phone that attempted to give you more screen real estate without making the screen larger. They added an E-Ink display on the back to give you more functionality and space to work. Plus, they claimed it saved battery when reading an e-book or browsing the web compared to using the LCD screen on the front.

The idea itself was amazing, but the phone did not sell well at all. They did make a second version of the YotaPhone that improved on the first model, but it’s limited availability resulted in lackluster sales for that phone, too. It was basically absent in the United States, which resulted in most people not even knowing the phone existed.

What’s new?

Siam 7X front and back 2Today, a company called CRBT is attempting to bring this dual screen goodness to the United States with their smartphone dubbed the Siam 7X. They have started a Kickstarter project in attempts to raise enough money to mass produce the Siam 7X. Before you go and hand over your hard earned dollars to help fund this phone’s existence, let’s take a look at some specs.

The Siam 7X comes with a 5″ IPS display at a resolution of 720p on its front which is flanked by a 4.7″ touchscreen E-ink display at a qHD resolution (960×540). As for cameras, we have a 16-megapixel rear facing shooter and an 8-megapixel front camera. The phone will only come with 16GB of storage, but there is a microSD card slot that supports cards up to 64GB. It is running on Android 5.o Lollipop which is powered by a MTK6735A SoC, a MaliT760 GPU, and 2GB of RAM. All of this is being powered by 2100mAh non-removable battery. Everything here is wrapped up in a pretty sleek looking body with a nice metal band around the frame.

So what can we take away from all this information? Obviously, the Siam 7X is a mid-range device with its only decent specs. The cameras have enough megapixels available to kick out some stunning pictures, but with no information on the sensor being used, we will just have to wait and see how the cameras actually perform. Of course, the real draw here is the E-ink display on the back that promises to add some real functionality.

Siam7 backCRBT gives you a few examples of just how useful an extra display can be. You can keep track of your grocery list on one screen while using a calculator on the other to add up the cost. You can stay on track with your GPS on one side while skipping tracks in your music app on the other. While you are not using the E-ink display, you can have it display pictures or information to truly customize your phone and make it totally you.

While this all sounds great, there continues to be a problem with dual-screen phones. You cannot use a full body case with them. When you put a phone like this into a case, you totally lose the functionality of the extra display by covering it up. Of course, you can still use a bumper case with no problem, just don’t expect the same amount of protection you would get from a full case.

What’s the cost?

Enough about the phone, it is time to get down to the price. With a mid-ranger phone like the Siam 7X, you would probably expect a low price to match. Well, you would unfortunately be wrong. The lowest tier pledge available with the phone included comes in at $420, and that is only for the first 100 people. After that, the next tier available is $470.

NOW, WAIT! Before you close this window and wonder why this phone is costing so much, there is way more than just the phone included in that price. First off, the first 10,000 buyers get a lifetime warranty which is extremely generous considering most phones only come with a 2-year warranty. The warranty covers basically anything from manufacturer defects to accidental damage like drops or spills. All buyers get a pair of SMS Audio earbuds that have built-in heart monitoring technology. You even get a bumper case and screen protector bundled in.

Siam 7X e-inkIf that was not enough to convince you to pledge to the Siam 7X, then this final extra perk should definitely help. Included in every tier that has the Siam 7X, you also get a free upgrade to the next model. That means you are basically getting two phones plus all the other perks for under $500.

Now that $420 price tag isn’t sounding so bad, is it? Not only should the free upgrade perk excite you because you are getting two phones, it also shows that CRBT is committed to the Siam line for at least to years if they are already seeing a next model.

I love the idea of having a screen on both the front and back of my phone because it adds functionality and usability to a previously unused part of the phone. Hopefully, CRBT will see more success with their Siam 7X than Yota did with their YotaPhone.

If you are as interested in the Siam 7X as I am, you can hope over to their Kickstarter page to help fund them. If you are not looking to buy the phone and want to fund less than $420, there are other tiers available including one for those cool SMS Audio earbuds that track your heart rate.[spacer color=”264C84″ icon=”fa-android”]

What do you think of the Siam 7X? Are you going to help fund it? Tell us down in the comments!

LuguLake Swan Wireless Speaker – Great things come in small packages (Review)

Derrick Miyao
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The elegant LuguLake Swan Wireless speaker fits both aesthetically and auditorily in the modern chic home. With its black circular shape and craned head, it produces clear audio in 360 degrees and looks good doing it. Additionally, the size is perfect for fitting into a hand while moving around the house while you play your jams.

If you’re at all curious about the name LuguLake, its name is derived from the actual Lugu Lake in China. It is quite a storied lake, Kublai Khan and his Mongolian army even established their army headquarters just south of Lugu Lake. After doing some research, I found the pictures of the actual Lugu Lake to be quite beautiful and see where the Swan Wireless speaker derives its beautiful form from.

Design

The LuguLake Swan Wireless Speaker is about the size of a small apple and was actually a little smaller than expected, but sometimes good things come in small packages. The speaker itself points upwards towards a small cone that gently pulses red while in use that they call a “breathing light”. The speaker pointing up at the breathing light creates a full 360 degree sound spectrum, meaning you don’t have to point the direction at your ears to make it sound clear. 

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On the top of the LuguLake Swan Wireless speaker there are a few buttons to control your audio: volume up, volume down, next track, previous track, and a bluetooth pairing button. The bluetooth pairing button is used for play/pause, when media is playing, and also doubles as the answer and reject call button (long press/short press) when a call comes in and is also also used to hang up a call. Lastly, speaker charges over USB like any other modern gadget and has a physical on/off switch on it’s bottom.

The speaker also comes with NFC built in making for a very simple pairing. All you have to do is make sure NFC is enabled on your smartphone and simply tap to connect against the speaker.

The Lugulake Swan Wireless speaker also comes with a built-in Li-Ion battery and can be recharged using a standard micro-USB plug.

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Usage

I was surprised in the office twice by coworkers poking their head into my office to comment on how surprising it was that such a small speaker could be heard four offices down the hall. Both insisting that I continue blasting my classic rock Spotify station because they enjoyed the Swan so much. One of them even asked me for a link on Amazon.com and purchased one for himself the moment he left my office. 

The speaker really does sound great from any angle and it plays loud enough to entertain in a room with people talking (or be heard four offices down). The breathing light is actually pretty soothing and the speaker itself looks great on any of the tables or desks I’ve had it sitting on while listening. On my first day with the LuguLake Swan Wireless Speaker I accidentally left it on while falling asleep, which turned out to be a mistake. It woke me up in the early morning notifying me “Battery Low”, so be careful to power it off before bed! The battery does get a good long haul of playing in, it lasted through an entire day of playing music at high volumes while I worked with only being turned off a couple times.

In addition to being a speaker for listening to music, it also served as a great tool for taking phone calls. I took a couple of conference calls on it and wasn’t tethered to my desk using my traditional phone line. This came in handy when I had to leave my office to check on some chemical reactions in my lab a few doors down.

Specs

  • Advanced Bluetooth 4.0 technology. Home-developed module and high transfer speed. It offers Hi-Fi audio quality and comes with 2 full range Neodymium driver, offering rich and clear sound quality
  • Zinc alloy built body. Easy to operate – it comes with a touch sense control panel.
  • The Swan Wireless Bluetooth speaker comes with Hands free Call Voice Promote functionality which enables you to receive calls on the go. A simple touch of the Bluetooth lights transforms it to a Speaker phone.
  • Package included: 1 * LuguLake Swan bluetooth 4.0 speaker, 1 * usb charging cable, 1 * user manual. Size: 85 x 80 x 85 mm

Summary

The LuguLake Swan Wireless Speaker is a beautiful little speaker with good output for it’s size. It projects 360 degrees of high-quality sound with beauty, making it a great buy for anyone who likes their accessories to match their style. For sale on Amazon.com at $40, the LuguLake Swan Wireless speaker does offer great features while being simple to use. You really don’t need to spend a ton of money these days to get high-quality Bluetooth speakers.

You can check out the LuguLake Swan Wireless speaker at Amazon.com.

What is USB Type-C and why is it important?

Jack McNenny
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Every aspect of smartphones are being improved every year. From screens, to processors, batteries, cameras and build quality, smartphones companies are always looking for ways to make their products seem “future proof”. Another aspect of smartphones that are changing are the USB ports used to charge and connect to other devices. Smartphones are beginning to use a new technology called USB Type-C, which involves a new port in the phone and the matching cord used to connect to a charger or other devices. Should you care about this?

USB Type-C capable phones use a new reversible cord that can be plugged into the device or host from using either end. This replaces the old USB system of having one end of the cord act as USB Type-A and the other side possibly acting as the USB Type-B or micro-B. Type-C is capable of not only reversible ends, but symmetrical connectors, meaning it doesn’t matter which way you plug the cord into your phone, similar to Apple’s Lightning cord.

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The 24-pin double-sided connector is similar in size to the micro-B USB with the Type-C port measuring 8.4 millimetres (0.33 in) by 2.6 millimetres (0.10 in). The new Type-C system is meant to future-proof and provide a uniform experience when connecting devices, eliminating the hassle of identifying the right end of cords and right way of plugging in micro-USB cables.

Type-C will mean faster charging, quicker data transfer rates and thanks to the smaller connectors, smaller phones can be made too. The Type-C plug is compatible with the USB 3.1 standard meaning super fast data transfer rates when connecting to other devices such as laptops.

You’ll start to see USB Type-C ports on laptops now too thanks to better charging capabilities. This means you want have to mess with AC adapters anymore for charging your laptop, as Type-C can deliver power at up to 100 watts at 20 volts.

Should I be worried if I don’t have a Type-C port?

The answer is opinion based. However, Type-C is just now being adopted by manufacturers and will take at least a couple years to be considered the “universal” option. The Nokia N1 tablet was the first device to ever use this technology and the OnePlus 2 was the first smartphone to include the port just a couple months ago. Plus, there are adapters for USB Type-C if you do need to connect your older hardware into something that uses the new port. All in all, you shouldn’t have to worry right now, as the tech is barely being introduced to the mainstream market right now.

Questions or comments about USB Type-C? Let us know below!

The first Blackberry device to run Android will be available at AT&T Nov. 6th

AndroidGuys
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One of the more intriguing phones of 2015 was recently announced just over a week ago, the Android powered Blackberry device called the PRIV. AT&T is the first U.S. carrier to pick up the PRIV and will make it available nationwide starting Nov. 6. The current pricing options are for AT&T’s Next financing program,  which allows you to pay for your device in installments, as well as a Two-Year Commitment plan. The total installment price works out to be $740 which is $40 more than buying the phone direct from Blackberry at $699.99.

Next 24
(30 months)

 Next 18

(24 months)

Next 12

(20 months)

 Two-Year Commitment
$24.67 $30.84 $37

$249.99

Or if you prefer the two-year contract method, you can get the phone for $249.99 up-front, but there are different costs associated with that plan. If you get a device on the Next plan, you will qualify for a monthly $25 dollar discount which works out to be $600 over the course of two years. If you consider the Two-Year Commitment price at $249.99, plus $600 in extra fees, the Next plan may be a better fit for you as it should save you over $100.

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The PRIV is the first Android powered Blackberry and it comes with a curved 5.4″ display, 3410 mAh battery, 18MP camera, 32GB of memory expandable up to 2TB, a full sliding QWERTY keyboard, and extra security from Blackberry.

You can finally have everything you loved about BlackBerry with the capabilities of Android OS. This smartphone is a powerhouse with sleek design, seamless productivity, and advanced security features on the nation’s most reliable 4G LTE network – Jeff Bradley, Senior VP Device Marketing and Developer Services AT&T Mobility

If you want to learn more head on over to AT&T.com.

Source

[df-gallery url=”https://www.androidguys.com/blackberry-priv/”%5D

 

Asus reveals unlocked 5.5-inch ZenFone 2 Laser; prices start at $200

Scott Webster
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Asus on Monday introduced its next Android smartphone, the ZenFone 2 Laser. Available immediately, the handset is unlocked and can worth with a variety of US-based LTE bands.

Although the ZenFone 2 Laser looks quite similar to the ZenFone 2, it is improved across a number of fronts. For starters, the processor has been bumped up to an octa-core Snapdragon 615 processor with 3GB RAM. Storage comes in 16GB and 32GB options, however the microSD card slot allows for up to 128GB additional space.

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The Asus ZenFone 2 Laser comes with a 5.5-inch 1920 x 1080p resolution display which is protected by Gorilla Glass 4. In other words, it’s a full HD screen with some of the best protection in the industry.

The rear of the phone houses a 13-megapixel camera with an aperture of f/2.0 , dual LED flash, and laser-assisted focus. The front-facing camera has a 5-megapixel sensor with f/2.0 aperture and wide 85-degree field of view. These specs should lead to more group shots for selfies with a generally better final result.

Other specs include a 3000mAh removable battery, Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth 4.1 connectivity. The ZenFone 2 Laser runs Android 5.0 Lollipop with a custom ZenUI 2.0 software experience.

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The 16GB model runs $200 while the 32GB version commands a slightly higher $250 price tag. The ZenFone 2 Laser is available in silver from Newegg and Asus.

AT&T now offering HTC One A9

Scott Webster
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AT&T on Monday confirmed the availability and pricing of the HTC One A9. Reaching retail stores on November 6, the latest HTC hero smartphone can be had in a variety of purchase options.

Customers can purchase the One A9 for $99.99 with a two-year service agreement or via equipment installment plans. Dubbed the AT&T Next plans, there are three to choose from for AT&T subscribers.

Pricing for the three AT&T Next plans shakes out to $0 down with monthly payments of $17.34 (30 payments), $21.67 (24 payments), or $26 (20 payments).  HTC is also selling the One A9 unlocked via its website for $399 through November 6, after which it is expected to go up to $499.

If you are interested in learning more about the HTC One A9, be sure to read our review.

Sign up for more information on the HTC One A9 at AT&T

T-Mobile debuts 4G LTE CellSpot for enhanced in-home coverage

Scott Webster
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T-Mobile debuts 4G LTE CellSpot for enhanced in-home coverage

T-Mobile on Monday unveiled its latest hardware device, the 4G LTE CellSpot. In short, this is a mini cell tower that works in your house and draws coverage from your internet connection.

CellSpot1_low

Designed specifically for indoor use, this is essentially a 4G tower that provides coverage up to 3,000 square feet. The CellSpot works on 3G/4G connections and works with voice over LTE (VoLTE) as well. It will also work with up to 16 devices at once, including those that are equipped for Wi-Fi calling as well as those which are not.

What does this mean to you? As a current or potential T-Mobile subscriber, this will lead to much better coverage in your home or office.

Slated to arrive on November 4th, this one is free to customers on a Simple Choice plan. Customers are required to put a $25 deposit down first.

T-Mobile

A very cool review of the verykool Jet SL5009

Austin Hyde
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A while back I wrote an article about Why low to mid level phones are the “Next Big Thing”. I recently received an entry-level phone from a company named verykool. In this review, we will see if the verykool Jet SL5009 disproves my thesis or corroborates it.

verykool overview

The verykool Jet SL5009 is an inexpensive and unlocked Android-based smartphone with LTE. One of their claims to fame is their low price point, a 5″ screen, Android 5.1 Lollipop, and the inclusion of both front-facing and rear-facing flashes. The phone also comes with a gel case and screen protector included. Here is the complete list of specs.

  • 2G bands GSM 850 / 1900 – SIM 1 & SIM 2
  • 3G bands HSDPA 850 / 1700(AWS) / 1900 / 2100
  • 4G bands LTE band 2(1900), 4(1700/2100), 5(850), 7(2600), 17(700)
  • Dimensions 147 x 72.5 x 8.9 mm (5.79 x 2.85 x 0.35 in)
  • Weight 165 g (5.82 oz)
  • SIM Dual SIM (Micro-SIM, dual stand-by)
  • 5.0 inches IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors (~64.6% screen-to-body ratio)
  • Resolution 480 x 854 pixels (~196 PPI pixel density)
  • Multitouch (2 fingers only)
  • Scratch-resistant glass
  • Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
  • Mediatek MT6735M
  • CPU Quad-core 1.1 GHz Cortex-A7
  • MicroSD, up to 64 GB
  • Internal 8 GB
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 8 MP rear-facing camera, 3264 x 2448 pixels, autofocus, LED flash
  • Video 720p@30fps
  • 1.3 MP front-facing camera, LED flash
  • 3.5mm jack
  • Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
  • Bluetooth v4.0, A2DP, LE
  • GPS, with A-GPS
  • FM radio
  • USB microUSB v2.0
  • Li-Ion 1900 mAh battery

 

verykool usage

Software:
One of the first things that I noticed about the phone is that it runs stock Android 5.1 and there is almost no bloatware whatsoever. In fact, the only bloatware I could find on the phone was the verykool app. It was easy enough to disable, but it tripped me up at first because the app is set to automatically launch at boot. If you don’t get through the initial setup quickly enough, the app will launch before you finish the setup process. You can just use the back button to return to the setup, but as it will launch automatically after every reboot, I recommend disabling the app right away.

Hardware:
The next thing I noticed about the phone was the form factor. The phone is pretty thin. It’s not iPhone thin, but it’s thinner than my LG G3. In every other dimension, it is on par with the G3. One big difference is that the G3 has much smaller bezels and is able to pack a 5.5″ screen in the same space that the SL5009 packs a 5″ screen. However, the phone feels good in your hand and unlike my G3 it doesn’t feel like it’s going to slip out of my hand at any given moment.

Even though the screen’s resolution is only 480 x 854 pixels, I found the clarity and resolution to be quite good. It’s not QHD good, or even 720p good, but I’m reminded that most early Android phones and even the early iPhone’s resolutions were worse than this screen. After using it for a while, I didn’t even notice that it wasn’t HD.

One of the aspects of the phone that I really like is the screen brightness. The screen gets very bright, almost too bright. This makes it super easy to see, even in direct sunlight. I would even venture to say that the screen’s visibility in direct sunlight is among the best in the industry.

The one knock on the screen would be its visibility from an angle. Even though the screen features IPS technology, the image quality decreases when being viewed at an angle. It’s to be expected on a device in this price range.

The speakers sound quality is ok. It’s not great, but it’s not bad either. The biggest advantages that it has is that the speaker is loud, much louder that you would expect a phone in this price range to be. The headset speaker is also pretty good, but it’s lacking VoLTE, so the audio doesn’t get that HD sound like you might expect from a higher end phone.

The headphones that come with the phone, however, are another story. They, like the standard issue headphones of other manufacturers, are bud style headphones, but the quality is subpar at the most. I found that they were uncomfortable to use for any extended period of time and the sound quality was bad too. They had a muffled sound to them and the bass seemed way too exaggerated for bud headphones. There was no problem with sound over Bluetooth.

Another thing that I wasn’t too fond of was the capacitive buttons. The actual contact area was small and if I didn’t get my finger exactly on the button, it wouldn’t register the touch. Also, while the buttons were backlit, they would only turn on when they were touched. When the backlight was not on, the buttons were impossible to see.

While there were no issues with the Bluetooth, I found that the phone was missing one of my favorite features on my previous Android phones, the voice dialer. You can imagine my disappointment when I tried to use my LG Tone headphones to initiate a voice call and nothing happened. Another unintended consequence of this is that while the phone has Android 5.1, the phone does not support Android Auto. I suspect that both issues are related.

The phone also features dual SIM card slots and switch between cards, but as I did not have a second SIM card to test it with, I am unsure of how this will work, or even how it will benefit the average American consumer. If you do a lot of international traveling I can see this being more beneficial.

One downside of the SIM card slots is that they are a pain to take out of the phone. They fit very tight into their respective slots. They are rather difficult to get a grip on.

[df-gallery url=”https://www.androidguys.com/gallery/verykool-jet-sl5009/”%5D

Performance:
Overall the phone feels very responsive. At times, it did freeze up for a few seconds, but it did not happen very regularly and I was using the phone pretty heavily. I am more of a power user, so the average Joe will probably not run into any problems. However, this is where having a removable battery really comes in handy. Just pop it out and back in and you’re golden.

The phone also performed well with gaming. While the CPU and GPU aren’t going to set any records, the phone’s lower resolution allows for the processor to make the gameplay smooth. I found that it was best to close any other running apps because of the phone’s meager 1GB of RAM. The games that I tried were Asphalt 8 and Fallout Shelter. Both performed very well. The only knock being that they seemed to take a little longer to load. Once the game was loaded the gameplay was very smooth. I was also able to use a gamepad with the phone while playing Asphalt 8 with the higher graphics, without any hiccups.

The phone’s 8 GB of storage will limit how many games you can actually install, but the phone does support moving some of your apps to the micro SD card, but even so, you will still run out of space fairly quickly when installing games and other large apps.

Although the battery is only 1,900 mAh, the battery life isn’t too bad. Under light use, I could make through the whole day on a single charge. Using it heavily will cause the battery to drain more quickly and you’ll need to put it on a charger to make it throughout the day. I tried downloading a battery saving app, but the verykool Jet’s memory management is so aggressive with it’s 1 GB of RAM, that the battery saver app wasn’t able to do anything.

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verykool benchmarks

As you can see from the benchmarks below, the verykool Jet SL5009 isn’t too shabby for an entry-level phone. It comes in performing slightly above Samsung’s flagship model from 2012, the Galaxy S III.

 

verykool camera

The camera isn’t too shabby either. The 8mp rear-facing camera performs pretty well in sunlight but falls short in low-light conditions. The flash is essential in low light photography.

Speaking of flashes, you may have noticed from the overview section that the camera has a front facing flash. Unfortunately, that flash is paired with a sub-par 1.3 MP camera. The flash merely illuminates the subject enough to make out the features and the picture comes out looking grainy and overexposed.

Take a look at the gallery below for some examples.

[df-gallery url=”https://www.androidguys.com/gallery/verykool-jet-sl5009-camera/”%5D

3.44 out of 5 stars

Overall, this is a great entry level phone and it proves that you don’t need to spend $600 + to get a good phone. It won’t compete with or even compare to the big budget flagship models, but if you’re on a budget and you want a phone with a decent sized screen, then this is a great option for you.

To me, this is the ideal phone to get your kid. It’s big enough and verykool enough to keep the other kids from making fun of them, but not too expensive to replace, when they drop it or throw it during a temper tantrum.

So what are you waiting for? Head over to Amazon to get yours.

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