HDC STAR ULEFONE N9589 QUAD CORE MTK6589 / MT6589 5.7 INCH MONSTER PHABLET REVIEW

As I had expected, this phone which I ordered more than a month ago just arrived from Fastcardtech. Again they advertised as 'in stock' but actually not in stock yet. I actually ordered the white version but they did not have stock so I changed my order to the metallic brushed metal blue when they emailed me. I was pleasantly surprised when it came as the phone looked very slick and very high quality even better looking than the Samsung Galaxy phones.

These 2 pictures shows exactly what I received. Note that there is a screen protector already installed on this phone. Just pull the tab off and the front layer comes off. There is another new screen protector included in the box. Also included are 2 cases. A sillicone bumper case and another back cover replacement with the front screen flap cover. The usual wall charger with USB cable, earpiece and spare battery are there as well.

The phone has true Android 4.2.1 and with all the new enhancements that are available in the new android version. 

Screen
The screen is 5.7 inches large and larger than the Samsung Note II. My friends having the original Samsung Note and another having the Note 2 were amazed at the quality and size of the phone. The downside is that the phone has thicker glass which makes the phone heavy and when looked at an angle,  shades of colours that are bright and close to white get washed out because the screen becomes brighter at an angle, probably due to the thick glass diffusing the backlight. This appear to only affect the light colours at an angle. Text on darker background colours still appear very clear and pin sharp. The resolution is really 720x1280 and colours are correctly saturated and beautiful. The whites have a touch of non noticable bluish tint at lowest brightness but disappears as the brightness is increased. Whites are really white without any blue or yellow tint. I confirm this screen to be IPS but the brightness increase when viewed at an angle is a minor flaw but i am not really bothered by it as I never look at my phone from a steep angle. Outdoors, the screen is very readable when the brightness is turned up. Here is a Russian video showing the screen. 


Performance
The Android interface is so fluid and smooth that I sometime get the menus and webpages scrolling down if I touch the links or icons improperly. The screen is so sensitive and smooth that it is sometimes not such a good thing. Screen grabs show the usual Antutu and Quadrant benchmarks.

 

 

Performance is really very good and about on par with any Tegra 3 device. The Tegra 3 devices are always clocked higher and has a slight overall performance lead but Antutu benchmarks show the SGX544 PowerVR GPU is faster than the Tegra 3 in 3D performance by about 20 percent at the same clock speed.When compared to the MTK6577, the SGX533 GPU registers about 900+ in the 3D antutu benchmarks when running a 720 HD screen. The SGX544 is 3100 so it is over 3 times the performance of the older SGX533 running at the same resolution.

Software

This phone has stock Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1 installed and is stable without any crashing in the past 4 days that I have been using it. Google Play Store, Maps, and Gmail are installed. I had to download youtube from Playstore which worked flawlessly.

 

GPS

I tested GPS outdoors and got a lock in about 3 minutes. When all satellites are discovered, the GPS locked on and gave me the most accurate position ever  within 8 feet. ( Singapore ) Screenshots below. It is a real pity because this phone does not include a compass.

Camera

Camera is of fairly good quality. This phone is advertised to have a 3mp front camera and a 12mp rear camera but that is all nonsense. Actual front camera is actually higher at 5mp and rear camera is also 5mp instead of 12mp. It is 5mp interpolated to 12mp. This has a 5mp quality but just resized to 12mp.( very good quality in daylight ) The LED flash is somewhat lacking in brightness but still usable at close range. The camera sports the new android 4.2.1 interface with photo and video record buttons next to each other. There is also new the smile detection which works very well. Check out the demo samples.

Audio

When I first got this phone, the audio volume at maximum was very weak. I had to get into the engineer menu to adjust the audio settings to full. After that it became ok. Just ok but not as loud as how I would like it to be. But sound quality is very good with a fuller sound. Some other phones like my G9300 has louder volume but higher pitched and more scratchy sounding. Vibration for such a large phone is also weak. I can barely make out the vibration when it is in a loose pants pocket. sic You can access the engineer menu by dialing *#*#3646633#*#*

Battery

When the phone is in standby mode, the 3600mAh battery (really 2800mAh I suspect) the battery last forever. A full day from 9am, with several whatsapp messages, several sms and 2 Gmail accounts with sync and 3G data connection turned on all day, 2 or 3 short phone calls leaves me with about 70% battery when I go to bed at 12 or 1am. This is without any internet surfing on the browser or any games. Just basic communication activities and checking emails. If you are going to be writing many emails and surfing, the spare battery should take care of that for the rest of the day. The large 720 screen does take up a fair bit of power.

Conclusion

I consider this phone to be average due to low volume, missing compass, 5mp back camera and weak flash and over-sensitive touch sensors of the screen, and heavy. But the build quality and the huge screen with nice bright colours and quad core processor, above average battery life makes up for all that. Call quality and Internet speed is also all very good. This phone has more pros than cons and if those cons dont really bother you, go ahead and get this phone. 

Here is the link to fastcardtech. It is 100% in stock now since I already received it. Click on the picture below.