The Ulefone Power series has been a massive hit for Ulefone, however it has constantly been outclassed by the Xiaomi Redmi/Redmi Note series. Can Ulefone finally break the curse with the brand new Ulefone Power 3?
The Ulefone Power 3 isn’t just a big battery phone now, but an 18:9 aspect ratio phone containing the very new MTK6763 octacore processor, a new SoC by Mediatek promising many new network features and image processing system. However, I wonder if the Ulefone Power 3 can finally outclass the Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus, which should be able to take on or beat the Ulefone in every way.
Ulefone’s most powerful brand
Processor | Helio P23 MTK6763 Processor |
Display | 5.99” 2160×1080 FHD Incell IPS LCD |
RAM | 4GB |
Storage | 64GB eMMC |
Operating System | Android 7.0 Nougat |
Cameras | 13MP Camera, 5MP Front |
Battery | 6,080mAh |
Physical Dimensions | 15.90 x 7.59 x 0.99 cm, 210g |
Big thanks to Gearbest for providing this review unit.
There is one issue with this phone that I don’t consider to be a deal breaker for me personally, and that would be the lack of the headphone jack. Some of you might consider this a deal breaker and if that is the case I completely understand, however I personally don’t use the headphone jack at all, so no issue for me.
The fingerprint sensor for me is a little high so I have to constantly adjust my grip to reach it, but that can be blamed on my small hands.
Good build, no headphone jack
The Ulefone Power 3 does not have a bad display at all. The screen has a 2K resolution and it is 6″, very crisp and clear. The colour reproduction and saturation is very, very pleasing to the eye, with colourful pictures looking quite dazzling on the display, outclassing many other phones, even pulling ahead slightly of other more expensive phones (definitely better than the Redmi 5 Plus).
The speakers output some decent sound, but not the loudest. Audio quality is quite decent, good mids and highs and audio clarity is quite decent, not a bad speaker if I would say so. However, the bass output is a bit lacking, so explosions and bass drops could sound tinny.
I guarantee that you will be able to get better battery life than I was able to get if your use is lighter (and it will be).
On par with the Redmi Notes!
Ulefone seems to be a company that takes criticisms and feedback to heart, as they have abandoned the idea of putting skins (remember that incredibly ugly skin/black icon pack on the Power 2?), instead keeping it completely stock and adding a nice Pixel type swipe up drawer to the launcher. Other companies could definitely learn from this type of behaviour.
The MTK6763 processor sits between the Helio P20 and Helio P25 in terms of performance, there is still a slight hitch when launching apps for the first time, but the 4GB of RAM keeps the phone multitasking smoothly.
the Antutu benchmark and PCMark Work 2.0 benchmark both confirm that the MTK6763 (Helio P23) sits between the Helio P20 and Helio P25 in terms of performance.
The Ulefone Power 3 got very good 4G speeds on my network here in Canada and reception is awesome as well. There is also VoLTE and ViLTE in this chipset but unfortunately I couldn’t test both because my carrier (Zoomer Wireless) doesn’t support that. However it should work on other carriers that do support it.
GPS takes longer than usual to get a lock, but once it gets a lock its fairly accurate.
The Ulefone Power 3 has 4 cameras in total, 2 front and 2 back, and when you open the camera app its pretty stock and there’s a button to toggle between 1x and 2x zoom, which should be switching between the two cameras, but it continues using the main camera but zooms digitally instead.
You can also get a blurring effect or portrait mode, but the effect isn’t very good here and pictures usually turn out worse.
The front facing camera is pretty bad, not the worst I’ve seen but its bad enough.
The video quality is average at best, i can see some artifacting in this video although colour reproduction is not actually bad at all. Here’s some video in low light for you to take at before we move on.
The Ulefone Power 3 represents a huge improvement over the Ulefone Power 2 in many areas, chief among them being the battery life, display, and performance. In addition, Ulefone seems to have listened to its customer’s feedback and acted on it, something that is quite rare nowadays.
However, the Ulefone Power 3 is not perfect, and the biggest sore spot in this phone would be the camera quality. While it can take good photos, the photo quality is very inconsistent, varying wildly from one picture to the other.
Starting at $300, this is a no buy at that price. However its discounted price of $220 represents a much more attractive option, considering the 4GB Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus costs more than that. The Redmi Note 4 still represents a much higher value proposition though.
Great value when discounted
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