iNew mostly came to fame with the release of the sleek iNew V3. As great and original looking as the iNew V3 was, it was significantly crippled by a charging system that only charged the battery to 88%, leaving an already smallish battery even further weakened. Charging the V3 battery externally solved the issue, but required a user to have two batteries. For me it was no problem, but some users remained angry.
That the V8 is “confirmed” to come with 4G/LTE is completely false.
Since the iNew V3, there has been the recently released iNew i8000. Unfortunately the iNew i8000 is only 900/2100 WCDMA which leaves it with no support for 3G in the Americas, but should make Europeans quite happy.
Now comes news of the iNew V8. That the V8 is “confirmed” to come with 4G/LTE is completely false. The V8 is little more than a ghost of a rumor at this point and is yet unlisted and unmentioned by the iNew official site. Regardless, the iNew V8 is attracting quite a bit of attention. Let’s take a look at the specs.
iNew V8 review design:
A very cool looking phone that resembles the Oppo N1. Some would go so far as to call it a clone of the N1. Regardless of how you see it, I’m glad iNew decided to mimic the look of the N1 as opposed to the often cloned Samsung Galaxy.
iNew V8 review camera:
The camera rotates from front to back allowing you to easily catch a shot from most any angle. Normally the front camera is of lesser quality and lower resolution than the rear. With this ingenious design it allows the front pictures to be as quality as the rear. The resolution of the iNew V8 camera is reported to be 13mp.
iNew V8 review LCD & battery:
The iNew V8 will have a 5.5″ LCD at 720p. 5.5″@720p gives a ppi of 267. This isn’t anywhere near retina, but is more than adequate and provides the benefits of longer battery life and increased performance.
The battery in the V8 will be 2400mA. While it could be bigger, this is fairly decent for a 5.5″ phone, especially given the 720p resolution.
iNew V8 review SoC & OS:
The iNew V8 will be coming with MT6591. This is a 6-core variant of the MT6592.
The OS is reportedly KitKat 4.4.2. Whether it will actually end up being the truth is another story. It won’t be the first time a China brand has jumped the gun regarding announcing a release of KitKat. The Doogee DG550 was also reportedly coming with 4.4.2, but the tune was changed recently to being 4.2.
As mentioned earlier in the article, this phone has yet to be officially announced by iNew so we won’t hold them to the 4.4.2 rumor, nor will it be counted as a strike against them should it end up being 4.2.
4.4.2 has been riddled with bugs. Even with Nexus 5 for which the OS was originally designed for. Sony as well has had their issues with KitKat. Even given a perfectly bug free OS, which is highly unlikely if LG and Sony ROMs have had serious performance issues with AOSP KitKat, KitKat offers very few advantages over Jelly Bean unless it’s with Nexus devices. The old adage goes: be careful what you wish for.
iNew V8 review storage and RAM:
The iNew V8 will come with 1GB RAM. 1GB RAM is more than enough for running Android smoothly.
Storage will be a healthy 16GB. Plenty of storage given that the V8 has an SD slot.
iNew V8 frequency support:
The big news here is that the V8 is rumored to have 4G. So may have the often discussed, but yet unseen MT6290.
iNew V8 conclusion:
On paper the iNew V8 looks fine. The battery could be bigger, but is adequate. 16GB storage is nice and 1GB is more than fine for running Android smoothly.
The real question is whether iNew can make good and learn their lesson from the previous blunders in the iNew V3. Will the iNew V8 charge properly to 100%, and will it be set to a higher build quality standard than the iNew V3.
We also look forward to testing out the new MTK6591 6-core SoC.
Read on to check out my first thoughts on this phone.
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