Ecoo E04 review – 64 bit Octa core powered smartphone with fingerprint scanner

Ecoo is a new brand that has launched quite a few handset, the latest is the Ecoo E04. The company had initially launched it with 2GB RAM, 8GB storage but now they have launched the E04 with 3GB RAM and 16GB storage with the same price tag. Pre-bookings have already started for $190 – handset will be available from April 15th onwards.

Box Pack
Inside the box you will get the E04, screen guard, data cable, user guide, 3000 mAh battery and travel charger.

Design, Display and OS
The Ecoo E04 is big and bulky. This handset sports a 5.5 inch screen, weight with battery is 170 grams and dimensions are 77.75 x (over 154) x 9.04 mm. The handset is comfortable to hold because of the curvy design. Back panel (with matte finish) has got nice texture that give a very unique look and feel to the handset.

Build quality is good but the finishing could have been better. Apart from that the handset looks really good. It’s plastic body and sides have metallic silver finishing. White looks good but I guess Black colour would look much better.

There is finger print scanner on the front bottom that doubles up as a dedicated navigation button. Volume rocker and power button are placed on the right side. 3.5mm audio jack and micro USB port are packed on the top and at the bottom you will find dual speaker vents (single speaker). There is single microphone at the bottom. E04 is a dual SIM handset, SIM slot 1 is micro SIM and SIM 2 is a normal SIM.

This handset sports a 5.5 inch IPS screen with 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. There is no mention of screen protection and inside the box you will also find a screen guard, so better use it. Colour reproduction, viewing angles are very good. Touch is smooth and responsive.

There is LED notification light and 4 sensors accelerometer, light, proximity and magnetic.

E04 is running Android 4.4.4 (KitKat) out of the box and it will get the Lollipop update probably before it is officially made available.

Memory and Storage
Ecoo E04 comes with 3GB RAM and 16GB storage. The 2GB version comes with 8GB storage. On 3GB version you will get 12GB space for apps / personal storage and on 2GB version you will get 5.6GB free internal space.

On the first boot on 3GB version you will get 1.8GB free RAM and on 2GB version you will get 1.1GB free RAM.

OTG is supported and you can install apps on the external storage.

Performance
This handset is powered by MediaTek Cortex A53 1.7 GHz Octa Core processor coupled with Mali T760 GPU. It’s using MT6752 chipset. Performance is very smooth and lag free.

App Result
Quadrant 14881
Antutu 39147
Vellamo Metal (1235) Multi core (1802) Browser (2533)
Nenamark 2 55.0 fps
Multi Touch 5 point

The handset does get heated up with heavy usage. The max temperature I encountered was 55 degrees (when using camera app and when playing high end games).

Gaming
You can install apps on external storage, I could install Asphalt 8 on the external storage. I played it in the highest visual quality mode, the game was playable and very smooth. The loudspeaker is placed at the bottom, when you hold the handset in landscape mode make sure your palm is not blocking the speaker out vents.

Camera
There is 16MP AF camera on the rear with dual LED flash and an 8MP camera on the front. Rear camera can shoot full HD videos. Though it is a 16MP camera the camera quality is not that great as expected, it could have better. Check sample RAW images at the end of this review.

Others
Key highlight is the finger print scanner on the front bottom that doubles up as menu button. The finger print processing speed and accuracy is very good it is using advanced technology with 96% accuracy and processing in just 0.1s. The finger print app gives you option to assign any app for a particular finger. For example you can use the Thumb to unlock, middle finger to unlock to gmail, tiny finger to unlock and open calculator and so on.

Handset supports 4G LTE (B1/B3/B7/B20), 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. No issues found. Sound is loud and clear. The E04 also supports HotKnot, air gestures and on screen gestures.

Battery
This handset houses a 3000 mAh removable battery. The battery backup is average, you can expect about 4 to 5 hours of continuous moderate to heavy usage. You will easily get over 24 hours of mixed usage (normal to moderate).

Task Time Battery drop (%) (max temp)
Running Benchmark apps 17 minutes 6% (44)
FHD video playback with Wi-Fi on + full brightness 27 minutes 10% (41)
Asphalt 8 Game Play 20 minutes 9% (55)
Full Wall Charge 3 hours 28 minutes 8% to 100%

Verdict
The Ecoo E04 is powerful using 64 bit octa core processor with 3GB RAM. The fingerprint scanner is another key attraction along with 4G support. Camera quality could have been better. Apart from that the handset is really good. It does heat-up with heavy usage probably it might get better with Lollipop update.

[Rating 3.5 out of 5]

Ecoo E04 is currently priced at $190 (approx Rs. 12K) will be available from 15th April onwards. Not available in India, you can buy online (you may need to pay custom duty).

Image Gallery

 

Rear Camera Sample

Front Camera Sample

Video Review