Well, the Elephone P9000 has certainly been a pleasant surprise. Chinese smartphones tend to come in a great deal cheaper than their UK counterparts, but usually with a handful of compromises. With the P9000 we’re really struggling to find them. Also see: Best phones 2016.
Out of the box the P9000 reminded us instantly of the OnePlus 2 with its rough sandpaper-like rear cover and what we thought was an Alert Slider on the left side of the phone. Actually it’s much cleverer than that, and ties in with some of the many excellent software customisations made by Elephone in the P9000.
On the subject of software, this is one of the first few Android phones we’ve received running Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box. It’s smooth, slick - and that’s before you get to the phone’s benchmarked performance, which is also very decent. Also see: Best MiFi 2016.
Spec nerds will love the fact this Helio P10-equipped Android M phone comes with a massive 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage - with support for microSD up to 256GB - and a 3000mAh battery that supports both wireless charging and Quick Charge. There’s reversible USB-C and, surprisingly for a cheap Chinese phone, NFC, making this octa-core Android truly futureproof.
For all that, we find it difficult to believe the Elephone costs
