LeEco Le1S | Review – A New Benchmark In This Price Segment
LeEco has entered the Indian market with a powerful yet affordable device Le1s along with LeMax. The Le1s, which costs Rs 10,999 is targeted at the budget consumer. This phone with airplane grade aluminum body, fingerprint sensor and decent RAM/ROM looks very impressive on paper. But how impressive is it in reality? Let’s find out.
DESIGN and DISPLAY
The first impression of LeEco 1s is striking as it has a premium design and a great build quality, which I didn’t expect for its price tag. LeEco Le1S has a metal frame , metallic buttons and a 5.5” display with small bezels, which make this device manageable with one hand. The display is excellent for a phone that costs Rs 10,999, It looks bright, vibrant and has excellent viewing angles even under sunlight. Above the screen there is a customisable LED Notification light, ear-piece and a modest 5MP shooter. The chin of the phone has 3 navigation buttons. On the rear it has a metal back, which looks appealing, but doesn’t have a good grip. At the back we also have a 13MP camera with a single LED flash and a mirror finish fingerprint scanner. The volume rockers and power button are very tactile and are located on the right side. The dual SIM card tray is on the left side. The speaker is placed on the bottom, where you can also find the USB Type C charging port. On the top there is a headset jack and IR blaster. Overall, the phone is well constructed and ergonomic as all the necessary buttons are within a hand’s reach.
Screenshots of the U.I
USER INTERFACE
EUI is a friendly eco-system based on Android v5.0 build. The performance is smooth, and even with good amount of background activity there were no hiccups in the UI. Similar to other Chinese counterparts even EUI doesn’t have an app drawer and the icons are in clean style. I noticed app crashes and some unwanted reboots but that could also be because this was a test phone. But LeEco has promised fast updates for bug fixes.
HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE
The LeEco Le1s is a powerhouse device for its price, it has an octa-core MTK6795T chip with the clock speeds of 2.2GHz. It has 3GB of RAM and 32GB of non-expandable storage. The performance of the phone was majorly smooth except for a few app crashes, which I hope will be fixed with the next software update.
USB Type C along with powerful bottom speakers
Playing real racing 3 on highest graphic settings was bit laggy. I found overheating issues during high-end gaming, On normal usage the heating is negligible.
Word on Fingerprint scanner : The fingerprint scanner on the rear has a mirror finish, which looks appealing. The scanner can be used for unlocking the device and it is super fast and precise. The scanner even comes in handy during our occasional selfie sessions.
MULTIMEDIA
On multimedia front, the LeEco has a superior quality sound output via the loudspeaker, it will impress you for sure. On the imaging front this phone boasts a 13MP camera with Samsung ISOCELL technology and a blue glass infrared filter on rear and a 5MP wide-angle (85 degrees) lens with an F2.0 aperture.
A test shot taken at moderate light settings
The rear camera can record 4K/1080p videos. The daylight images look pretty good, the level of details is impressive and there is proper balance of noise. The indoor and low-light shots are actually decent. As far as 5MP selfie shooter is concerned, it also does a decent job of taking selfies in good lighting.
All the connectivity options are great -Wifi, GPS, Bluetooth, IR blaster work well. Call quality is also good I didn’t experience any call drops during my extensive usage.
BATTERY LIFE
The phone comes with a 3000mAh battery and it performs really well for its capacity. I got over 6 hours of screen-on time with a mix of heavy and light usage during the test.
BENCHMARK
I ran the Antutu benchmark test and the results were simply outstanding.Check out the screenshots below.
Screenshot of An TU TU Benchmark
CONCLUSION
LeEco Le1S, the phone looks, feels and even performs great. It sports some premium materials in its construction, the UI is very fast but it has a few minor bugs that have to be fixed. The camera is pretty great for the price you pay, the battery life is surprisingly good – at this price this phone packs more punch that it needs to. LeEco Le1S is a new benchmark in its price segment.
The phone will be exclusively available on Flipkart from 2nd February.
prateek
February 1, 2016 at 11:24 pm
Which would be better- Coolpad note 3 or Coolpad note 3 lite or le1s???????
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 12:05 pm
Price Segment matters bro if you are looking anywhere between 8k-10k then you can go with Coolpad Note 3, 5k-7k thn Note 3 lite.
If it’s between 10k-12k then this is the best buy as said.
Pradeep Kumar
February 2, 2016 at 12:31 am
For the 10k price range, this is a great device with “Fingerprint Scanner”. I’m sure this can reach heights with proper customer support. Also, 6 hours of SOT is really impressive again. Nice review, looking forward to other detailed reviews from this blog. 🙂
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 11:56 am
Thank you for the support 🙂
Ravinder Dande
February 2, 2016 at 11:46 am
At price of 10000 2.2GHz, 3GB of RAM and 32GB memory is good .Thinking to buy it but want to campare it with other phone as well under same price.
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 11:59 am
This would be the best buy for the price.
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 11:58 am
This would be the best buy for the price.
anantjit
February 2, 2016 at 12:30 pm
Every other review on le1s had stated about battery drain issues…R u sure it does not have?
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 1:44 pm
The unit I received performed really well in battery test bro. I got SOT as I mentioned in the review.
prateek
February 2, 2016 at 3:20 pm
Thank for ur reply bro….
Would u suggest to pay 2k extra for note 3 instead of note 3 lite….
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 3:25 pm
Well, if you ask me Coolpad Note 3 lite is what I suggest.
prateek
February 2, 2016 at 3:35 pm
Thanks…..:)
Bhargava
February 2, 2016 at 5:23 pm
Hi abhilash,
I would like to buy a smart phone in range of 10k-13k please give me a suggestion and also may i purchase leeco le1s.
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 7:20 pm
LeEco would be my first bet, else you can go with option Mi4 which has been reduced to 12,499 INR.
Abhilash Atmaram
February 2, 2016 at 7:21 pm
LeEco Le1S would be my first bet, else you can go with option Mi4 which has been reduced to 12,499 INR.
vasu
February 3, 2016 at 4:40 pm
is le 1s is a good brand and I wants to buy le 1s if it is good brand? plzz guide me for it!!!!!!!!!!
1s is a good phone for use as up to long time ???
Abhilash Atmaram
February 3, 2016 at 10:52 pm
As far as the brand is concerned it has a very good eco-system in China which has 10 year history.
They have managed to allot around 500+ service centres in India. The phone is surely a future proof since it is backed by latest in the market and can be easily used for a longer period.
Antony Joseph
February 5, 2016 at 8:42 am
Hi, Someone tell me which sim slot supports 4G/3G… In most of the review, it was mentioned as one of the sim slot but they were not specific about which one…. Please help me out
Abhilash
February 17, 2016 at 7:56 am
Both the sim slots are LTE ready
Ariff
February 12, 2016 at 4:07 pm
i see “My Airtel” App crashes on Le1s, is there any workaround for this, i tried reinstalling the App but everytime same issue it crashes
Abhilash Atmaram
February 17, 2016 at 8:10 pm
My Airtel app is working properly on our device. Try reinstalling it or use an external .apk file
Utsav Singh
February 15, 2016 at 8:26 pm
The smartphone looks amazing. Great Arcticle and very well reviewed.
Abhilash Atmaram
February 17, 2016 at 8:11 pm
Thank you for your feedback.