Tesla SmartPhone 9.1 review – Premium Tesla

Meet the new flagship from the domestic market! The Tesla 9.1 is an expected successor to the previous model, the Tesla 9. This device has seen some changes, such as the relocated fingerprint scanner which is now implemented into the home button below the screen instead of being on the back side of the device, double SIM card tray is now removed and a hybrid slot is used which now supports microSD card expansions, as well as bigger screen, more RAM and more storage. News is the triple camera setup, which shows the dedication of Tesla to emerge on the international market by following trends. This device comes in only one color option, gray, and inside the factory box you get user manuals, the warranty card, a quick charging adapter, a USB cable, headphones, a SIM tray tool and a silicon case.
 

Same as last year, Tesla opted for the LTPS LCD display panel, which can show bigger resolution while keeping the battery consumption of the LCD panels low. We have a 5.5” display in FullHD (1920 x 1080) resolution, with the aspect ratio of 16:9, and this way we get to 401 PPI. Something that doesn’t fit the overall design of the device are the side bezels, which don’t really serve any purpose. The Tesla 9.1 is equipped with GFF Full Lamination technology which reduces sunlight reflection and improves the quality of reproduced materials. This alone goes to show how great the visibility on the direct sunlight is.

MiraVision technology, which is built into the chipset of the device, allows you to customize the display parameters such as shading, color saturation and brightness. The device is also equipped with a brightness sensor which offers an option to automatically set brightness parameters depending on how bright the environment is, reducing the battery consumption even more. The display is pretty responsive, color saturation is very good, but not quite as good as on IPS panels which have better color reproduction. Black colors are very nicely reproduced, and thanks to the resolution, the sharpness is decent. This device is equipped with Eye Protection option which activates the blue light filter reducing the stress on your eyes during use.
 

Regarding the chipset, Tesla opted for the MediaTek MT6750T chipset, which is a 64bit chipset built in 28 nanometer HPM technology. This is an ostacore chipset, all cores are Cortex-A53, and they are divided into 2 quadcore clusters. Four “faster” cores are clocked at 1.5 GHz, and they are functional when the device executes many processes at a time, while normal, everyday use uses 4 “slower” cores which are clocked at 1 GHz. ARM Mali-T820 MP2 GPU is rather obsolete now, dating from the first quarter of 2015, and it’s clocked at 700 MHz. LPDDR3 RAM memory has the capacity of 4GB, and is clocked at 667 MHz.

The device has 64GB of internal storage, which is excellent for this price range, but again, it is quite old, being eMMC 5.1 type, which also dates from 2015. All in all, this chipset is not that bad during everyday tasks, but it is pretty old to be used in the flagships of 2017. A plus is definitely the fingerprint scanner which is now relocated from the back, and placed into the “Home” button below the display. It is very quick and will unlock the device in 0.3 seconds. This time Tesla opted for Android 7.0 Nougat firmware, which is a much better choice than 5.1 Lollipop version which was used in last year’s model.
 

The Tesla 9.1 brings us something new, and that is the double camera setup on the back. These sensors have 13MP and 2MP resolution, which is more and more common in new devices. With this setup, the photos can be shot from two separate points which offers the bokeh effect. The object will be in the focus, and the background will be blurred, but this device doesn’t do that good of a job, which makes this effect somewhat artificial at times.

Anyway, Close-Up photos with the bokeh effect leave a decent impression with a nice depth of field effect. Photo modes that are offered are HDR, Super Fine, PIP Mode, Normal and Panorama. The camera also supports electronic image stabilization. We can say that the general impression is good, with nice color and tone reproduction, so these photos don’t look washed up at all, but still there is a lot of noise when the light is scarce. The main camera captures videos in FullHD resolution at 30fps. The front facing camera provides amazing results in color reproduction and sharpness. The sensor has 8MP resolution. This camera captures videos in HD resolution at 30fps.
 

Speaking of the SIM tray, we have a hybrid tray which is DualSIM capable, which means that you can either use two SIM cards, a nanoSIM and a microSIM card, but if you chose to have your storage expanded via a microSD card, you’ll have to use the microSIM card. The 3.5mm audio port is also here, and the cable provides communication with a PC through the microUSB 2.0 port. Fast charging is supported, and it is implemented through MediaTek Pump Express 2.0 technology. NFC is sadly not supported.

Wireless connection options are:

The Tesla 9.1 supports the following frequencies:

 

The battery on this device is buffed up since the previous model, and it now has the capacity of 3000 mAh compared to 2300 mAh on the Tesla 9. This is a non-removable Lithium-Ion battery, and since fast charging is enabled, the battery reaches 50% charge in about 1 hour.

Tesla SmartPhone 9.1 leaves a good impression with its design and aluminum casing, it feels comfortable in hand, since the thickness is only 7.08 millimeters. The double camera makes good photos with a lot of shooting options. The fingerprint scanner works great, with no lag at all. Multitasking is also fluent, and doesn’t represent a challenge for this device. The only flaw could be somewhat old chipset meant for middle class devices, but we are sure that Tesla will fulfil your expectations in all other segments.

Do you like the Tesla SmartPhone 9.1? We’d like to see your opinion in the comment section below. If you have any ideas or you would like to see a specific device being reviewed soon, feel free to let us know here or on our Facebook page. If you liked this review, subscribe to our Youtube channel, like us on Facebook, and sit back and relax while we make more of the same for you.

Tesla SmartPhone 9.1 Full Specifications