best smartphones xmas 2017

Our review sample is an attention-seeking blue model, with accents of black on the camera surround (which lies completely flush), antenna lines, charging port and of course the panel itself, which is jet black when turned off. This is an AMOLED panel, incredibly vibrant and full of punchy colours – paired with the blue chassis the end result is a smartphone you just can’t take your eyes off. (There’s a black model, too, but we thoroughly recommend the blue.) With a Full-HD+ resolution of 2160×1080 pixels the display is sharp, rendering text and icons with perfect clarity. It’s very bright, and scores well on contrast too. We cannot fault this screen. The phone itself is incredibly slim at 8.3mm, though a down side of this is it can become rather warm in use. It’s just about the ideal weight at 160g – not too heavy, but reassuringly weighty so you know it’s there. This weight is largely down to the battery, which is sizeable at 3,550mAh.

Don’t expect to get any more than a day’s usage from it, but should it fall short it’s great to see the U Pro supports both Quick Charge and wireless charging. So it’ll go from zero to full in an hour and a half when plugged into the mains, or you can throw it down on a Qi pad for fuss-free charging without worrying about cables. Looking around the edges everything is where you might expect it – except the 3.5mm headphone jack, which isn’t there at all. Instead you get a headphone adaptor to use with the USB-C port, or rely on the mono speaker found to one side. The speaker is loud and largely distortion-free at full volume. For pop music the Elephone U Pro does a very good job. There’s no physical home button as there has been on previous models, so instead the fingerprint sensor is found at the rear.

Buy Smartphone and get coupon. Reed more

It’s part of the camera module, but positioned below the dual sensors, so unlike on the Galaxy S8 there will be no accidentally smudging the lens as you attempt to unlock the phone. We didn’t find any problems with it recognising our fingerprint, but even with this scanner and the U Pro’s support for NFC it’s worth pointing out that you cannot use the phone for making mobile payments – when we installed Google Pay we were met with the error: “This phone can’t be used to pay in stores. This may be because it is rooted or altered in some way.” We mentioned that it looks very much like the Samsung Galaxy S9, and according to the marketing you can pin frequently used apps to the edge of the screen in much the same way, but we were unable to achieve this on our review model. The Elephone U Pro we tested runs stock Android 8.0 Oreo, and the only additions are the Elephone support app, a Flashlight and FM radio, and the ability to use gestures rather than onscreen navigational controls. Something else missing here in comparison to the Galaxy S9 is waterproofing, plus the always-on display.