For today’s review, we are taking a look at another smartphone by WE. While their X1 smartphone left us thoroughly impressed, the presence of good old KitKat was unexpected. The WE R1 is another device in the company’s lineup which promises much of the same as the X1 but at a much lower price and with Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box. On top of all that, you get access to Aamra’s nationwide selection of WiFi hotspots as well as 25GB of cloud storage.
Design & Hardware
The R1 is not the same beauty the X1 is but it definitely has some good looks to it. The back of the device is removable giving you access to the SIM card slot, microSD card slot and the large 3,000mAh battery. The speaker too is found on the rear, centered neatly along the bottom lip of the back cover. There is a very soothing metallic texture to the removable back that not only adds a premium feel but enhances grip. The rest of the body is a very simple affair with an ergonomic shape and a nice chrome-like finish around the camera.
Camera
The camera specifications on the R1 are highly deceiving – in a good way. There is a 5 megapixel autofocus camera on the back and the selfie shooter too is a 5 megapixel unit. Going into the camera test, not much was expected from the R1 but we were pleasantly surprised at the images produced by the sensors. There was a bit of overexposing outdoors especially on whites and the main shooter is not very good with moving subjects. Regardless the images turned out beautiful with abundant detail and high saturation – not the most realistic adaptation of a scene but pretty nonetheless.
Display
With a pixel density of 240ppi, the 4.5inch FWVGA (480 x 854) IPS display looks adequately sharp. You can clearly tell that it is not HD but given the price, everything looks quite good. Outdoor visibility is decent and the brightness dips down to a comfortable level for nighttime reading. Colour reproduction is good too and so are the viewing angles.
Performance
A 1.0GHz quad core processor combined with 1GB of RAM running the show on the R1. With these, you also get 8GB of built-in storage (expandable up to 32GB with microSD) and a large 3000mAh battery. Games such as Asphalt 8 were comfortably playable on lower graphics settings and we even managed to try out Modern Combat 5 without much issue. Multitasking is limited because of the RAM but the phone is zippy between applications. The battery support on the other hand took us regularly through a day and a half – this is with a lot of web browsing, gaming, YouTube and a fair amount of app syncing.
Software
We found it odd that the cheaper R1 ships with Android 5.1 Lollipop but the clearly more premium X1 does not. The build of Android is quite clean and mostly stock. The home screen launcher is reminiscent of the launcher found on KitKat while the rest of the user interface is vanilla Android. The operating system was very fluid and responsive, contributing to the good user experience.
Verdict
WE is selling the R1 for Tk/-5,900 checkout WE & other smartphones on bikroy official store. WE is offering yet again a surprisingly high-quality device that punches well above its weight. The cameras are great and the battery life is sure to please the consumers. Overall, the R1 is a very well rounded package made sweeter by its affordability and the free cloud storage.
Specifications
