Leagoo Philippines wants to be also in that slice of the sales pie in the local smartphone market. Currently, this is their most powerful offering so far that you can buy from two of the leading online channels. Leagoo S9 was the one that was put on our hands and on our review table. Is it a nice first try from this new international phone brand?
On the UI, I hope that Leagoo did the approach of almost stock Android Oreo (but obviously not an Android One device) from the app circles for grouping your fave apps by category to pulldown menu and to the "pull up" gesture to see the app drawer. Somehow, you can fell the light navigatioon which helps to the Mediatek MT6750 that they choose. With 4 GB RAM inside, you can maximize the phone in terms of multitasking. In my normal usage, I can't put this phoen down with about 1.5 GB out of 4 GB RAM remaining . Of course, the multi-window feature is also present in this smartphone
On display, it's 5.85 inch HD+ notch display was a-ok in terms of viewing angle and color accuracy. In relation to the UI and the notch, a bit unfortunate that not all apps can suit it to that modern display approach. The most popular app that we encountered is the Instagram app which still displays at 16:9 despite that we already checked the possible options to fix it.
On connectivity, the phone was pretty good on calls, texts, WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile data and GPS. In mobile settings, the configuration that they put in 2G, 3G and 4G. No 2G/3G mode and so on.
On benchmarks with the said SoC and 4 GB RAM, the phone gave us at over 51,000 on Antutu. From their fair asking price, now we know where they cut corners - the phone only has four available working sensors. No temperature, magnetic and gyro sensor in here
On battery, at first we were a bit concerned on MT6750's track record in our past reviews with not that friendly in our batter charts. Good thing, the S9 was put in a 3,300 mAh battery which at least, it gave a sort-of answer for a day of battery. In video battery rundown test, it survived in 12 hours and 40 minutes. Used it as our daily driver with 5 hours of screen on time, we were able to survive with the phone from early morning til late night. The USB Type C port also helped to replenish the phone from 0 to 100% in around 2 hours even that it has a standard 5V 2A charger
On the shooters, the dual main cameras feature HD, video, photo, beauty, SLR (which utilizes the second main camera as long as you are in a well-lit environment.
Color accuracy will be a bit of a mixed bag. Let's say 8 out of 10, your pics will be accurate
Leagoo S9 rear camera samples
Leagoo S9 front camera samples
On extras, the fingerprint sensor is quite decent as well as the audio quality via it's 3.5 mm audio jack like some of the budget Mediatek-powered smartphones that we had before.
Leagoo S9 is currently priced at Php 7,999 in Lazada and a bit more affordable at Php 7,845. The price is just right in our opinion if you check it with it's specs and and if you look with some of the competition between the Php 6,999 to Php 8,999 price bracket but some concern on the phone is their choice of processor made by 28 nm versus most of the competition with 14 nm and guaranteed more battery efficient. I hope that the UI will have a fix on some of the apps can adapt to the notch display. Their choice of hybrid dual SIM might be also an issue for others who want to carry 2 nano SIMS and 1 micro SD in one go as well as lack of other sensors including gyro. The pros of the phone will be the maxed out RAM and internal storage for the given price, fingerprint sensor, USB Type C, looks, decent battery life and charging time and almost stock Android Oreo experience. It's gonna be 3.9 out of 5 for me on Leagoo S9
