Dual cameras seem to be the whole craze of 2017 and manufacturers big and small have adopted this to varying degrees of success. This year even local companies have put two cameras on the back of their phones so let’s check this one out.
Design & Hardware
Holding the WE S1in hand, the first thing I noticed was the plastic build. The phone has a matte finish which makes it look like metal but the only metal on the outside of the phone body is around the dual cameras. The back is not removable and you have to use a pin to access the hybrid SIM tray. This tray has one slot for a microSIM and a second slot for a nano SIM or a microSD card.
The plastic buttons have a slight click to them and are within reach. The home button on the front also acts as the fingerprint scanner. The scanner is accurate and quite fast but I have seen faster scanners on some other phones. The speaker is on the bottom and is actually pretty loud but it needs a bit more bass. Overall the phone is slim, fits comfortably in the hand and feels well built.
Display
I really enjoyed consuming media on the S1. The screen is a 5.5 inch IPS panel, has a 720p resolution and is protected by 2.5D Panda King glass. The colours looked very rich, viewing angles were great and the brightness was to my liking. In low light, the display could get adequately dim and while outdoors the screen was easily legible. This is one of the best parts of this phone as everything looked nice and sharp. The pixel density is 267ppi.
Software
The S1 is running on Android 6.0 Marshmallow. I have always liked WE’s approach to software. They keep things very clean and close to stock Android. As a result things are smooth and the UI feels very responsive. You can choose the placement of the navigation buttons too which is just an extra convenience.
Performance
The processor on the S1 is a 1.5GHz quad core MediaTek chip (MT6737T) with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built in storage and a 3,000mah battery. Battery life was good and I got 1 day of use all the time. As for day to day performance, the phone kept up with my pace quite well. I mainly played Asphalt Xtreme, Nova Legacy and GTA San Andreas and if you look at the gaming footage in our video review, you’ll see that the phone did well on default settings. At this price range
Camera
The dual cameras on the back are 13MP Sony IMX258 sensors and the front camera is a 5MP Samsung 5E8 sensor. I’m glad WE used cameras from notable companies instead of cheaper ones. Photos from the main camera in general look very good. I was especially impressed by the colours in these pictures as they looked quite vibrant. The same is true for the front facing camera which produced attractive results. Of course in low light things get a little noisy but that’s expected.
Lowlight
The camera has a “DSLR” mode where you can add a bokeh effect. This mode is pretty simple to use but I often found the effect to look artificial. To get good results, use the effect very slightly. You can thank me for that tip later.
DSLR Mode
Conclusion
WE actually makes some pretty good phones and I think they just need to step up their marketing efforts. The S1 is yet another good phone from the company and to top things off it comes with 100GB of free cloud storage and high speed wifi access. The phone costs 14,490 taka. For this price, I think if WE put in more RAM or a faster CPU, the S1 would be a totally awesome device. Right now though, the S1 is the most affordable phone with dual cameras.
