Elephone P3000 review – quad core with 3150 mAh battery

The P3000 from Elephone is a quad core powered smartphone that is using the MediaTek chipset with 4G support. It is a dual SIM handset with a good 3150 mAh battery. The handset comes with a finger print scanner and runs KitKat out of the box with 13MP rear AF camera.

Box Pack
Inside you will find the handset, screen guard, user manual, data cable, travel charger and 3150 mAh battery. Earphone is not included.

Design, Display and OS
The Elephone P3000 looks big but it is light weight (149 grams). Dimensions are 72.25 x 144.09 x 9.91 (mm). It has got a common design and the rear side has a sharp slope (check video review or the images in the image gallery). Back panel is with a matte finish. Build quality / finishing is good.

There is a finger print scanner on the rear. Volume rockers are on the left side, power button on the right, micro USB port and 3.5mm audio jack is on the top and a single mic at the bottom. There is LED notification and accelerometer, light, proximity and magnetic sensors. It is a dual SIM handset SIM 1 is a normal slot and SIM 2 is micro slot. There is micro SD card slot too.

The screen is 5 inches supporting 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. Viewing angles are okay, no issues with touch and colour reproduction is good.

The P3000 sails on Android 4.4.2 and FOTA updates are supported.

Memory and Storage
Of the 1GB RAM about 599MB is available on first boot and of the 8GB storage there is 1.7GB space for apps and about 4GB phone storage. You can install apps on the external storage. OTG is also supported.

Performance
It houses the MediaTek MT6582 (+MT6290) 1.3GHz quad core cortex A7 processor with Mali 400 MP GPU. Performance is smooth.

Benchmark

App Result
Quadrant 6310
Antutu 18428
Vellamo Metal (787) Multi core (1181) Browser (1718)
Nenamark 2 Crashed.
Multi Touch 5 point

Camera and Entertainment
There is 13MP rear AF camera and 5MP front camera. Camera quality is very good – check the sample images at the end. The rear camera can shoot FHD videos. This handset can easily play full HD videos.

Gaming
I tried Asphalt 8 and MC5. Both games got installed on the external storage. Asphalt 8 was playable in high graphics mode. There was issue with MC5 – check the other section below for the issues I encountered.

Others
Sound is loud, no issues with 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. 4G band is not supported in India. I found some issues with some application – Nenamark 2, Modern Combat 5 and MX player. All of these applications failed to load, I got a blank screen and the handset became unresponsive.  The only option left was to restart the system – either remove the battery or press and hold the power button for over 10 to 15 seconds. Factory reset did not solve the issue. I believe it’s an OS software glitch.

Flip cover for the Elephone P3000 is also available (cost extra), works really well, it’s magnetic and shows a cool clock when the flip is closed.

Battery
This handset houses a removable battery of 3150 mAh capacity and the backup is really good.

Task Time Battery drop (%) (max temp)
Running Benchmark apps 26 minutes 4% (34)
FHD video playback with Wi-Fi on + full brightness 30 minutes 5% (36)
Asphalt 8 GamePlay 21 minutes 5% (34)
Wall Charge 2 hour 20 minutes 38% to 91%

With moderate to heavy usage you can expect battery backup of up to 7 to 10 hours.

Verdict
The Elephone P3000 is powerful and comes with a very good battery backup. There is finger print scanner for added security and camera quality is also pretty good. 4G is supported, unfortunately the 4G band will not work in India. Though there are issues with certain applications, it can be fixed via FOTA updates.

The P3000 is available for $149.89 (accessories).

Image Gallery

Sample Images shot using the P3000 handset

Front camera Sample