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MagyarDoogee Nova Y100X Smartphone Review
Doogee already offers very inexpensive smartphones with the Valencia series. The Nova Y100X, however, takes it one step further with an even lower price point while maintaining a large 5-inch screen. The Y100X is currently available for just $83 and ships with Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box.
For such a low asking price, it's common for buyers to remain suspicious. Is there a catch? Will this phone break after a few days? Is performance slow? We put the Doogee through its paces in our review to answer these very questions and more.
Case
The first characteristic we noticed when first picking up the Y100X is how light the phone is. At just under 120 g, the Doogee is lighter than most other 5-inch smartphones including the HTC Desire 626G (137 g), Motorola Moto G (155 g), Microsoft Lumia 535 (146 g), and HTC One M9 (157 g). The trade-off, of course, is that the Y100X is almost all plastic. Luckily, the chrome edges and corners feel more reinforced to better withstand the inevitable bumps or drops and the screen still uses Gorilla Glass protection. Nonetheless, the smooth glossy back is straight-up plastic with no printed patterns or texture for the back cover.
As for case quality, the Y100X is rigid enough to resist depressions down the centers of the front screen and back case. Slight bending is noticeable when attempting to twist the phone, but there are no creaking sounds. The back cover snaps on tightly with no gaps around the edges or corners that can be common on inexpensive smartphones.
The dimensions of the Y100X are about average for its screen size. The Doogee is thicker than competing models like the ZTE Blade V6 or Sony Xperia M4 Aqua, but is thinner than the HTC Desire 626G and new LG G4s. The bezel-free Sharp Aquos Crystal still takes the cake for being the smallest 5-inch smartphone in terms of length and width.
Connectivity
Available interfaces include the usual Micro-USB port and 3.5 mm audio jack. The dual SIM slots and MicroSD slot are behind the easily removable back cover. USB on-the-go is supported as generic mice and keyboards are instantly recognized.
Communication & GPS
Wi-Fi reception is reliable without any unexpected drops or disconnection issues. 802.11ac is not supported, however, though this is expected for a smartphone in this price range. Wi-Fi connection is steady up to 30 m where signal strength drops to an unreliable 80 to 90 dBm range. This is weaker compared to more expensive models like the Galaxy Note 5 or even the older LG G2 where signal strength is in the 70 to 80 dBm range under similar conditions. We maintained a line-of-sight during the test to avoid walls and other surfaces.
The GPS radio acquires a fix relatively quickly even without WLAN assistance. We experienced no issues maintaining a fix when on the road.
Telephone & Voice Quality
Supported bands include 2G (GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz) and 3G (WCDMA 850/1900/2100MHz) with dual-SIM (Mini-SIM + Micro-SIM) support. We were able to connect to the T-Mobile network and take advantage of 3G speeds without any issues. Note, however, that Wi-Fi calling and 4G connectivity are not supported. Removing the Micro-SIM card can be difficult since a small aluminum latch must be pulled to disengage it.
Call quality is very good on the Y100X as voices are heard clearly with no static or drops. The caller on the other end with a LG G2 had no clarity issues as well. However, the microphone may be a little weak on the Doogee as the caller complained of low volume.
Cameras & Multimedia
The rear 8 MP camera includes LED Flash and auto-focus. The Flash is much too weak for anything other than close-up shots. If Flash is required for a picture, then expect image quality to be noticeably muddier on the Y100X. As for the auto-focus, it's definitely slower than expected as it takes a few seconds to activate and almost as long to perform. We're not expecting laser-focus quickness, but its activation time could be improved. This becomes more of an issue when trying to take pictures in quick succession or shooting video with fast motion.
Pictures taken under bright ambient conditions fare a bit better. Details are a little cleaner, but pictures are still muddy overall. Hard edges and corners of solid objects are blurry the the point where it can become difficult to make out the individual branches of trees or blades of grass in a scene. Exposure and tones are also below average as details in darker areas are lost while whites can be very bright.
Accessories & Warranty
Included accessories are the usual earphones and Micro-USB 2.0 cable. Doogee also throws in a case protector, user manual, screen protector, and a European AC adapter. North American users will need a separate adapter for charging through an outlet.
Warranty is the usual 12-month period and covers the smartphone only. Accessories are not covered.
Input Devices & Handling
Touchscreen
The 5-point capacitive touchscreen works well enough when navigating through the Home screen or Settings menu. Unfortunately, responsiveness is inconsistent when using the onscreen keyboard. Users will need to tap with more force than usual or the phone may not register an input. This makes it much more difficult to type quickly and effortlessly compared to more expensive mainstream smartphones. Accuracy around the edges and corners isn't the issue, but getting the phone to register reliably is the tricky part.
Aside from the touchscreen, the Volume rocker is poorly placed. Unlike on most phones where the Volume buttons are on the edge (or on the rear for LG phones), the buttons on the Y100X are placed right on the curvature of the round back panel. This is not ergonomic and makes it more difficult than it should for quick Volume control, especially when holding the phone with the left hand. Otherwise, tactile feedback is satisfactory with a shallow and auditory click.
Our last complaint is that the dedicated Android keys on the bottom of the phone are not backlit. They are near impossible to see in dim conditions and is essentially a cut corner for the Y100X to reach such a low starting price.
Display
The 5-inch 720p display looks good for the price. There is no major backlight bleeding around the edges or other major issues. Colors and pixels, however, do appear more grainy than usual. Note that the official Doogee renders of the Y100X suggests that the edges of the display curves slightly similar to the Samsung Edge series, but the screen is simply flat in reality.
Brightness and contrast are no match against most other smartphones as shown on our table below. Colors, for example, are more inaccurate with a cooler color temperature. Screen quality is simply not as "clean" or crisp as mainstream competitors.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 91 %
Center on Battery: 387.9 cd/m²
Contrast: 665:1 (Black: 0.583 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 9.91 | 0.5-29.43 Ø5
ΔE Greyscale 10.04 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
Gamma: 2.53
| Doogee Nova Y100X | HTC Desire 626G dual sim | Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | ZTE Blade V6 | LG G4s | Honor 3C | Microsoft Lumia 535 | HTC One M9 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Screen | 17% | 26% | 7% | 27% | 21% | 20% | 31% | |
| Brightness middle | 387.9 | 497 28% | 418 8% | 336 -13% | 411 6% | 474 22% | 431 11% | 474 22% |
| Brightness | 390 | 483 24% | 407 4% | 315 -19% | 392 1% | 449 15% | 424 9% | 458 17% |
| Brightness Distribution | 91 | 90 -1% | 95 4% | 81 -11% | 88 -3% | 90 -1% | 90 -1% | 85 -7% |
| Black Level * | 0.583 | 0.67 -15% | 0.49 16% | 0.39 33% | 0.38 35% | 0.7 -20% | 0.64 -10% | 0.4 31% |
| Contrast | 665 | 742 12% | 853 28% | 862 30% | 1082 63% | 677 2% | 673 1% | 1185 78% |
| Colorchecker dE 2000 * | 9.91 | 6.88 31% | 3.92 60% | 8.29 16% | 5.3 47% | 3.59 64% | 3.6 64% | 6.32 36% |
| Greyscale dE 2000 * | 10.04 | 6.11 39% | 3.81 62% | 8.57 15% | 6.32 37% | 3.46 66% | 3.71 63% | 6.36 37% |
| Gamma | 2.53 87% | 1.78 124% | 2.27 97% | 1.96 112% | 2.37 93% | 2.58 85% | 2.4 92% | 2.43 91% |
| CCT | 10336 63% | 6820 95% | 7361 88% | 8172 80% | 7250 90% | 7437 87% | 6878 95% | 8218 79% |
| Color Space (Percent of sRGB) | 86.5458 | 89.7 | 96 | |||||
| Color Space (Percent of AdobeRGB 1998) | 71 | 58.81 |
* ... smaller is better
Grayscale and saturation levels are both below average. Their respective DeltaE deviations are essentially at double digits and much worse than competing 5-inch devices. RGB balance is also inconsistent.
Outdoor visibility is good when under shade. When under sunlight, the screen becomes instantly washed out and glare will be a greater annoyance. Luckily, the wide IPS viewing angles alleviate some of the issues when working outdoors. The maximum brightness setting is always recommended to reduce eyestrain under these conditions.
Performance
The entry-level quad-core MediaTek MT6582 SoC is a common find in budget devices including the Honor Holly, Huawei Ascend G730, and LG L Bello. Performance is roughly on par with the Snapdragon 200 series, which is Qualcomm's slowest set of SoCs in the Snapdragon family. According to CPU-Z, the four MT6582 cores can operate dynamically from 600 MHz up to 1.3 GHz. Three cores are disabled when the phone is idling for power-saving purposes.
Based on benchmarks alone, the Y100X performs just below the Doogee Valencia2 consistently in all cases. Multi-core performance is similar to the Tegra 3 in the first generation Nexus 7. The Y100X is essentially mainstream 2012 hardware released three years later.
The 1 GB of RAM can be considered the minimum for today's smartphones. About 450 MB is free when no other applications are running.
| AnTuTu v5 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Doogee Nova Y100X | |
| Doogee Valencia2 Y100 Pro | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| Motorola Moto X Play | |
| ZTE Blade S6 | |
| Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML | |
| HTC One M9 | |
| Geekbench 3 | |
| 32 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| HTC One M9 | |
| 32 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| HTC One M9 | |
| 64 Bit Multi-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Doogee Nova Y100X | |
| Doogee Valencia2 Y100 Pro | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| Motorola Moto X Play | |
| ZTE Blade S6 | |
| Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML | |
| HTC One M9 | |
| 64 Bit Single-Core Score (sort by value) | |
| Doogee Nova Y100X | |
| Doogee Valencia2 Y100 Pro | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| Motorola Moto X Play | |
| ZTE Blade S6 | |
| Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML | |
| HTC One M9 | |
Browser-based benchmarks like Octane and Sunspider run slower on the Y100X compared to current mainstream competitors. From a subjective standpoint, launching and installing applications are indeed slower than with a mainstream competitor. Browsing on Chrome is smooth at first, but responsiveness and stutters quickly become more of an issue as additional tabs or larger websites are opened.
| Octane V2 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Doogee Nova Y100X | |
| Doogee Valencia2 Y100 Pro | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| Motorola Moto X Play | |
| ZTE Blade S6 | |
| Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML | |
| HTC One M9 | |
| Browsermark - 2.1 (sort by value) | |
| Doogee Nova Y100X | |
| Doogee Valencia2 Y100 Pro | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| Motorola Moto X Play | |
| HTC One M9 | |
| Mozilla Kraken 1.1 - Total (sort by value) | |
| Doogee Nova Y100X | |
| Doogee Valencia2 Y100 Pro | |
| Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 | |
| Motorola Moto X Play | |
| ZTE Blade S6 | |
| Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML | |
| HTC One M9 | |
* ... smaller is better
Storage Devices
The internal 8 GB of storage space exhibits slow sequential read and write rates. File transfers are thus slower on the Y100X compared to competing models. The experience is simply not as "snappy" as on more powerful and expensive devices.
MicroSD support is thankfully supported as 8 GB is hardly enough for music and movies. Roughly half is immediately available for the end-user when taking into account the operating system and pre-installed Apps.
Games
The integrated Mali-400 MP GPU can be found on a handful of budget smartphones and even tablets including the Acer Iconia B1, Liquid Z4, and THL 4000. Raw performance is slightly below that of the older Tegra 3 according to Basemark X 1.1 and is about on par with the Adreno 305, but is otherwise a good fit for the price and native 720p display.
3D Android titles such as Asphalt 8 are playable on the Y100X. Frame rates do appear more erratic, however, so the experience is not entirely smooth. 2D titles like Angry Birds and Candy Crush play without any issues. The smartphone will warm up quite a bit under these conditions as detailed in our Temperature section.
A bright point for the Y100X is that it faces no major throttling issues. According to the GFXBench battery test, frame rates remain relatively stable throughout the intensive ~30 minute test. This is compared to the much more powerful Exynos SoC in the Galaxy Edge+ or the Snapdragon 810 in the OnePlus 2, both of which will throttle after a few minutes into the same test.
Emissions
Temperature
Surface temperatures when idling are flat across the board with no hot spots. When under very high loads for extended periods, however, certain regions can be as warm as 44 C. This is much warmer than expected especially from a smartphone with an entry-level processor. The warmest regions are closer to the top portion of the phone where most of the motherboard and circuitry lie. Competing models such as the ZTE Blade V6, LG G4s, and HTC Desire 626G run cooler under similar conditions.
(±) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 43.8 °C / 111 F, compared to the average of 35 °C / 95 F, ranging from 21.9 to 56 °C for the class Smartphone.
(±) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 43.4 °C / 110 F, compared to the average of 33.8 °C / 93 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 27.2 °C / 81 F, compared to the device average of 32.7 °C / 91 F.
Speakers
For most smartphone users, the speakerphone will be satisfactory as long as it is loud and clear with no static and little to no distortions. With these bare minimum qualities in mind, the speaker on the Y100X is good and performs its job well. Music playback is poor since bass is severely lacking, but clarity is otherwise fit for voice calls.
Battery Life
Runtimes are below average at just over 4 hours of constant WLAN use at a brightness of 150 nits. This may not be enough to last users for the whole day, especially for longer or more demanding workloads. At the very worst, the Y100X will last for about 2 hours of constant gaming at maximum brightness. Fortunately, the battery can be easily swapped as needed.
| Doogee Nova Y100X 2200 mAh | HTC Desire 626G dual sim 2000 mAh | Motorola Moto G 3. Gen 2015 XT1541 2470 mAh | ZTE Blade V6 2200 mAh | LG G4s 2300 mAh | Honor 3C 2300 mAh | Microsoft Lumia 535 1905 mAh | HTC One M9 2840 mAh | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Battery Runtime | 50% | 102% | 62% | 11% | 51% | 19% | 44% | |
| Reader / Idle | 658 | 878 33% | 1364 107% | 677 3% | 948 44% | 805 22% | ||
| WiFi v1.3 | 258 | 398 54% | 526 104% | 400 55% | 274 6% | 348 35% | ||
| Load | 136 | 220 62% | 264 94% | 230 69% | 167 23% | 205 51% | 127 -7% | 236 74% |
| WiFi | 587 | 376 | 573 |
Pros
Cons
Verdict
The Doogee Y100X is for users who want a smartphone only for the most basic of needs without sacrificing screen size. The internal hardware and battery life are both average at best and will have a tough time keeping up with users who are frequent multi-taskers or heavy app users. The smartphone is surprisingly good for calls considering the price, but it's unfortunate that the Volume keys are positioned to favor right-handed users and that the touchscreen isn't as sensitive as it could be. When combined with its slower performance, these qualities make the Y100X less fun to use than costlier alternatives.
Case quality is otherwise solid and extremely light considering the screen size. As a secondary backup phone with a large display for under $90, there's not much to complain as long as buyers are aware of the cut corners.
The Doogee Y100X works at the basic level for calling and light browsing. Its best qualities are its large display and low price, but both performance and touchscreen responsiveness suffer as a result.
Doogee Nova Y100X
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09/17/2015 v4(old)
Allen Ngo
Pricecompare
