Doogee has again struck the right chord by launching Doogee BL500 Lite in its homeland at a reasonable price. The Chinese manufacturer has much to offer than its counterparts at sub-$100. It has everything to offer in this price range like a 6.2-inch-tall IPS screen, 5500 mAh battery and 12.98 MP+ 8 MP dual primary camera along with LED flash. Those who can’t afford a $1000 iPhone can definitely rejoice because now they can get its clone around $100 but how many boxes it has clicked right.
Buy the new DOOGEE BL5500 Lite from Gearbest at the very lower rates
let’s find out in our detailed review:
Specifications:
- Model – BL5500 Lite
- CPU – Quad-Core 1.3GHz ARM Cortex A53, CPU Clock
- Chipset – MediaTek MT6739WA, 64-bit Processor
- GPU – PowerVR GE8100
- Camera – 13 MP + 8 MP with Dual-LED and AF Rear Camera | 5 MP Front camera
- Memory – RAM- 2GB LPDDR3, 677MHz | ROM 16GB External Memory Support up to 128GB (Uses SIM 2 Slot)
- Display – Screen size 6.19-inches IPS, HD+ (1500 x 720 Pixels)
- Battery – Non-Removable 5,500 mAh Lithium-Polymer
- SIM -Dual SIM (Nano SIM + Nano SIM/microSD), Dual Standby
- Sensors – Proximity Sensor, Accelerometer, Ambient Light, Compass, Gyroscope, Fingerprint Sensor
- Color – Black, Blue, Gold
- Operating System – Android 8.1 Oreo OS
- I/O Interface – 1 x Nano SIM Card Slot, 1 x Nano SIM Card Slot/microSD, 3.5mm Audio Out Port, Microphone, Micro USB Slot, Speaker, TF/Micro SD Card Slot
- Dimensions – 76.9 mm x 160.8 mm x 10.5 mm
- Weight – 180 Grams (With Battery)
Display:
A sturdy device with excellent display
The Chinese OEM has equipped the device with 6.19-inch IPS display which is rare at this price point. They have also joined the wagon of 18:9 aspect ratio like other manufacturers. The screen is bright, and colors are vivid as it is having HD+ display having 720 * 1500 pixels. It has 269 PPI (pixel per inch) which is not up to mark to retina display but sufficient enough that one cannot distinguish between pixels with the naked eye. It has 64 million colors, screen colors seem saturated, and RGB (red, green, blue) colors combination seems perfect for daily use.
In the era of metal and glass body, Doogee chose to opt a plastic frame for the lite version which is not strange considering the price range. Despite 6.12-inch-long screen, it feels compact all thanks to its 78% screen to body ratio. It may be blessing in disguise as during accidental slips screen may directly come into surface contact, but It has 2.5D curved glass screen which enhances the protection of the device and after all at the end of the day looks matter more & it’s a sexy looking phone without drilling a hole in the pocket. It is 10.5 mm thick which seems a bit dated as nowadays we have phones with a slimmer profile.
Design:
The gadget has a controversial feature which has always been subjected to debate since it has been introduced in iPhone X, a “notch.” Yeah, the Doogee iteration has a full notch to accommodate front cameras and sensors like proximity and ambient light sensor. It’s a tall display having DOOGEE branding at the chin of the phone.
It has a capacitive touch screen which worked well in our testing, providing solid haptic feedback.
The volume and power button is at the right. The back of the phone has the clear plastic body having wide antenna bands at top and the bottom, the real camera is held at the left top of the device like iPhone X. The fingerprint sensor is placed in the center at phone back. The back panel nothing else to mention especially. The phone is available in three colors -black, blue and gold but we liked the black variant as it looks beautiful at first glance. It weighs around 180 grams which feels bit heavier despite having a plastic body in its construction but again has a humongous battery to accommodate which justifies its hefty size.
Camera:
In the camera department, equipped with 12.98 MP + 8 MP 88-degree wide angle primary camera having 4160 * 3120 pixels. Doogee BL500 Lite comes along with a dual LED flash which comes as a savior for low light photography. It records video at 30 fps with 1980 * 1080 pixels.
Its default camera supports the plethora of features like continuous shooting, autofocus, geotagging, digital zoom, HDR, Panorama, Face detection, touch focus, ISO settings, white balance settings, self-timer, exposure compensation, macro mode, and scene mode. It takes 88-degree full angle photos with the breeze.
Despite having 12.98 MP and 8 MP sensor powered by Sony IMX 135 sensor at the rear, the photos look pale and colors seems inaccurate. In daylight, it works fine, but again when it comes to low light photography, it fails drastically as images quality is below par. Another annoying thing is the camera UI, it is very laggy at times, but it may get improved in future updates. Autofocus is also slow; it can’t capture rapidly fast-moving objects. But overall real camera works fine in good lighting conditions. The phone tends to heat at the top in the right after 10 minutes of using the camera, but it is not a deal breaker.
Now when it comes to a secondary camera, it houses a 5 Mega Pixel having 2560 * 1920 pixels. It comes as a surprise, but selfies are better than expected. Autofocus is unavailable in front camera but shouldn’t be a big deal for many. With the option for wide-angle photography, it is a blessing for those who prefer group selfies at parties and holidays.
Software:
Shipment is with android oreo 8.1, and there is a chance that it will update to android pie in future updates. It is preloaded with some bloatware, but it can be uninstalled manually by a user in apps section in settings. UI feels nice and easy to use even for a first time user. On the top of google supplied 8.1 oreo, there is a flavor of Doogee modified skin which is not so more massive like Samsung TouchWiz. Upon boot, one can rejoice the power of latest Google iteration. It has the latest cool features like redesigned launcher and power menu, better memory management and most hard dark mode. Now users have a choice to switch between dark and light mode.
If doogee provides a software update which removes the glitches of the camera app, then it is a worthy app else user have the option to download google own stock camera app which is well optimized. And don’t get discouraged that it can’t shoot 4K video, it records 1080p at 30fps videos with ease and in better quality.
Connectivity:
For all the notch haters, there is an option to hide it in the display section under the settings menu. Some apps find challenging to scale to 19.9 display as content overlaps the notch, but again it can be resolved by disabling the groove. Some users are reporting the issue of blue tint in the array, but it can be determined by calibrating the display. Doogee BL500 Lite comes preinstalled with some google and doogee’s stock apps like audio Player, Google Play Store, Google Maps, Google Navigation, Flashlight, Email, Clock, E-book, Calendar, Calculator, Notebook, World Clock, Stopwatch, Browser, FM Radio, Sound Recorder
Video playback is crisp, and it plays full HD and UHD videos with ease. Videos appear fresh, and on 19.9 great display, they utilize the extra space. It supports all major codecs like 3GP, M4V, H.264, MKV, DivX, AVI, Xvid, WMV, FLV, MP4, H.265, H.264. The gadget also supports all major mp3 formats like m4a, mp3, wave, aac, etc.
Doogee BL500 Lite also has the radio with rds (radio data system).
Call quality is fantastic, and rarely there was any sign of a call drop during our review period. It supports all major LTE bands FDD-LTE: B1/B3/B7/B8/B20. A user can use the dual sim and activate VOLTE in both sims simultaneously. It also has support for all major 2G and 3G bands.
Wifi connectivity includes 802.11 a/b/g/n, Wi-Fi Display, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Hotspot and it has mira-cast support.
Performance & Battery Life:
Punches above its height
Doogee BL500 Lite is powered by Quad-core 1.3GHz ARM cortex A53 MediaTek MT6739WA chipset that is in mid-range devices and always perceives there. doogee latest sibling works fine in regular daily use, but it hangs up its boots when it comes to gaming. Doogee BL500 Lite is alright in playing traditional gaming, but it tends to lag when playing latest titles like Pubg, fortnight but lowering the resolution can be the solution. Games like Mario, hill climb racing, are perfect to play on doogee lite. Switching between many apps sometimes becomes laggy so avoid loading more than five heavy apps simultaneously. And also avoid using any 3rd party cleaning apps as they are ruining the performance of the device in long as they instantly kill the app running which has an inverse effect on the phone. Android oreo is smart enough to manage all the apps residing in memory.
The phone is having 2gb of internal memory and 16 Gb of internal memory out of which approx 11 Gb is usable, and rest is reserved for the system partition. Those who find it less and they love to have many apps in their phone can opt for a micro sd card… It can be extended up to 128 Gb.
Hardware:
In the beginning, all seems fine with 2gb ram. But when other user apps are being installed which required to run in the background all the time like WhatsApp and Facebook, then the phone starts to stutter. The OS itself occupies more than half of the RAM. But Google has worked harder on its android oreo os so that devices having less memory can optimize their task. And also android loads all its apps in the memory to open and switch them faster. So less available memory should not be a big hindrance for a user.
The device is powered by 5500 mAh non-removable lithium-polymer battery which is sufficient to run the device up to 2 days of usage in a single charge. While gaming continuously it discharged from 100 to 10 in 4.5 hours which is very good. We got 5-6 hours of screen time with both sim active, 2 hours of gaming, normal browsing & texting. The phone…
