Doogee Y6 smartphone, or another Doogee

In May, I wrote a review of the budget Doogee X5 MAX smartphone. More than six months have passed since then, and now I have another “test subject” from the same company. I’ve been using my X5 all this time, so in this review I won’t be able to avoid comparing the two devices, even though they belong to different price brackets.
If you’re interested in a look around, some tests, and a teardown, read on.

I’ll try not to make this review too long, but there will be quite a lot of photos—and what would a review be without them?

The packaging is the same as last time: a box made of thick cardboard, probably the same as for the other models.


The phone fits very tightly, and you practically have to pry it out of the packaging. The first time, I even thought it was glued in by the bottom.


The packaging doesn’t list the technical specifications, just a brief bit of advertising.
The full specifications are as follows:
Color: black/silver/gray/gold
Processor — MTK MT6750, 8 cores
GPU — Mali T860
Operating system — Android 6.0
Memory — 2 GB RAM, 16 GB flash storage.
Display — 5.5 inches, 1280x720 resolution
Network type: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
WCDMA: 900/2100 MHz
4G (FDD-LTE): B1(2100) / B3(1800) / B7(2600) B20 (800).
4G+ is also listed, with LTE CAT6, 300 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload, but I have no way to test it.
Wireless interfaces — Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
Memory card slot — MicroSD (shared with the SIM card slot)
Audio output/microphone — 3.5 mm jack.
SIM card type — 1 micro-SIM and 1 nano-SIM.
Front camera: 8 MP (claimed 88-degree viewing angle)
Main camera: 13 MP
Battery: 3200 mAh
Size: 154x77x8.5 mm

The package includes:
1. Doogee Y6 smartphone
2. Charger
3. USB-MicroUSB cable
4. Manual
5. Spare screen protector
6. Case
7. SIM ejector tool


A little more about what’s included
1. The manual—or, more accurately, a quick-start guide at the “how to turn on the phone” level.
2. A spare screen protector. As they say, it’s a small thing, but a nice touch. This is the first time I’ve seen one included.
3. A USB cable, a standard black cable, except that the MicroUSB plug is quite long.
4. A SIM ejector tool for opening the tray with the SIM cards and memory card.
5,6. Power adapter, 5 V, 2 A, with a European plug. It charges the phone in about two hours, or even a little less.


The manual includes a Russian-language version, which is a plus. But it doesn’t make much difference, since most things are intuitive, and the things that aren’t intuitive aren’t explained.


There’s a fairly thick shipping film on top, with advertising for various features.


The shipping film was probably the only thing that made the phone look even a little distinctive. Take it off, and it “gets lost in the crowd.” I wouldn’t say it’s all bad, but to me it looks like most other phones.


As I mentioned above, the phone comes with a case. I wasn’t happy with the cases on my Cubot phones, but this one is the opposite—the case is very convenient.
The USB port and headset jack are covered by special plugs. They’re unlikely to make the phone watertight, but they’ll easily keep out dust and small objects.
When I first picked up the phone, I didn’t even realize they were plugs; they reminded me of my M75.


The case has no protruding parts at all; it's completely smooth.


It's thin and fits evenly all the way around. So, a 5 for this one.




Since the case is thin and transparent, the phone looks almost the same with or without it, except that it becomes a little smaller.


The glass is curved, and the frame is made of metal—more precisely, some kind of aluminum alloy. The fit is perfectly fine, and the glass itself is slightly rounded around the edges. Overall, the whole phone feels like a bar of soap, only large and flat. I wouldn't say that's a bad thing; some people might even really like it. There are no sharp edges at all.


1. The bottom has a MicroUSB port (OTG is supported), along with openings for the speaker and microphone.
2. There are three familiar buttons on the right: power and volume controls.
3. The top has only a headset jack.
4. Unfortunately, the SIM cards are installed from the side, via a dedicated slot.


This is probably one of the few things that really disappointed me while using this phone. Without any workarounds, you can use either two SIM cards or one SIM card plus a memory card. What's more, the slot opens in such a way that if you hold the phone facing you, the cards fall out when you open it. To keep them from falling out, you have to lay the phone face down.


There are three familiar touch buttons at the bottom.
There are more components at the top: the earpiece, proximity sensor, camera, and LED light. Since the phone is marketed primarily to selfie fans, it has a light for the front camera as well as the rear one. This kind of light is usually called a flash, but in my opinion that's a bit of an overstatement. The front camera also lacks autofocus, which would have been useful.


You definitely can't call this phone light; in my opinion, it's right on the edge of being comfortable to hold, weighing almost 200 grams without the case.
That said, I can't call it uncomfortable either. It sits nicely in the hand, mostly thanks to its rounded edges and slim profile. I actually find it more comfortable than the X5, though that's just my personal opinion.


And here's a face-to-face comparison. My Doogee X5 has been working hard for over six months now. In all that time, I've had just one complaint: intrusive ads after the latest update. That said, the update also added a couple of useful apps, such as one for using the fingerprint scanner and software for recording video from the screen.


The X5 is smaller, but looks noticeably chunkier and thicker.


The smartphone's back cover is metal with a decorative brushed finish, and has plastic inserts at the top and bottom. The inserts are necessary here because the antennas are located behind them. The back cover also has a protective film.


On the back are the second camera, the “flash,” and the fingerprint sensor. The sensor works much like the one on the X5, which is to say, not very well. To get a decent response, you'll need to register the same finger a couple of times. So far, the only sensor I've liked is the one on the Cubot Cheetah 2; its response is noticeably more precise.

The “Designed in Spain” inscription was a bit of a surprise. Have Chinese developers really started commissioning designs specifically for each model, and in another country at that? Still, as I mentioned above, I don't have any real complaints about the phone's design, except perhaps for the side-mounted card slot.


And of course, what's a review without a teardown?
The phone is very easy to open. The back cover, including the sides, forms a tray that holds all the electronics as a single assembly with the screen, battery, and other components.
Slide something like a discount card between the black and gold sections and run it around the perimeter. First, though, don't forget to remove the SIM card tray.


Since the case isn't designed to be taken apart, almost all the internals are accessible right away; only some sections are covered by plastic shields.


1, 2. There's a single speaker at the bottom, just like on the Doogee X5, even though there are two openings. One of the antennas is also located there.
3. Almost half of the upper board is covered by a shield.
4. One positive detail worth mentioning: I've seen this before on one of the Leagoo models. The battery connector is held down (and therefore covered) by a metal plate.


There are two antennas on the plastic cover, presumably GPS and GSM. The board itself is nothing out of the ordinary compared with other phones. I've mentioned before that I think of all these devices as “construction kits”: the manufacturer puts together a new model from building blocks. New blocks come out from time to time, and manufacturers use them as the basis for new phone models. That's why we see so many devices with only minor differences between them—or sometimes no differences at all beyond their appearance.


1. The phone's chassis is fairly substantial, which makes it more rigid.
2. The metal cover hid more than just the battery connector: the antennas and fingerprint scanner were under it too. There's a small rubber pad between the connector and the cover.


The very first test. Well, not quite: as usual, I ran the test after using the phone for a while, but I'll show it first.
Battery capacity measurement.


I measured the capacity the same way as before; I've described the method in several of my reviews, so today I'll just give you the test results.
Capacity reported by the phone: 3189 mAh; total battery capacity: 3260 mAh.
But since I discharged the battery a little below zero before the test, the more accurate figures are 3150 and 3260, respectively. As a reminder, the manufacturer claims 3200 mAh, so no complaints here. The X5's capacity was overstated: it was listed as 4000 mAh, but was actually around 3500 mAh.


That’s it for the hardware. We can take a look at the software and run the rest of the tests.
At first glance, it may seem like there are a lot of apps installed, but most of them are standard Android smartphone apps: a browser, file manager, gallery, Play Store, and so on.


There are a few minor exceptions, though.
For example, there’s a compass app, but no matter how I turned it, I couldn’t figure out how it works. It seems to point everywhere except where it should.
There’s also a separate app for restricting access to individual apps. Set an access password, then disable whichever apps you want.
The flashlight is another feature that’s become something of a Doogee trademark. I find their option for turning it on by holding down the Home button after waking the screen but before unlocking it especially convenient.


There’s also a small app for managing power modes, as well as WPS Office.
If you looked closely at the screenshots above, you probably noticed the odd little circle on the right. It’s a quick-access menu for the main functions. You can move it anywhere along the left or right edge of the screen, then tap it to open the menu. There’ll be another screenshot below with the menu expanded, and this little circle will appear in almost all the screenshots.
On the one hand, it’s unusual to have something floating on the screen; on the other, it might actually be handy.


A little information about the phone. I was pleasantly surprised by the date of the latest security update.
Of the 16 GB of built-in flash storage, just 164 MB is taken up by preinstalled software. That’s not much—I expected more, since there are some extra apps.
It has 2 GB of RAM. I use a phone with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of flash storage, and I can say that the RAM is enough for me, but the storage isn’t. In any case, I think the 2/16 configuration is a better fit for most users.


The settings let you configure additional controls, such as taking a screenshot with a triple tap on the screen.


I’ve already lost track of these settings myself. Sometimes it feels like phones will soon be smarter than their users, but I hope that never happens :)


There’s only one setting here that I know well: quick flashlight activation.


And now for the slides tests.
First up is CPU-Z.

The specs say it has an MT6750 SoC, and other sources list the same chip, but the software identifies it as an MT6755.


I’ll come back to the processor type later. For now, let’s look at the sensors in the phone.
First, the familiar ones found in every phone.


But it turns out there are a couple of less common ones, too. For example, the Doogee X5 has them. And the more expensive Vernee Thor doesn’t even have an orientation sensor or a magnetic field sensor, so that’s a small plus for this phone.


Back to inspecting what’s installed inside. AIDA64 is also sure that it has an MT6755 inside.


Unfortunately, the 5 GHz band isn’t supported, although phones in this price range should already be coming with the necessary modules.


Information about the cameras and internal temperatures. I’ve always wondered where all this temperature data comes from.


Wi-Fi. I always try to pay more attention to this test than the others, and this time was no exception.
The phone quickly detected lots of access points nearby and connected to mine.
Next, I tested it in five spots around the apartment.
1. The worst conditions: 12 m away, with reinforced concrete walls
2. Fewer walls, almost the same distance.
3. About 7–8 m away, with interior concrete walls
4. The room next to the router, with almost direct line of sight.
5. Direct line of sight, about 1 m away.


The same tests under the same conditions, but without an internet connection.
You can see that the connection is barely holding on at the farthest point, but it’s perfectly usable everywhere else.


The second and third screenshots were taken 1 m from the router. As you can see, 40–42 MB/s is the maximum this phone can manage, and the result is quite consistent.


The phone has GPS and GLONASS receivers on board and also supports A-GPS.
It performed excellently in the field: it took about 6–7 seconds to connect to the satellites after launching the app.


The built-in flash memory isn’t very fast, roughly half the speed of similar smartphones, but the memory card performance was a pleasant surprise.
RAM performance, on the other hand, is better than on the other phones I’ve tested. They scored around 3300–3500, while this one gets over 4200 MB/s.

Next was supposed to be the touchscreen test, but I just couldn’t get a screenshot, even though the test detected 5 touches.
An update arrived during testing and installed successfully, but I didn’t notice any changes, for better or worse.


In terms of performance, the phone was a pleasant surprise: it turned out to be faster than the Vernee Thor, Cubot Cheetah 2, and especially the Doogee X5 MAX. The difference isn’t huge, of course, but it scores 2000 points more, which is about 5%.


3DMark was tested in two modes. Performance wasn’t particularly impressive in either, but as I mentioned earlier, this is more likely due to the software not working correctly.
PCMark scored about the same as the Vernee Thor and higher than the Cubot Cheetah 2.


The Geekbench results were almost predictable: roughly the same difference, with the phone under review outperforming the Cubot Cheetah 2. Not by much, but it’s definitely faster.


In the Epic Citadel test, performance is best compared with devices that have the same screen resolution.
Performance is noticeably higher here than on the Doogee X5 and slightly lower than on the Vernee Thor.


The AnTuTu Video test result is higher than the Cubot Cheetah 2's again. I wasn't surprised this time, though it's still rather strange.


In the battery life test under load, the result is about average: around 4.5 hours of YouTube video playback and almost 6 hours playing FullHD video from a memory card.
In everyday use, the phone lasts about as long as my X5, around two days. But if you start using it heavily, that drops to one day.
This time I decided to track the battery test with GeekBench. I think that will make the results easier to compare and reproduce.


The viewing angles are adequate, as you'd expect from a phone with an IPS panel.


Viewed at an angle, we see the same black-level issues as on the other devices, with noticeable backlight bleed. It's not visible in bright surroundings, but will definitely show up in dim light.


The screen is noticeably brighter than on my X5 MAX, though it still falls short of the Leagoo T1 Plus, which I thought had the best display of all the phones I've tested.


Here's a comparison with my Doogee X5 MAX.
Viewed straight on, the result is better, but at an angle the X5 looks slightly better: it has less backlight bleed, though its backlight is also dimmer.


The phone's camera doesn't have any special settings; it's much like the cameras on most modern smartphones.


There are a few effects you can use when taking photos.


At the highest quality setting, video is recorded at FullHD resolution with a fairly high bitrate of around 16 Mbps. For some reason, though, it reports a frame rate of 14–30 fps, despite the stated 30 fps.


But one thing my Doogee X5 doesn't have—and I couldn't find here either—is panorama mode, even though other smartphones have it. Why Doogee won't add it is a mystery.


The camera comparison showed that the Doogee performs worse than the Vernee Thor in low light, but the opposite is true in normal lighting: the Doogee takes better photos. I also found no auto white balance issues like those on the Cubot Cheetah 2.
Below are compressed photos; the full-size versions are available at this link.










Since this phone is aimed at selfie lovers, here's a small example.
I tried it under artificial lighting, though, so the result isn't as good as I would have liked.

Now we can finally draw some conclusions.
Pros.
Quite good build quality
GPS works very well, with GLONASS and A-GPS support
Decent performance.
Orientation and magnetic field sensors.
Front camera flash
Convenient case included.
Battery capacity matches the stated value
OTG
Spare screen protector included.

Cons
SIM cards and memory card installed via a side tray
No panorama mode (although the manufacturer's page says it has one)
No 5 GHz band
No autofocus on the front camera
The built-in flash memory isn't particularly fast
Fingerprint sensor isn't very reliable

My opinion. I think this phone is fairly well balanced. For better battery life, an HD screen is preferable to Full HD, in my view. The amount of RAM and flash storage is quite sufficient, and the processor is fast enough for comfortable everyday use. I also liked the design and the convenient case included in the box. GPS navigation works quickly and has high sensitivity.
But there is a fly in the ointment: first and foremost, the combined SIM and memory card tray. It's very inconvenient, since quite a lot of people use two numbers and a memory card at the same time. I wasn't happy with the microSIM + nanoSIM combination on the X5, and it's the same here, but with the added limitation that you can't use both together. Second for me is the lack of panorama mode. It would be handy, but for some reason Doogee doesn't want to add it to its phones. The other shortcomings are more of a minor annoyance than anything critical, at least in my opinion.
I also think the phone could use a higher-capacity battery, since a 5.5-inch screen consumes more power than a 5-inch one, while the battery capacity is lower than the X5's.

So what does the manufacturer charge an extra $40 for compared with the Doogee X5 MAX?
1. Larger screen
2. 2/16 GB of memory instead of 1/8
3. GLONASS + A-GPS
4. Better cameras
5. Front camera flash
6. Orientation and magnetic field sensors
7. Higher performance.
8. Better package contents
9. Better looks (in my opinion; this is highly subjective)
10. OTG (the X5 doesn't have it)

Whether all this is worth the extra money is up to you; everyone has to decide for themselves how much they need these features.

That's all. I hope this review was useful and helps you make the right choice. As always, I look forward to your questions in the comments.

The product was provided by the store for review.