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LE 1 Pro hands on and first look
We are live at CES 2016 with a large team in tow checking out a variety of different devices, including the LETV LE 1 Pro. While most of us may have not heard of LETV, the Chinese based company is actually a pretty big player in China, involved in movie and television product, and more recently branching out into endeavors like smartphones. LETV recently revealed its plans to eventually extend itself into the US market and while there’s no specific time frame on these goals just yet, we wanted to give you a quick hands-on look at what the company has to offer.
On the design front, you’ll notice right away this phone has a metal unibody that looks pretty good, and even more importantly, has a very comfortable and sleek feel in the hands. This high-end experience continues on the front with a 5.5-inch QHD display that looks absolutely gorgeous, with great viewing angles and colors that look fantastic.
Under the hood, you’ll find an equally capable performance package powered by the Snapdragon 810 with 4GB of RAM. In the short time we had with the phone, the performance certainly seemed to offer what you’d expect from a phone with such flagship specs. This should mean that multitasking and gaming won’t be a problem for this phone at all.
The LE1 Pro packs all the connectivity options standard of a flagship such as Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, and LTE, but it’s most noticeable piece of hardware is the mute switch on the side. It’s not something you see much from Android devices, but is extremely useful anytime you want to silence your phone with a quick flip of a switch.
The LE 1 Pro also adopts the USB Type-C standard, and even comes with a special USB-C adapter in the box making it easy to use your existing cords and accessories with the phone. The battery inside is a 3000mAh battery, which should be enough for a full day, with the added benefit of fast charging for those times when you just need a quick top-off.
On the camera front, there’s a 13MP camera on the rear with OIS, and a 4 Ultra-pixel camera on the front, which will hopefully allow for great low-light shots. The camera interface is pretty straightforward and shutterspeed was nice and quick, making it easy to use.
Specifications
| Display | 5.5-inch IPS LCD display Quad HD resolution, 534 ppi |
|---|---|
Processor | octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor Adreno 430 GPU |
RAM | 4 GB |
Storage | 16/32 GB not expandable |
Cameras | 13 MP rear camera 4 MP "Ultrapixel" front-facing camera |
Connectivity | Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac Bluetooth 4.1 GPS + GLONASS USB Type-C (USB 3.0) |
Software | Android 5.0 Lollipop |
Battery | 3,000 mAh |
Dimensions | 148.4 x 73.8 x 9.4 mm 177 grams |
The LE 1 Pro runs a custom version of Android based on 5.0 Lollipop, which is similar to many other Chinese OEM skins, lacking an app drawer but offering some unique extras such as an improved recent apps menu, a built-in live streaming capability, and more. It’s also worth mentioning that LETV says they really want to make the experience shine when it comes to the US, and they are exploring “all options”, meaning it’s possible that the final software that arrives in the western world might offer some key differences when compared to the Chinese version. An app drawer would certainly be a nice start, but again, it’s all just speculation right now.
Gallery
As previously mentioned, there’s no details on when LETV will launch the LE 1 Pro and other future devices stateside but we’ll be sure to bring you more details as they come. As always, be sure to stay tuned to Android Authority we’re will be bringing you all the best coverage from CES 2016.