Prehistory
I am looking for a smartphone with LTE and Dualsim. It should be chic, have a good camera, have sufficient battery and have a 5 inch screen.
Meanwhile, some devices come onto the market in Germany. So no warranty processing in China is necessary. In the narrow range that Asus were Zenfone 2 and the smartphones of bq (Aquaris 5 LTE and the newly announced M-series).
Since I did not want to wait, I ordered the Phicomm Passion. It is in stock at several online retailers since last week.
Price: from 294 EUR to Germany.
When unpacking immediately love falls on to detail. The smartphone comes forth in a book-like packaging.
The scope of supply is limited to the charger and a needle for the SIM card. Unfortunately, no headset. What should be in it for the price really. The smartphone has an excellent feel. The housing consists of a metal frame and a mat unibody body (probably plastic). Everything is solid, no creaking or poor workmanship. The on / off switch is noble edged with a gold rim. The back is matte.
There are convenient buttons for easy operation. So full use of the screen for content. There are some Phicomm Apps (pedometer, compass, barometer, File Manager, Backup, gallery, radio, ...) pre-installed. Apart from the Play Store no more Google services are installed.
The operation speed is fine. It jerky nothing in the menus. Unfortunately, can not keep up the camera app since. When moving a significant tightening of the screen can be seen. Hopefully Phicomm working on it here.
The images are not in good light outstanding but fine. Miserable in low light. There is a timer without a flash receiving very quickly and without delay. The menu can include the volume control be set as a trigger.
The white version there will be no noisy Phicomm in Germany. Too bad.
Added pictures in low light conditions.
A small summary of my hand.
Positive
- Great display
- Unique design
- Very pleasant to the touch, the smart phone is great in the hand and does not slip like glass or metal
- 32 GB built-in memory
- Speaker clearly, volume fits
Negative
- No Google Maps Libary installed - eg Öffi app installed (Nokia Here works)
- Exchange Active Sync can not be used (only simple Exchange selectable)
- Radio App but no headset included for antenna
- German translation in some places not completely
- Unfortunately, there is no energy consumption normal consumption curve seen
- GPS fix only cumbersome, sometimes an incorrect location (next to several 100km) appears
- Unfortunately, battery is not enough for the complete day
- Reception quality is not the best (the score 4 has 2 bars 3G, I had also the Vodafone network neither 4G nor 3G or Edge)
- Pedometer app is not configurable
- On the lock screen preinstalled apps for three time steps and spilled weather. Unfortunately, this can not be changed. The
Weather app not working.
After a few days of intensive use, the device makes unfortunately a mixed impression. There is a lot of potential there, but it is questionable as offering fast Phicomm updates. According Support is working on some things. A date could not be called.
Therefore, I will return the phone back also.