Chinese manufacturers are making a splash in the mid-budget smartphone market and spoiling customers for choice. After launching the Le 1s earlier this year, LeEco has now launched its successor, Le 2. Built on the same design, this one is an improved piece of hardware.
Le 2 has the same metal unibody design with curved edges and a circular fingerprint scanner at the rear, but weighs slightly less at 153 gm. The side panels are neat with the volume button and power key on the left edge and a USB Type-C port along with speaker grills at the bottom. LeEco has dropped the 3.5-mm audio jack for connecting headphones. A small connector with USB Type-C to 3.5-mm adaptor has been added for plugging in headphones. It claims to have a technology that can deliver lossless music and supports CDLA (continual digital lossless audio) technology headphones that offer remarkable sound output. The company is giving away its Type-C in-ear headphones worth Rs 1,990 for free, for now.
The 5.5-inch full HD display offers rich and crisp colours. Le 2 has its own EUI, which is based on Android Marshmallow 6.0.1. All apps are placed on the homescreen. Five apps stay static at the bottom across homescreen windows. To exit an app, one can either use the back key or home key - capacitive touch keys below the display that illuminate when touched. The device is quick and responsive while launching apps and even while multitasking. Le 2 is loaded with Google services along with additional apps such as Remote Control, LeVidi (for watching videos other than those on YouTube) and Live (broadcasts live from the Internet).
The device is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon processor paired with 3 GB of RAM. This is a dual-SIM device with support for nano SIM cards, and comes with 32 GB of internal storage of which only 23.25 GB is user accessible. Le 2 packs in a 16-MP rear camera, which is laudable. The camera app offers instant access to slow motion, videos, photos and panorama. Settings allow you to adjust exposure, ISO, sharpness and contrast, among other things. It also offers various modes such as HDR, night, square, beauty and scene. The images captured offer good detail with natural colours. There is also an 8-MP front-facing camera. Le 2 works on a 3,000-mAh battery that managed to last me a day.