Introduction
At the very beginning, we’d like to make some things clear. This is not a device for an average user – this one is made for someone who has a somewhat different lifestyle. You know those people that just so happen to drop their phone from the top of the stairs, or who “accidentally” run it over with their car? All jokes aside, Cubot endured all our tests. Manufacturer specifications say that the King Kong’s chassis can withstand up to 1 ton of pressure which is very impressive for a smartphone. Cubot King Kong is also waterproof with its IP68 certificate. Its chassis is made of soft plastic, while the edges are made of zinc. It also provides very nice grip because its back is carved in order to provide as best of a handling feeling as possible.
Inside the factory box Cobut included – the phone, user manuals, branded charging adapter, microUSB cable as well as a SIM tray tool that we’d rather call a screwdriver, and you’ll later see why. Let’s jump into a little more detail.
Video review
Unboxing
Display
Cubot King Kong uses a 5” IPS display which reproduces images in 720p HD resolution. Taking into account that its chipset isn’t that strong, HD resolution is a great choice. Colors look a bit washed up but the display is quite bright, even on direct sunlight.
We noticed that some people complained about burn-ins on the display. We wanted to test this, so we held the same image on for 30 minutes and we didn’t notice any difference – no burn-in whatsoever.
Cubot placed LONGJI screen protection over the display of the King Kong, but due to this protection, the front panel of the phone is soft and can easily be scratched, even if you only wipe the display off using a cleaning cloth. We ran across this device with a car and of course, it survived, but tires left their marks on the surface.
Hardware and OS
This device is powered by a MediaTek 6580 chipset, which is an entry level chipset with a weaker CPU and with no LTE support. Specifically, it is a quad core CPU clocked at 1.3 GHz. In terms of memory, King Kong has 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of storage memory, but the good side is that it supports storage expansions up to 64 GB via a microSD card.
When you hear that a device has a weak chipset, you immediately think that it has trouble working normally. That’s where you’d be wrong with the King Kong. People who worked on this device had everything in mind when they installed pure Android 7.0 OS. The device comes with no bloatware at all which is genuinely amazing for a device in this range. It works great! It is very responsive in screen transitions and app openings which makes it an even more desirable phone.
On the right side of the phone, its zinc edge contains a power button and volume rockers. The only problem with these is that they feel as if they’re made of rubber, and when pressed they don’t provide that distinct “click”.
Its speaker is located on the bottom of the back side of the device. Considering that this is a rugged phone, we can’t really complain about low volume of the speaker – at least it will work even when submerged in water.
Camera
Surprisingly, cameras do quite a good job. On the back is the main shooter with a 13 megapixel sensor, autofocus system, and aperture of f/2.2.
Photos captured by the primary camera look colorful and sharp, at least until we zoom in – that’s when we can notice large levels of noise around the edges of objects, but on the first glance, these are quite good results. Previously we had a chance to see far worse photos made by middle class devices. HDR mode does a very good job as well but it tends to overexpose bright scenes. It also takes some time to capture photos, which might be an issue if you’re taking a photo of a moving object.
When it comes to night time photos, there isn’t much to say about them, since the noise is too prominent. Night time shooting mode is also here, but it makes no difference and isn’t different at all from the auto mode.
The same goes for videos, we can’t really say anything good about them since they are recorded in ancient .3gp format, and the results are definitely not that good either, because the framerate drop is clearly visible, colors look washed up and electronic image stabilization doesn’t do its job at all. To be perfectly honest though, we didn’t really expect that much anyway.
The front facing camera packs an 8 megapixel sensor which will do a good job taking average selfies for social media purposes. They don’t have too many details, but we have to give praises to somewhat deeper colors that this sensor registers.
Connectivity
Let’s get back to the SIM tray tool, or should we say screwdriver, that we mentioned earlier. Cubot made a very interesting choice when it comes to placing the SIM and microSD cards. King Kong is, of course, a dual SIM device, and in order to place the SIM cards in it, we have to remove two screws located next to the camera, and that’s where the screwdriver comes in handy.
Moving on, when it comes to connectivity options, this device sadly doesn’t have LTE mode, but good old 3G is still here. The phone also has Bluetooth connection, and it charges through a microUSB port located beneath a rubber plug on the top of the device. This plug is here to help waterproofing the phone because it is IP68 certified, and next to the charging port there is also a 3.5mm audio port which can house your favorite headphones.
Wireless connectivity list:
- Wi-Fi 2.4G, 802.11 b/g/n
- GPS / A-GPS
- Bluetooth verzije 4.0
Supported network bands:
- 3G WCDMA: 850 MHz / 1700 MHz / 1900 MHz / 2100 MHz
- 2G GSM: 850 MHz / 900 MHz / 1800 MHz / 1900 MHz
Battery
Power saving chipset, low screen resolution and mammoth battery of 4400 mAh really do wonders for this device. We used this phone for about three days, with the total of 10 hours Screen On time. Battery can last for quite long, but without fast charging option it takes a long to charge it as well. A full charge, 0 – 100%, takes about 4 hours and 20 minutes. All in all, Cubot King Kong is quite an autonomous device.
Final words
Looking at the whole package, there is far more positives than negatives regarding Cubot King Kong considering that this is quite a cheap device that really brings a lot, especially in the sense of protection. Pure Android system as well as the very good battery will not let you down when you most need them. Also, worry not if you drop the phone. A decent camera is also here to help you capture all extraordinary scenes you stumble upon. We got our Cubot King Kong for a cheap price of 110 euros, and we honestly think it is worth every cent.
Cubot King Kong Full Specifications
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