Be aware that Asus will not honor the warranty on any Far East handset and i was told this by Asus directly when my Amazon Italy phone had to have a minor software repair, they will only repair European handsets. Also keep in mind it will have the Chinese rom on which means their will be Chinese apps on their and you cant uninstall them the only way to change roms is via root and they are full and i mean full of bloatware my Euro handset has at least 30 useless apps and you can only uninstall maybe 5. The only way to do anything is root it and if you uninstall any of these apps you will no longer get OTA updates the only way then is to keep flashing newer roms as they are released or freeze the apps. All in all a very fast phone but the bloatware kills it for me and im not alone in this, ive never seen any phone come with such a amount of **** on as the Asus it wouldn't of been so bad if you could uninstall them but you cant.


I have the Elephone p8000 which is the same spec as the Doogee and i have the zenfone 2 although its the 2.3 version and you cant compare the 2 the zenfone is way way faster than the Doogee and the GPU scores double in Antutu. The Doogee will be a good phone at a great price but the zenfone is a monster speed wise the zen scores around 4800+ where as the p8000 scores just 3300+


The 1.8 and 2.3 come with 4gb ram they are the 5.5" screen the cheap 2gb versions have a 5".

Am I missing something or is this significantly cheaper at Gearbest?
http://m.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_170574.html?wid=1

​Mate, its seriously good find.

Ah I'm not sure - but unlocking the bootloader is an essential step to full LTE coverage. I can't really try by JUST unlocking the bootloader since I already flashed WW firmware and recovery as well. Now I have 4G signal on O2 and I ought not to be able to with CN firmware.

The thing is - I suspect you won't get the automatic UK APN settings with CN firmware, so maybe you will have to unlock the bootloader AND flash WW firmware. It's pretty straightforward to do that btw - the most fiddly thing is entering recovery mode which requires pressing POWER and VOL UP at the same time and takes a bit of practice if you're cackhanded like me. Or you might be able to do it with manual APN settings entry on CN firmware but there might also be something at system level to not enable signal on those non-CN bands.

The official Asus bootloader unlock apk is pretty hot off the press and apparently there is a small issue with fastboot recovery just now, but they are investigating and will release a fix. (With this issue I think you might struggle to sideload a new firmware update and that would of course be essential as the OTA facility is withdrawn after you unlock the bootloader). One other thing to note is your warranty is also invalidated, even with the official bootloader unlocker - because you could flash anything then, even something experimental that could damage your hardware.

​Sorry if I got you wrong but did you just say that by unlocking a bootloader you can unlock an extra 4G bands?

Well tbh I haven't really stressed the phone yet. Charge time is very fast and I've only fully charged it the once on Friday morning - since then I've tinkered with apps but not made any calls and I see now it is 19% battery remaining (Sunday morning). I think there's an issue with some apps that drain the battery because of the Atom processor over Arm. (I guess it makes sense that there would be different power profiles of some instructions...)

Regarding the actual location of the EU warehouse - I did see in a few "answered questions" that Gearbest assert there will be no import charges from the EU warehouse if you're in the EU and that they won't ship from the EU warehouse to some non-EU satellite countries. That suggests it might actually be in the EU. They do say they'll mark a package as a gift if you order from the CN warehouse but of course you are then in the customs lottery! So for me the extra tenner or so is worth it for peace of mind and it does seem pretty rapid delivery.

I suspect they might tell you anything to get you to order, eg if the item's only available from the CN warehouse. It's also likely there's a higher margin to ship from the CN warehouse than EU, once transportation and import fees have been taken into account (and of course staffing costs!).

Well that's encouraging news regarding the delivery. How are you finding the battery life? Thanks

I placed the order with gearbest on Sunday from the EU warehouse and the phone arrived on Thursday.

It is CN firmware. No biggie though as it's possible to upgrade to WW firmware and WW recovery pretty easily. That doesn't unlock the full LTE band support though - you need to unlock the boatloader for that and even Asus themselves have released an official boatloader unlock apk for this phone. (Ok with the caveat you no longer get OTA firmware updates - again no biggie as you can still get them from the Asus support page.)

It isn't even in Europe, I asked one of their advisors and he said that their EU warehouse is in China. Ey? And that it would take between 7-15 days for the phone to arrive.

Am I missing something or is this significantly cheaper at Gearbest?
http://m.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_170574.html?wid=1

I never use Internet banking on mobiles.

Firmware is WW. I was going to send it back if it wasn't but it did state clearly on the site that it was, hence no problem registering (before opening).

I never use Internet banking on mobiles.

Can't understand the negative comments on battery life. 4 hours standard use only uses 10%. Bought from amazon.it. Blazingly fast map redraw on Sygic Maps, Google Maps and Flight Radar. Quicker than my i5 laptop. Registered on Asus Web site.

Will 4G work on 3 network? Looks fantastic for the price.

Ok thanks im only 3g with simplicity sim so should work. Is this a better phone than the huawei ascend mate 7 as this is mu current handset but its broken already and only used it since may this yr

im on 02 so i guess it wont work for me ?

out of interest how do you pay for this ? by that i mean does the CH retailer bill in dollars (most likely) or GBP and if dollars then the headline price doesnt include the crappy USD/GDP visa/paypal rates ?

Hmmm so it says available from EU warehouse but it's not available from the EU warehouse. Interesting.

I'll speak to another advisor tomorrow.

Are you sure?

Question:
Hello GearBeast, I have a few questions: 1.I am in the UK, if I order this phone, will it come from the EU warehouse? 2.Will it come with CN firmware of WW firmware? 3.Will the phone be brand new and sealed in it's original box? 4.Does it come pre-loaded with bloatware? Please answer all questions in full detail. Thank you.
Reply:
Hi Manvir ,
The phone is not available in EU warehouse.It come with CN firmware.The phone is brand new and sealed in it's original box.

That makes me to hold before buy and their warranty

Hmm, I'm going to wait for that. Hopefully it will be released in the UK.

http://www.gearbest.com/cell-phones/pp_170574.html?wid=3

£156 from the UK with 2 day delivery

You can get these from UK sellers on Ebay for under £200 and you're not bothering with customs and waiting. That said check comments, some are clearly not in the UK.

Most of the time it doesn't give me a full day , it may be my usage , I use internet a lot , with occasional facebook video playing , also finding it difficult with charging , the original charger is really fast but difficult to carry as it came with an eu plug .

I have this phone bought from Amazon.it , it is an excellent phone ....very fast... only problems are poor battery life and some of the banking applications are working ....tried halifax and barcleys both does not work...

good find. hot!

Probably fake like much of the supposed 'lenovo' Chinese phones.

This is a nice deal for an Asus phone. Does anyone know when the LG V10 will be out in the UK?

This is a really nice phone. I got myself a elephone p8000, and ordered this (red colour) from focalprice for around £150ish for my Brother. The zenfone 2 looks much better, and the software is so much more superior, it's not just another chinese phone, it's from a reputable company, and looks to be well supported. It's like a flagship phone.

The only thing I would add is that if you are interested in using 4g, make sure the network runs on the listed 4g bands. You can buy WW version, which will work on all of the main UK 4G frequencies, however this one seems to be the CN version.

Are you sure it comes without any form of warranty? That sounds mad

Would a Tesco sim work in this phone,and would there be any problems with shipping from China?

Might as well expire this

And its only £155.67 from the EU warehouse. Banggood and Gearbest are about the same in terms of reputation aren't they?

Just ordered a Doogee F5 for half this price from the same site. Worth a look if you're in the market for a Chinaphone.

I'm slightly confused - according to GSMarena the model with this processor only came with 2gb of ram so which is it?

Why does it say it only works with 2G?

works with 2g, 3g and 4g with mentioned frequencies.

Great deal!