Leagoo M8 Review: The Face of New Budget-Friendly Smartph…

A few months back we have been reviewing the Uhans A101, and it was titled what you can afford for $60. Thereafter, it was followed by a few other budget-friendly handsets like the Cubot Manito, Amigoo R700, or the Blackview E7. That time these were the most affordable smartphones providing good performance. But now it seems budget-friendly devices are attacking the market. Today we are going to talk about a Leagoo M series handset costing only $74.99 but sporting a list of attractive features including a 5.7-inch display with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 protection and many more. We have already got acquainted with a couple of M line devices such as the Leagoo M5 and M5 Plus. And now it’s turn of the Leagoo M8. It is not a pioneer in the budget-friendly smartphone market, but the Leagoo M8 continues what its siblings have started – A NEW ERA OF LOW-COST SMARTPHONES.

Like all budget phones the Leagoo M8 comes with a removable back panel that means the slots made for SIM and memory expansion cards are located under this panel. Therefore, some sides are blank. Well, the Leagoo M8 housing is made of plastic, while the chassis is made of zinc. No one knows whether this metal is dangerous for health or the vice versa, but it gives a look of a high-end smartphone to this handset.

The rare panel is glossy but not plain. I know many customers do not like phones with such a look, but Leagoo is in this market for a while and knows what to do. It comes in three color options -galaxy white, champagne gold and titanium grey. Though we are dealing with a 5.7-inch screen phablet, Leagoo has managed to come in with a great handset in terms of ergonomics. Thanks to rounded corners and back panel the Leagoo M8 is very comfortable to hold in one hand. It comes at dimensions of 15.45 x 7.98 x 0.88 cm and weighs 169g.

The front panel carries an IPS screen of 5.7 inches. It comes at a HD resolution and 267ppi pixel density, and seem the manufacturer has done this to reduce the phone’s price. But it is covered with a Gorilla Glass 4 protection, so no scratches are dangerous for it and this display will serve you long.

The upper side of the front panel comes with a 5MP camera (interpolated to 8MP), speaker and standard set of sensors.

The three navigation touch buttons are at the lower part, on screen.

The power button along with the volume rocker are on the right hand side.

The miniHDMI port along with a microphone are on the bottom side.

The 3.5mm audio jack is located on the top.

An 8MP camera (interpolated to 13MP) paired with a LED flash is on the back accompanied with the fingerprint scanner operating in 0.19s.

An eternal speaker is placed at the lower part of the rare panel.

As I said at the beginning of the Leagoo M8 review, the back panel is removable.

Therefore the battery is removable too. Once it’s removed we can see two SIM card slots supporting 3G, a microSD card slot allowing users to expand the memory up to 128GB and a 3500mAh battery, which provides acceptable lifetime for this huge-screen phablet.

As we are dealing with a budget smartphone, it’s quite expectable to see a mid-range hardware. But to perform the daily tasks the specs list should be acceptable. So the Leagoo M8 if packed with a MediaTek MTK6580 quad-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz and paired with a Mali-400 MP GPU, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB of ROM. This SoC works on 28nm process technology with an ARM Cortex-A7 architecture. It also runs on Android 6.0.

It’s a regular set of hardware for a mid-range smartphone, but we know this combination can provide quite different performance on different models. I am offering to take a quick peek at a few benchmark test results to learn more. The Leagoo M8 scored 24,658 at AnTuTu, 404 at Geekbench single core and 1157 at GeekBench multi-core tests. This is not very impressive if compared with the highest-end smartphone like the upcoming Xiaomi Mi 6, but let’s don’t forget we are dealing with a budget-friendly smartphone from mid-range category.

Leagoo M8 Connectivity

This handset comes with dual-SIM connectivity options. Though both SIM cards are active, they support only 3G. Probably, this is the biggest disappointment of this handset. Because if ignoring all the rest features, we can acquire a 4G phablet for the same pricing. I mean the Blackview E7 and Leagoo M5 Plus. However, this shortcoming can’t play a decisive role, because not all users are connected to 4G networks. Other than that, the Leagoo M8 supports WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0.

Leagoo M8 Camera

The main camera on the Leagoo M8 comes at 8MP that can be interpolated to 13MP. The supplier is unknown, but this camera module can provide acceptable capturing performance. It can take photos at 4160 x 3120 pixels, and record videos at 1280 x 720 pixels at 30 fps.

However, the actual video details differ from the official ones.

The same can be said for the front camera at 5MP (interpolated to 8MP).

The Leagoo M8 comes in a white packaging with the phone’s picture printed on the upper side.

One of the sides carries the key features.

The box includes:

• The Leagoo M8 phablet,
• A USB cable,
• A charger,
• Earphones,
• User manual.

• 720p Display Protected With Gorilla Glass 4
• Good ergonomics,
• Large capacity battery,
• Acceptable connectivity options

• Small memory,
• Mid-range SoC

The Leagoo M8 doesn’t fight for any title, but it’s a great option for those who are looking for an affordable smartphone capable of doing daily tasks. The 5.7-inch display with scratch-resistant covering is the selling point without dispute. There are a few shortcomings we would like not to see in this handset, but the manufacturer has saved in some aspects to reduce the phone’s price as lower as possible. Leagoo succeeded!

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