LeTV Rebrands As 'LeEco,' Debuts New Smartphones As It Tackles Global Market

[Lucian Armasu]

LeEco is one of China's fastest-growing smartphone makers, and it's looking to expand internationally with an ecosystem-centric strategy, and high-value smartphone offers as an entry point into that ecosystem.

LeTV Rebrands As 'LeEco,' Debuts New Smartphones As It Tackles Global Market : Read more

 

[Uri___Pisarev]

You guys missed the LE HTC M9

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

I own the Le 1s. It's overall a fairly good phone. The battery life is great; I've gotten two full days out of it quite regularly (although I don't use my phone very heavily). It is also quite snappy, even with a MediaTek chip instead of a Qualcomm. Overall, I'm quite satisfied with it for myself.

However, a few issues prevent me from recommending it to more people. I wish they didn't add so much crapware on the phone; I'd recommend it to everyone if they used a cleaner Android version. It also still hasn't upgraded to 6.0, but I guess that's to be expected from their first foray into phones. You will also have almost no accessories designed for it in North America if you get one.

 

[DotNetMaster777]

those are reasonable price for those phones


it is interesting what is the price of LeEco Le Max Pro ? ? ?

 

[scolaner]

However, a few issues prevent me from recommending it to more people. I wish they didn't add so much crapware on the phone; I'd recommend it to everyone if they used a cleaner Android version. It also still hasn't upgraded to 6.0, but I guess that's to be expected from their first foray into phones. You will also have almost no accessories designed for it in North America if you get one.

Well, that's the tradeoff--you get the lower price, but it's subsidized by the "ecosystem."

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

Well, that's the tradeoff--you get the lower price, but it's subsidized by the "ecosystem."

That's exactly it; there's a reason the phone is so cheap. But I find it annoying enough that I wouldn't really recommend the phone to other people. It was a good experiment for me and I needed a quick replacement, but I wouldn't really buy another Le phone unless they started using a more traditional Android ROM. This would also mean that we would get faster updates; I have not received a single update since I got the phone last summer.

 

[scolaner]

Well, that's the tradeoff--you get the lower price, but it's subsidized by the "ecosystem."

That's exactly it; there's a reason the phone is so cheap. But I find it annoying enough that I wouldn't really recommend the phone to other people. It was a good experiment for me and I needed a quick replacement, but I wouldn't really buy another Le phone unless they started using a more traditional Android ROM. This would also mean that we would get faster updates; I have not received a single update since I got the phone last summer.

Ah, I gotcha. That bad?

In what region of the world do you live where you're not getting regular updates? If LeEco is invading NA, it would be good for us to know whether we can plan on getting any updates...

 

[Epsilon_0EVP]

Ah, I gotcha. That bad?

In what region of the world do you live where you're not getting regular updates? If LeEco is invading NA, it would be good for us to know whether we can plan on getting any updates...

It's pretty bad. I regularly get ads in my notification bar, and every once in a while a full-page ad for one of their apps will appear. I also haven't found a way to get rid of the built-in apps, and although some of them are actually useful (like the file manager app), they really push for you to register an account with them and so forth. Again, makes sense from the business model, but rather annoying. A Moto G might not be as powerful, but it is about the same price and won't include so much crap...

I am in Canada, and I did consider that being outside of China meant I might get less regular updates. But it's getting concerning now. I am still running 5.0, despite the fact that 5.1 released over a year ago. They probably do have to make a lot of work to update, since they are running a very modified interface. But it's still quite annoying, specially coming from a Nexus 4.

The bright side, I guess, is that these are all software issues, which are relatively easy to fix. The hardware, on the other side, is near-perfect for me; I never thought I could have such a premium-feeling device for under $200 that performs so well. I'll keep up with LeEco and see how they do, but they will need to make some major changes to their software to get a recommendation from me.