Doogee Y6 Max Review: Big Phablet or Small Tablet?

The trend of phone upsizing hasn’t slowed down much and Doogee has pushed that trend as far as it will go with the new Doogee Y6 Max, a 6.5” phone. This phone dwarfs the Nexus 6P and the Note 7 and even the Bluboo Maya Max with its 6” screen.

There is also another edition of the Y6 Max that supports glassless 3D but that one is not released yet. This Y6 Max doesn’t boast incredible specs but neither is it low end. It utilizes the MTK6750T, 3GB of RAM and fills the 6.5” screen with a full HD resolution. It’s also fairly cheap, starting at $150 with flash sales bringing it down to $120 on occasion.

In order for this to be a hot product, Doogee has to create a compelling package, but even if it does, $150 isn’t a great price for specs like these when you have the Redmi 4/4A. But then again, the Y6 Max is aimed at a different market, specifically those looking for something almost comically huge. So first, Doogee has to succeed in creating a good phone before we even talk about price. Let’s see if they do.

“So massive it’s crazy”

Doogee Y6 Max Specifications

Big thanks to Gearbest for providing this review unit. I used the Doogee Y6 Max on Fido in Toronto.

Doogee Y6 Max Hardware

I think the term “small tablet” describes this phone better than “massive phablet”. I can’t even use this device properly as a phone even with both hands. I almost dropped it multiple times while walking and I even dropped it on my face while using it in bed as well.

Massive size aside, the phone itself is pretty compact. Sure it might not be bezelless Mi Mix style, but with an 84% screen to body ratio, its keeps the bezels to an acceptable level. There is a tiny black bar around the display but its quite small and unobtrusive. The phone is thick at around 9mm but that is helped by the curved back.

The backplate is made out of metal with plastic strips on the top and bottom to help with reception and the fingerprint sensor below the camera. I find it incredible hard to reach because of how big the phone is so a front facing sensor might have been a better option. Other than that I have no complaints about the build quality, it is metal, it feels high quality but it is so massive.

“small for its size….”

Doogee Y6 Max Display

We have a 1080p resolution on a 6.5″ display, and I know many of you will want at least a 2K resolution, however 1080p is still more than good enough for a screen size like this.  Max brightness is OK, topping out at around 400 nits which means you’ll have difficulty seeing it in direct sunlight.

Everywhere else and the screen performs just fine. There is no protective glass on the screen either.

Doogee Y6 Max Audio

We have two sets of speaker grilles flanking the USB-C port and it produces some very decent sound. Audio volume is definitely not the loudest, there are devices out there that top it in terms of volume but it does produce more than enough for pretty much anyone.

The quality is actually below average with distortion at max volume (yes, volume booster was turned off) and there is a significant lack of bass as well. Check out the video review below for the audio test.

Doogee Y6 Max Battery

A 4300mAh battery is nothing to sneeze at and should provide even the heaviest of users with one day of battery life without issue. The Y6 Max definitely delivers, providing battery life slightly above the Bluboo Maya Max and on par with the Redmi 3. I was able to get 6 hours of screen on time with about 15% battery left at the end of the day.

This was a mix of light and heavy usage, gaming, photo taking, reddit and web browsing. I was definitely expecting worse battery life out of this because of the huge 6.5” screen but Doogee did a great job putting in a big battery and optimizing properly. I hail phones that get battery life like this as the best battery life possible in a normal sized phone (e.g. no Oukitel K10,000) but I can’t for two reasons.

First, this phone is the definition of “not a normal sized phone”, and second the Redmi 4 Prime currently holds the crown and will only be toppled by another Snapdragon 625 toting phone. Still though, getting half the battery life of a Redmi 4 Prime is no easy feat.

“great battery life”

Doogee Y6 Max Software

Doogee slightly customizes the look of the software so that it doesn’t look like stock Android but doesn’t interfere much with anything else. Android 6.0 Marshmallow runs quite well on this device and apart from the light Doogee skin, everything else is stock.

The fingerprint scanner on the back is accurate and fast, but doesn’t destroy in either department. Accuracy is absolutely key in this device as its hard to reach meaning that your fingers are almost always never in a prime position for unlocking. Performance is very decent as well, pairing the MTK6750 with 3GB of RAM meaning that multi-tasking is good (but not great) and general performance is very zippy as well.

The MTK6750 performs quite well in gaming; you can play even intense games on the MTK6750 and 3GB of RAM. You can get some decent framerates in games like NOVA and has no trouble playing less intense games such as Rovio’s new Candy Crush style game. It gets a rather average Antutu score of about 44,000 as well.

Doogee Y6 Max Connectivity

I was still able to get strong 3G and LTE connections here in Canada, but pay extra close attention to the network bands and make sure it works on your carrier.

WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS all work well, GPS lags a little behind my Snapdragon 820 Z2 Plus, but nothing huge. There is a microSD card slot that supports microSD cards up to 128GB as well.

Doogee Y6 Max Camera

I was surprised by the quality of the camera, however I have to issue a slight correction to the video, I only noticed it after uploading that while the words coming out of my mouth theoretically agrees with the text review, the tone definitely implies that I was very impressed by the camera.

To be clear, I am most definitely not very impressed, just pleasantly surprised that the camera quality wasn’t terrible. Photos are decent in great lighting conditions but take a nosedive in bad lighting conditions as you can see in the samples below. The front facing 5MP camera struggles with detail due to the low megapixel count and performs adequately.

The 1080p video is quite decent, capturing detailed video albeit slightly washed out, and with 4K cameras becoming more and more prevalent, 1080p just doesn’t impress anymore.

Doogee Y6 Max Verdict

There isn’t a lot of competition in the phablet space, especially when you talk about phablets larger than 6″. You have the Bluboo Maya Max which tops out at 6″ and a couple of other Leagoo devices, but not much else here. There is the PPTV King which uses the Helio X10 processor but it uses a much smaller battery (and a 2K screen) and thus in my opinion is merely a runner up to this or the Bluboo Maya Max. What’s the use of a more powerful processor and a higher resolution screen if it dies quickly?

The Doogee Y6 Max is not perfect. Its not the fastest, it doesn’t have the most RAM (ahem looking at you UMi Plus E) and the camera is definitely not the best either. However, the Doogee Y6 Max is currently the best large budget phablet you can buy, barely edging out the Bluboo Maya Max. Going into 2017, you won’t find something else with a better price/performance ratio than the Doogee Y6 Max.

I would like to thank Gearbest for sending out this review unit, and if you would like to buy one, you can do so here.

“the best large budget phablet so far”

Doogee Y6 Max Video Review

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Doogee Y6 Max Gallery

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