Cubot Power 128GB Mobile Phone

Peter ScargillCubot Power 128GB Mobile25 Comments on Cubot Power 128GB Mobile Phone

This is my brand new Cubot phone and replaces the excellent Doogee Mix 2 I bought in November last year. I never stick with any phone for too long (I kept my first iPhone for 2 years and first Samsung for well over a year) but no longer wanting to contribute to the wealth of Samsung and Apple who I’m convinced are taking everyone for a ride, I’ve tried a number of Chinese phones over recent years. Doogee and Cubot have shown to be winners.

Cubot POWER

Picture below shows my Doogee Mix 2 …

Doogee Mix 2

My first Cubot was/is the Cubot Note+ and I’m also the proud owner of a Doogee Mix 2 which has been marvellous other than occasional unexplained behaviour in the heat of Spain in August and a niggling doubt about key pressure consistency which could well be down to installed apps or my carpal-tunnel-tainted fingers.  At this point it’s a little early to proclaim my latest purchase an outstanding success but it LOOKS like the Cubot Power is a winner. Both the Doogee and the Power have excellent cameras and that is a key selling point for me.

There is no doubt that the Doogee is the prettier of the two, but where the Doogee has a more than adequate 64GB storage with 6GB RAM, the Power has a staggering 128GB memory along with the same amount of RAM and a bigger screen. Both take excellent photos but whereas the Doogee is chugging along nicely with Android 7.1.1 (8 promised but not yet delivered). the Cubot Power has Android 8.1 which brings with it some improvements.

Between that and my recent decision to go with a Spanish mobile service provider and roam while in the UK (as against the opposite way around and giving the advantage of holding over unused data which none of our tight-wad operators will let you do) and a new home VPN and blacklisting facility (which as a side-benefit stops me getting Google.es thankfully), I’m pretty much making the best of the mobile experience right now.

Both phones have great default camera software and in addition I’ve kitted them out with “Open Camera”, Camera FV-5 and SnapSeed (I could not manage without the latter) to finish off images.

The Cubot Power came from GearBest – in their promotions (link might expire after end of Oct 2018). No, I didn’t get discount for mentioning the link, this is off my own bat as AliExpress don’t seem to have these and others are more expensive:

https://goo.gl/NFWYg8

Note PlusI’ll update the blog as I gain more experience with the phone – which came with screen protector and clear back case incidentally.

On the right is the smaller, cheaper but perfectly functional Cubot Note+ which I call my night phone – I used that if I wake up in the middle of the night while the larger phone is charging. /No doubt about it, the Doogee is a stunning-looking phone but it is looking like the more visually boring Cubot has the edge on performance.

25 thoughts on “Cubot Power 128GB Mobile Phone”

  1. “Between that and my recent decision to go with a Spanish mobile service provider and roam while in the UK… ”

    Do you have a blog post about this OR where can I find any details, plz?

    1. I didn’t write about the provider as I was waiting in case of problems – there weren’t any – but if you insist… give me an hour or so.

  2. Hi Pete
    I’m looking for a new phone and it looks like the Cubot might be too big for me. Where did you source the Doogee?

    1. Well, as it happens just an hour ago my Doogee Mix 2 (Banggood) went on 3-day auction on eBay. If you are interested it is in superb condition, could almost pass for new and has box, instructions etc. Starting price is low. Bargain of the month even though I say it myself. Lookup Doogee Mix 2 on eBay. It is in my name.

  3. I must be the exception to the rule. My phone is an Apple 3GS cica 2009 and it is still going strong with the battery lasting about a week for normal phone and text usage

    But I’m guessing anything that old was before the major phone manufacturers realised there was gold to be found in accelerated product release schedules

  4. I’m a huge fan of chinese smartphones, because of the same reason you mention: I refuse to pay sky high prices to the big boys like Samsung and iPhone. I find it challenging to be able to do the same things with a much cheaper phone.

    So I have owned a few chinese phones already: started with the xiaomi mi2s, then the jiayu s3, and then the xiaomi redmi pro. Unfortunately I must admin that this wasn’t always an easy path to take.

    The wifi on my xiaomi mi2s was horrible. I had to manually turn it off and on again to ‘wake’ the wifi. Then it would be pretty fast, but when my phone woke up from sleeping, the wifi was dead most of the times.

    The jiayu I think had the same problems. This also seems to be a mediatek problem.

    Now I am pretty happy with my Xiaomi redmi pro, but the 4G reception is pretty bad. Probably because I am missing the most important frequency being used here where I live. Also I had to flash the rom to resolve a bug with the back button on the phone. This wasn’t an easy job, so I guess for non-tech people it would be rather impossible.

    So I am curious how your cubot will do after a few months of usage. Looking at the price I’d say it’s a budget phone, but the specs are pretty nice.

    1. I’m interested to read your experience with Chinese phones as I’ve only ever owned one and it was terrible. It was an Oukitel and it a word it was ****/rubbish, no system/os updates in the painful 8 months I bothered using it, it was riddled with firmware spam, despite numerous factory resets every now and again it’s built in browser would decide that I’d like to meet sexy ladies in my local area, err no thanks.

      The battery suddenly died and the only place I could get one from was via ebay from Italy for £16 and the Royal Mail takes a dim view to delivering batteries these days so the first one got seized and destroyed.

      I ditched that, got an A+ condition second hand Samsung J3 2016 for £70, upgraded the Android 5.1 to LineageOs 14, admittedly the camera is pretty terrible, but everything else works super smoothly, I mainky use Tasker on it tho.

      In short, I’ll probably never buy a cheap Chinese phone ever again.

      1. My wife’s first Chinese phone was awful and the GPS sould hardly ever work but things charge. My Oukitel K6000 Pro was wonderful until someone jammed it bhind the gearstick in the car and obliterated it. I still have an Oukitel K10000 which has a badly broken screen – I’m just waiting for someone to sell the screens DIRST cheap and I’ll fix it. Heavy, large but the battery lasts forever.

        I currently have the Cubot Power and Cubot Note Plus as a backup. I’ve JUST put my LOVELY Doogee Mix 2 (gold) on Ebay. Takes superb photos. None of them have stunning low light level performance.

        1. Hi Peter,

          have you ever analysed what/how much data is collected from your Chinese phone and where it is sent? Do you trust them that they don’t collect your passwords too?

          I mean, if they are capable of pulling out something like this https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/10/bloomberg-super-micro-motherboards-used-by-apple-amazon-contained-chinese-spy-chips/ there are no limits what they are able to collect with software they and nobody else controls, no?

          I would like to hear your opinion on this topic, cause this is my main concern with Chinese manufacturers

          1. Conspiracy theories – I don’t trust the Chinese any more or less than our own govermment in the UK.

            1. fair enough, with a little twist that government would have difficulties (nor direct interest) collecting your data for advertisement or any other purpose where small Chinese manufactures can make business of it.

              I am not saying it is happening but that for one who wrote the SW / custom Android ROM it is much easier to harvest login data than any malicious app or government.

              If I understood this correctly, you do not have any concerns about it?

              1. I would not say I have no concerns, I’d say I trust them about as much as I trust our lot (i.e. not greatly).

            2. Well, as Chinese manufacturers make iPhones and Samsung and just about every other piece of electronics we use, I think itr is unfair to single out the little companies.

      2. I’ve never had any significant amount of spam on my phones. I want Android 7 or 8 as a minimum, none of the other Linux variations I’ve seen would support the bulk of Android apps.

        1. The LineageOS that I’m using supports every Android app I’ve ever used and has unlocked some features in Tasker because if you’re going to flash your own ROM you might as well root it at the same time 😉

          I’m running LineageOS 14.1 on my Samsung J3 and it’s basically Android 7.1.2 – LineageOS 15.1 is also out which is an Android Oreo 8.1 build.

          I also stuck it on the Mrs’ old Nexus 7 2012 Tablet and it’s given it a new lease of life as the stock 5.1 Android version was woeful.

          Cheers.

          1. a samsung device and a generic chinese one, which has a 6 months lifetime (to stay LARGE), are different beasts… not all of them are supported by some developer on xda, and usually their development halts soon… that’s why i preferred the oneplus one, 4 years ago, and the pocophone f1, now… max specs at decent price, and development available for sure…

            1. Maureen has had 2 Samsung devices both ofwhich received very little in the way of op system uupgrades. My Doogee did better. The Pocophone is on my horizon.

              1. i’m saying that i NEVER buy a phone if i’m not SURE it has xda development going on… so, right now, i’ll avoid buying a xiaomi (the time to unlock their bootloader can reach 2 months), or nokia (they CAN’T be unlocked, afaik)…

          2. Right – looks as if I need to get up to speed on that…LiniageOS 7.1.2 sounds worth looking at if it will support the App Store – and I’m guessing it is hardware dependent as I might find it useful on some H3 and H5 FriendlyArm boards..

  5. The CUBOT POWER 4G Phablet – EARTH BLUE on offer for 176€ seems like a very good deal. Do you know if they do a dual sim version? I could then have my UK and Finnish sims in one phone.

    1. It IS dual SIM and I have both of them in. Instead of one you could put a microSD card but with 128gig built in would you want to? I have everything but the kitchen sink on mine inc TomTom and both Spain/Portugal and UK maps and I STILL have 107GB free. Short of filling it with videos it is hard to imagine how I’ll use that all up – but I will TRY. 143 apps in there and more on the way.

      1. Many thanks for the reply. After asking the question, I did see a review online that mentioned it was dual sim. Many thanks. No need for a reply.

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