On a budget, finding a device with beautiful design and strong specs combined is very tough. But, at just PHP 10,990, the Doogee Mix with 6 GB RAM could be it!
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| Doogee Mix review |
It ranks among the most impressive offerings that we ever saw this year that comes with unique design, stellar specs and interesting features without breaking the bank or emptying your wallets. It simply has the potential to be great.
As a result, we took the Doogee Mix to a spin for the last 2 weeks to fully check what it can do. Is this the new affordable phone to beat? Read on.
For our review part 1: Doogee Mix Unboxing And First Impressions
Display Quality
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| Screen quality |
One of the main highlights of Doogee Mix is its near tri-bezel-less 5.5 inch screen for better looks and ergonomics. It made the phone smaller even if it has a big screen.
Quality-wise, this handset has an AMOLED panel, but only has an HD resolution. But, we're good with that. Why? It's still has decent sharpness at 267 pixels per inch.
Big saturated screen on a small body!
Obviously, it won't be as sharp as FHD or QHD displays, but it has one of the better color reproduction at this price points. Colors are saturated, vibrant and it has deep blacks. Viewing angles are great too.
It can go really bright indoors, but sunlight legibility is just fine, not great.
It can go really bright indoors, but sunlight legibility is just fine, not great.
Moreover, it has Miravision software tech to enhance picture and vision quality. If you find its screen too saturated, it can be tuned according to your preference as well.
It also has Blulight defender against the harmful effects of blue light to our eyes.
Adaptive brightness is present and it has 10 points of touch.
Audio Quality
The Doogee Mix has a single speaker below. It has clear enough details. It isn't just that crisp and full sounding compared with other phone speakers. It also has some distortion on max volume. The speaker isn't also that loud.For headphones audio output, the Doogee Mix did a better job. It has clearer output with good warm sound signature. Bass is punchy and deep. Mids are full enough and has decent separation. Highs are peaky and has hiss at times. Soundstage is wider than usual on our VE Monk Plus. Distortion is minimal on max loudness.
Driving power isn't just that loud. But, overall audio quality is decent for a non-audiophile grade smartphone.
Microphone is acceptable for calls. Not that great for recordings. It would have been better if it has noise cancelling secondary mic.
Battery Life
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| Work battery |
The Doogee Mix is equipped with 3,380 mAh of battery capacity. It is big enough considering that the phone only has an HD screen and a pretty power efficient 64 bit Helio P25 octa core chip.
As a result, battery performance is decent. It clocked 9 hours and 37 mins of work battery life at Geekbench app. It also has a screen on time of a little over 5 hours. Decent overall.
Moreover, this device has power saving modes. It includes a regular power saving mode that will darken the screen and disconnect you to WiFi, data or Bluetooth and Smart-saving that consumes 20% less power.
Charging time is around 2 hours and 10 mins from 0 to 100 percent.
As a result, battery performance is decent. It clocked 9 hours and 37 mins of work battery life at Geekbench app. It also has a screen on time of a little over 5 hours. Decent overall.
Moreover, this device has power saving modes. It includes a regular power saving mode that will darken the screen and disconnect you to WiFi, data or Bluetooth and Smart-saving that consumes 20% less power.
Charging time is around 2 hours and 10 mins from 0 to 100 percent.
Camera
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| Dual cameras |
Next, the cameras. The Doogee Mix is one of the few affordable phones equipped with a dual camera setup. It consists of a 16 MP + 8 MP f/2.0 w/ 2x optical zoom, monochrome mode, PDAF and LED flash.
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| The camera interface |
It also comes with a simple camera interface with lots of modes. You'll find the regular photo, HDR, panorama, and face beauty modes. It also has blur (bokeh effect), monochrone (black and white), 2x zoom, and pro photography modes.
However, the pro mode is incomplete. It only has ISO, white balance and exposure adjustments. It has no shutter speed and manual focus.
Moving to the camera experience of the phone, shutter speed is fast, but focus is not accurate. Images would be blurry if your hands are not steady. It has the ability to focus closely on some subjects.
At times, your images will look decent. It'll show good exposure, colors and details. But, it is inconsistent. There are times that you images will you'll take are too underexposed and lacking in detail. HDR could brighten up your stills even if it won't look natural in colors.
What we enjoyed using here is the zoom. It is as good as expected. Loss of detail isn't that much on 2x zoom. However, the blur and monochrome modes aren't that great.
The blur mode won't really give the bokeh effect you like. Use the auto mode instead. It has much better bokeh overall than the blur mode.
Lowlight performance is acceptable, but needs improvement. The flash is decent too.
Rear Camera Samples
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| HDR sample |
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| Daylight sample |
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| Indoor food |
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| Blur mode |
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| Auto mode with better bokeh 1 |
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| Auto mode with better bokeh 2 |
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| 2x zoom test |
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| Monochrome test 1 |
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| Monochrome test 2 |
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| Auto mode night |
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| HDR night |
In front, it has a 5 MP f/2.0 selfie camera with 2x digital zoom, monochrome, and face beauty modes. It has an awkward position below near the fingerprint scanner, but you can tilt your phone to adjust the orientation.
Unfortunately, the quality of selfies and groufies okayish in daylight. However, it is undexposed, violetish in color and has visible grains. Lowlight performance needs improvement.
For videos it can shoot in 1080p behind and 480p in front. Quality is very shaky. Focus is not great too. Doogee needs to improve this.
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| Selfie camera in front |
Unfortunately, the quality of selfies and groufies okayish in daylight. However, it is undexposed, violetish in color and has visible grains. Lowlight performance needs improvement.
Selfie Camera Samples
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| Selfie in good lighting condition |
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| Black and white filter |
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| Lowlight selfie |
For videos it can shoot in 1080p behind and 480p in front. Quality is very shaky. Focus is not great too. Doogee needs to improve this.
Performance
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| High benchmark scores! |
It has the largest RAM for the price!
It's equipped with a 64 bit Helio P25 octa core chip with Mali T880 graphics. Then the unit we go has the highest RAM and configuration at 6 GB and 64 GB respectively.
As a result? Multitasking performance is mostly smooth. Hiccups are rare and opening of multiple apps is fast. The speed experience is mostly enjoyable. It is even decent for some heavy gaming for the price. Overall thermal management is good too.
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| The UI of the phone |
Checking the software, Doogee Mix boots with Android 7.0 Nougat OS with an unknown type of custom skin on top. It only consumed 6.05 out of the 64 GB storage of the smartphone.
It is also has few bloats and lots of features and gestures for shortcuts. However, Doogee could improve its intuitiveness. Searching for your apps in the app drawer isn't that easy.
Fingerprint scanner isn't the most accurate and fastest around, but it has several programmable gestures.
The rest of our telephony experience is good. Signal is strong and we have steady 4G data connectivity. There's the usual WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS as well.
When it comes to the general telephony, Y5 2017 has very strong and steady GSM and 4G data signal reception. It's WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity are average. GPS is stable for navigation.
It has no fingerprint scanner, OTG support and gyroscope sensor.
Pros - Attractive design, speedy processor, gaming capable GPU, largest RAM, big 64 GB storage, decent battery performance
Cons - Display doesn't have the sharpest resolution around, main camera is inconsistent, selfie camera is violetish in color, UI needs refinement, fingerprint scanner is not the fastest around
Verdict
At this very moment, it'll be very hard to find a handset with better overall specs than the Doogee Mix in class. At just PHP 10,990, it has a very attractive design, speedy processor, HUGE 6 GB of RAM and large 64 GB of expandable storage.This is a highly recommended phone for those who needs speedy performance on a tight budget. It'll also be good for some heavy games.
However, it has some weaknesses that needs some refinement. Maybe Doogee can remedy its inconsistent camera performance with a software update.
Build / Design - 4.25
Display - 3.75
Audio - 3.75
Battery - 4.25
Camera - 3.5
Performance - 4.5
Average - 4 / 5
Build / Design - 4.25
Display - 3.75
Audio - 3.75
Battery - 4.25
Camera - 3.5
Performance - 4.5
Average - 4 / 5