Doogee mix review in Spanish (full analysis)

The Chinese brand Doogee is betting heavily on its latest terminals by eliminating the frames on its screens and the inclusion of the rear dual camera. The Doogee Mix is a clear example of this. Adding in addition, a careful design (With much resemblance to the Xiaomi Mix) and a reduced price that make it a candidate to consider among mid-range devices .

We thank Tomtop for trusting the product for their analysis:

Technical characteristics Doogee Mix

Unboxing

The device is presented in a very simple and austere black box. A way to avoid a product price premium

When removing the Doogee Mix, we find:

A black hard case A screen protector with its cloth A European power connector to USB port A male USB to microUSB male cable SIMs slot extractor Manual and warranty

Design and ergonomics

We are going to find a terminal that may look great on paper. Removing the frames results in a 5.5-inch screen in the same space as other 5-inch phones. However, the screen does not take up as much as could be expected. A small frame between the screen bezel and the edge is still visible around it. Along with a centimeter frame at the bottom of the terminal.

While Doogee with this Mix follows the current trend of minimizing frames as much as possible, it has not followed in the footsteps of other competitors regarding screen ratio. Due to its dimensions, 144mm x 76.2mm x 8mm, it has a 16: 9 ratio. Which gives it a more square appearance when compared to other smartphones on the market with an 18: 9 ratio. I personally like the current dimensions for browsing, reading and playing videos. The highest ratio is intended for the future of VR and RA. The older brother of the Doogee Mix will take care of this.

Its 193 grams does not make it one of the heaviest, but it is noticeable when holding it the first times.

The phone has a simple design, but with a premium finish. The company has opted for glass as the main material of the set and metal for the side edges. For the screen they have decided to surprisingly use Gorilla Glass 5. Good protection against breakage in a terminal with a low cost.

In this design we will not find buttons in the frame. They are integrated into the screen. The only thing we will find on the bottom front is the fingerprint sensor. In that same area, in the left corner, there is also the front camera for selfies. A rare position of course, that will make us have to turn the phone irretrievably to take a photo.

At the top of the right side is the volume keypad and just below the on / off button. The shared slot for both SIMs and SD Card is located on the left side of the terminal. This slot allows the following combinations: nanoSIM / microSIM, nanoSIM / nanoSIM or nanoSIM / SD Card.

The upper edge houses the mythical 3.5mm Jack, which is so doomed to disappear. At the bottom edge, surprisingly we have a microUSB port of type B instead of type C. It is strange because it is the one that is being standardized and almost all brands are mounting. Also on this edge, on each side of the microUSB are a series of holes. They house the microphone and speaker.

In the back we have the double camera in the upper left corner and next to them the flash. Centered at the back is the company logo in gold. And as is usual in many terminals, the Doogee Mix is unibody and the battery is not removable.

In general, the terminal feels robust in the hand, and at the same time, the glass construction makes it feel soft to the touch. That same, has as counterpoint that it is easier for it to slip from the hand, that the mark of footprints dirties the set or that it fractures easily before a fall. Luckily, the case included in the box can solve some of those problems.

5.5-inch Super Amoled display

It is more and more normal to see Full HD screen in terminals of this type although this time it is not the case. The doogee Mix has a Super AMOLED screen with 1280 x 720 pixels of resolution. Which gives us a pixel density of 267ppi. However, the image quality of this screen made by Samsung is quite good. It sins as always to show more saturated colors than normal. This can be modified through an application already incorporated in the settings.

The viewing angles and brightness are more than correct and the touch function with up to ten multi-touch points works perfectly.

Sound

The sound is one of the sections in which the Mix has pleasantly surprised me. Both the call loudspeaker and the loudspeaker for playing multimedia content have clear sound in general notes. Another aspect to highlight is the high sound level of the multimedia speaker. Perhaps it is in the use with headphones where you can notice that the sound level decreases a little compared to other terminals, but it is still acceptable.

Camera

Doogee continues to mount two 16-megapixel and 8-megapixel, focal 2.2 Samsung S5K3P3 photographic sensors for the main camera with ISOCELL technology, which allows to capture more light in any situation and make the sensors thinner.

I expected less from the camera in a terminal of this type. After testing it, it has been shown to work quite acceptably in well-lit environments. Still, even in these types of environments, the photos are usually slightly faded. They lack a touch of intensity and color when using automatic shooting. On the other hand, if the HDR mode is activated, a color and contrast gain is achieved.

Artificial lighting

Indoor lighting

Outdoor lighting

Without HDR

With HDR

As with most terminals of this brand, the part that comes out the worst is taking photos in low-light environments. The photos have little definition, a lot of grain and the built-in flash is not very helpful either.

The camera brings several cool options like FaceBeauty mode for portraits, Blur (or Bokeh) for blur, Mono for single-color photos, Panorama and PRO with manual lighting and contrast settings. It is worth mentioning the Bokeh mode because it is not as good as that of other brands. Instead of trying to define the object in front of you and blur the background, this option simply defaults the central area of the image and defaults the outer area. It is a pity not to have refined the software in that section, because otherwise, the menu is simple and easy to use.

Blur mode

Enhance mode

Mono mode

Panorama mode

Something similar to the photos occurs in the video recording. With good lighting, the quality is acceptable and only fails a little in fast-moving scenes. In night scenes the quality obtained is even worse than when photographing. The image tends to be blurred and any spot of light leaves trails.

The front camera, normally used for selfies and which in this case is in a position out of the ordinary, as we discussed earlier, does its job. It has 5 megapixels and some settings cut from those of the main camera.

Operating system and software

The Doogee Mix comes standard with Android 7.0 Nougat but the company has added a customization layer called Freeme and some extra applications. The main screen could almost be mistaken for a pure Android one if it weren't for a little hanging cat that insists on installing themes and backgrounds if you touch it. Equally annoying can be the news app that appears when you access the left window of the main screen and that by default cannot be disabled. Luckily, the cat does.

home

Apps drawer

One thing I still don't understand is the inclusion of applications that repeat the same function. An example is having both the Google player or browser and the Doogee player or browser as standard. And it is almost worse not to be able to uninstall any of them, at most, disable them.

Default app included by Doogee

There are other sections in which perhaps they are more careful, such as the lower buttons to move through the operating system. Since when you want, you can hide them to gain space and then simply swipe your finger to make them reappear.

Another option they have added is the possibility of using the terminal with just one hand, displaying a floating menu from the lower right corner. This will give us the option to open various applications or perform different actions such as taking a screenshot, opening a floating video or turning on the flashlight, among others. Although its deployment is not quite fine yet.

At the moment the company is behaving with updates and it is not uncommon that, after buying the smartphone, it is updated two or three times. Without a doubt, it is something that was missing, since at first, it is possible to find some other annoying bug with the brightness or the screen. In that regard, they have done a good job but more updates should continue to be released to further debug the system.

Hardware

We must emphasize the different Doogee MIx models that can be found on the market. There are three versions and the difference between terminals lies in the 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage that the most basic terminal mounts and the 6GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of storage that the other two mount.

As for processor and GPU, they all mount the same. A Mediatek Helio P25 with four 2.5 GHz cores and another four at 1.6 GHz with Cortex-A53 architecture. The GPU is a mali-T880MP2.

Both the specifications of this smartphone and its CPU are intrinsically linked since both the management of the 6GB of RAM as well as the processing of the double photographic sensor and the support for the Mali-T880 GPU are possible thanks to the Helio P25 model.

As the AnTuTU Benchmark and its 55412 points in the 4GB version of RAM show, the performance of P25 on paper could have given a little more of itself and it shows that it still lacks optimization.

We have tried several demanding games such as Asphalt 8 and Modern Combat 5. The performance achieved by the terminal has been more than correct. Any type of game could be run without problem. Only an occasional framerate drop has been seen. The screen's 720p resolution certainly facilitates higher performance. It should be noted that at times with high power demand the device heats up slightly from the rear.

Connectivity

Regarding connectivity, we can find support with the 4G frequency in Spain and also 4G call support. Includes the possibility of using dual SIM as I mentioned above, the inclusion of FM radio and Bluetooth 4.1. Both the data network, Wi-Fi (including the 5 GHz band) and geolocation work smoothly. Too bad it doesn't incorporate NFC.

Battery

The battery is another aspect that is enhanced by the inclusion of a Super AMOLED screen with HD resolution. The Doogee Mix incorporates a 3380 mAh battery. It has given good results during its testing after moderate and daily use. With 4 or 5 hours of screen average, the battery has lasted without problem until the end of the day. With a sufficient remainder even to last a few more hours until the next day.

Something that I did not like was the lack of detailed information regarding how much each application has spent or the screen hours. That option exists, but the settings do not show the information. I do not know if it is a bug pending to solve or by default it comes like this in this terminal.

Fast charging works quite well and in just over an hour and a half the battery charges fully.

Final Words and Conclusion

In summary, after exhaustively testing the Doogee Mix I am left with very good overall impressions. Its design, screen, battery, sound and multitasking performance are characteristics that leave a good taste in your mouth . Above all, taking into account the low price of the terminal.

Other aspects that can be improved are the camera in low-light environments, the customization layer and some bugs that are pending solution.

We recommend reading mobile phones with the best camera 2017

It is appreciated that brands like these are committed to launching several models on the market with different characteristics and prices. On this occasion, it has also dared to launch various colors. Among them black, red, blue and silver.

The Doogee Mix is a smartphone with some flaws that do not make it perfect but it certainly has a great quality / price ratio. We can now find the 4GB and 64GB models for € 167 and the 6GB and 64GB models for € 193. You can also discount 15 dollars thanks to the coupon: "HTY15DGE" (limited uses).

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ Good design and finish of the materials.	- Poor quality of photos and videos in dark scenes
+ Android 7.0 Nougat	- Some aspect of FREEME customization layer
+ Good display and battery performance.	- Bugs. Most solvable when updating the terminal