Elephone S2 review – with glamorous diamond cutting texture layer

The Elephone S2 is a unique glamorous looking quad core powered smartphone. The S2 comes with diamond cutting texture layer on the rear covered with transparent glass; you will notice the back panel sparkle from several angles.

Elephone S2 Unboxing
Inside the box you will find the S2, two screen guards, transparent rubber case to protect the handset yet retaining the glamorous looks, data cable and travel charger 5V ~ 1A. Earphone is not included.

Design and Display
The S2 is the best looking handset I have seen from the Elephone brand. It comes with an aluminum frame with matte silver side along with shiny silver border. The handset is using double sided glass (2.5D glass on the front and another glass on the back). This glass is scratch resistant to some extent but better use a screen guard for added protection.

Build quality and finishing is very good and the rear side looks awesome. Its sapphire blue colour, when light falls it brightens up and you can see it sparkling – like a diamond. Weight with battery is 128 grams and dimensions are 71.17 x 143.14 x 7.23mm.

Power button and volume rocker is on the right side. SIM tray is on the left. Audio jack on the top and micro USB port at the bottom. There are dual mics for noise cancellation. Native video calling is not supported.

This is a dual SIM handset. The SIM slot is kind of weird but it can house two micro SIM’s (intelligent design) and a micro SD card (this is not a hybrid SIM). So in fact you can use 2 micro SIM and a micro SD card simultaneously.

There are two variants of S2 – the S2 and the S2 plus. The S2 plus comes with 5.5 inch HD screen and 2600 mAh battery. The Elephone S2 sports a 5 inch screen with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. Colour reproduction, touch and viewing angles are pretty good.

There is LED notification and following sensors – accelerometer, proximity, light and magnetic.

Memory, Storage and OS
The handset is loaded with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. On the first boot you will get about 12 GB free space for apps and 1.5GB free RAM. The S2 is running Android 5.1 out of the box (64 bit). There is micro SD card slot but apps are getting installed on the internal storage. OTG works you can connect external pendrives.

Performance
This handset is using the MediaTek MT6735 64 bit quad core processor clocked at 1GHz coupled with Mali T720 GPU. Performance is smooth and handset heat-up is pretty much under control.

Benchmark

Gaming
I played Asphalt 8, the game got installed on the internal storage. Game was playable in low visual quality mode. In medium as well as high quality mode the game lags (though playable but not smooth).

Camera
This handset comes with 13MP AF camera on the rear and a 2MP camera on the front. Rear camera can shoot Full HD (1080p) videos. Camera quality is average, could have been better. Close up are good but long shots, when zoomed in are blurry.

Check the sample images and videos at the end of this article.

Others
Sound is a bit low when compared with other handsets. In call quality is good. No issues found with 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS. Though the handset supports 4G the 2300 band is not supported. GPS lock was almost instant.

Battery
The Elephone S2 comes with 2100 mAh non-removable battery. Battery backup is decent. You can expect 3 to 5 hours of continuous moderate to heavy usage.

Verdict
The Elephone S2 is more of a glamorous phone that will definitely attract attention. It is not that powerful (especially for gaming users) but good enough for general usage. Camera quality is average and battery is decent.

S2 is good if you are falling in for the looks.

Elephone S2 (5 inch HD screen + 2100 mAh battery) is priced at $130.00.
Elephone S2 Plus (5.5 inch HD screen + 2600 mAh battery) is priced at $140.00.

Image Gallery

S2 video review