NEON N1 Review - A new smartphone with customized OS Neonado

While Chinese companies like Xiaomi, Huawei and OnePlus are making waves at the high-end of the Android smartphone market, some of the lesser known Chinese brands tackle the low to medium. One newborn brand which aims to make products that improve people’s life is called AXGIO, several days before they have launched their first product WING W2, and recently we’ve read the news about the new smartphone from AXGIO, so today we will have a review about the phone NEON N1. It has officially released on TinyDeal on August 19th. Before now, the NEON N1 has spread as a rumor, and now this phone is come to the market and ready to challenge the other smartphone in the same price range, such as DOOGEE DG2014 and DG580.

Design and specs

The new AXGIO NEON N1 packs with 5-inch HD screen, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of ROM (about 5GB – 6GB available) and powered by MT6582@1.3GHz quad-core processor. The design of the AXGIO NEON N1 was instantly familiar, and if you have ever seen the looking of THL T6S, it appears the phones are practically siblings -- only a few details such as the edge and placement of the speaker differ.

Its slightly curved back cover adds a unique element of style. NEON N1 uses an enchased champagne golden metal design with strong metal texture to reinforce the fuselage, instead of the plastic fuselage that we find in other smartphones. The back case seems to be matte texture, but if you touch on it the feeling is quite soft and comforting. Charging port and earphone jack are placed on the top, volume rockers are on the left while the power key is on the upper right (the most advisable place to wake up screen). In terms of the design we have to say that AXGIO does make an effort here.

Screen and Camera

The 5-inch, IPS HD display, which has a resolution of 1,280x720 pixels and 294ppi, is bright and vibrant and is usable even under bright sunlight at noon, it is not OGS but owe to G+G lamination, you can still have a nice touch experience when you slide and tap on the screen. Viewing from some images, we can conclude that colors reproduce well:

If you worry about the dazzling brightness at night, the OS contains the Night Mode to reduce the brightness, which can be customized to blackish, yellowish or reddish:

The camera app is from stock Android, when you open it for the first time, a short instruction flash will play, remember to watch it till end, because if you suspend the flash animation it will replay again the next time you start the camera – until you finish it.

The shutter is really fast, but image quality is average at best and depending on the lighting. The test shots are shown as follows, whatever it satisfies me, because I am not really that selfie lover:

Outdoor shot:

Indoor shot:

Macro

Night shot:

Software and experience

The customized OS is supposed to be the biggest bright spot of NEON N1, which is based on Android 4.2 and Lewa OS5, The customized OS is called Neonado OS, version 1.0.

First expression of Neonado OS 1.0 is also familiar, it will instantly remind you of the MIUI, but in details Neonado makes many differences, Instead of an app drawer, the Neonado places all your apps on the home screen, just like iOS. I guess this is a slightly better approach, since it requires one less action to get to your app. Neonado replaces the multitasking interface to an innovative interface, named Aerial View Screen - in this screen, you can not only manage the running programs, but also press the keys to clean up memory or turn on the torch, set up your alarm and power-saving mode, data usage and remain using time are also presented. The highlight is, if there are some of the running apps you do not want to kill, you can slide it to right, then it will be locked and remain running even if you press the clean up button.

Besides the Aerial View, Neonado OS adds the smart somatosensory settings, security center, key settings and notification bar settings, you are free to customize you notification bar, brightness of virtue keys, you can also manage the permissions of every Apps you installed – it is the best way to get rid of Ads.

Like MIUI, there's a theming feature, which lets you change the look of the UI. Changing themes is very simple to do. You can download custom themes on Neonado forum, or convert MIUI themes into Neonado themes aswell.

Another humanized design I want to highlight is the pull-down menu, the switches contains screenshot, QR code scanning, power+ mode and nigh mode. If you long press the switch it will jump to the correspondent setting interface – which I have never found on most OS, even TouchWiz.

Neonado is ported from Lewa OS, but here's the upside, AXGIO translates six system languages themselves, including English, Spanish, French, Italian, Russian, Portuguese and German, preinstalls apps like Gmail, Play Store, WhatsApp, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Youtube, Twitter, Skype, Chrome, etc. So that’s very adorable to see a Chinese brand to try their best to improve user experience. (That’s what I appreciate most on the handset).

Performance and media

Operating in the launcher feels nice and smooth, and FPS meter totally keeps in 59-60fps, but as we see, NEON N1 positions on mid-level, so the processor comes with the average level of MT6582, whatever eMMC speed seems nice, the internal storage reading speed is the same as Class10 SD card. Here are some benchmarks:

I am not a games lover but I just install the hottest small game in China, and it runs totally smooth without lags, here I record it as videos:

From my point of view, it is a little pointless to watch 1080P video on handset, so I just test it with a 720P resolution movie using the default player, did not heat very much during the play:

Speaker is clear, ringtone is loud. Using the original earphone to answer calls and listen to the music, it exceeds my expectation, I recommend you to use Poweramp as music player, outstanding experience.

Battery and heat

As officially announced, the NEON N1 comes with a removable 1,800mAh battery, which lasted me through a day of moderate use with about 10% left once I returned home from work. I set up two email accounts and had Tencent QQ on push. If you're a heavy user, you may want to buy a back up battery – it is available on TinyDeal now. And with one day of use, I did not feel it heat too much, totally kept in about 30℃-35℃ - MediaTek always born with unbelievable power consumption technology, you can held it on your hand comfortably in the hot summer afternoon.

Conclusion

Price at an unbelievably low $108, AXGIO’s NEON N1 does deliver twice the value in features. It's quite possibly the best budget phone I've seen, and with its affordable appearance and accessories (PU leather case), makes this the best low-cost smartphone you can get today. Holding NEON N1 on my hand just makes me stand out of ordinary, it is very enjoyable when your friend and family ask you where you buy this unique phone. 


More information about N1>>>

http://axgio.com/

http://www.neonado.com/