LeEco LePro 3: REVIEW

The best thing to happen to

The best thing to happen to smartphones this year has nothing to do with dual cameras or Google hardware.

Instead, it's the increasingly heated competition in the price tier just below the iPhone 7s, Galaxy S7s, and Google Pixels of the world. Specs and features that were once exclusive to phones that cost close to $700 are now freely available in devices that cost $300 less.

A handful of Chinese companies have led the charge. You won't find the $400 OnePlus 3, ZTE Axon 7, or Huawei Honor 8 on a carrier store shelf, but in terms of pure horsepower, there's very little separating them from the higher-priced flagships you see on TV. They look nice, too.

Now, you can add another to the list. The LeEco LePro 3 is the first phone to hit the US from Chinese (not French!) tech conglomerate LeEco, and makes it even harder for every company not named Apple, Samsung, or Google to sell a phone for more than $400.

It's also not going to be the hit LeEco wants — and possibly needs. Let's take a closer look.

The LePro 3 is among the strongest phones in the world, full stop. It runs on Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon 821 processor, with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. The 821 chip isn't a big leap over its predecessor, but it's clocked high enough here to make the phone consistently quick and fluid.

We’ve long passed the point of diminishing returns when it comes to comfortable smartphone performance, but even with that in mind, the LePro 3 handled anything I threw at it with ease. Games ran smoothly, apps loaded quickly, and multitasking was a snap.

The back got a little toasty after playing a new, graphics-heavy game like "Deus Ex Go," but all told this is a powerhouse.

Benchmark testing mostly backed this up. The LePro 3 scored a 4,339 in Geekbench 4, which measures overall system performance. That was higher than both the Google Pixel (4,146) and OnePlus 3 (4,015).

On a graphics test like 3DMark's Sling Shot, it got a 2,585, again higher than the Pixel (2,518) and OnePlus (2,469).

Are these huge differences? No. But the point is you get high-end power at a midrange price.

The LePro 3 is better designed than the Google Pixel. It's got a chilly coat of brushed aluminum on its back, and a smooth layer of glass on its front. Both feel great. On both sides, its top and bottom are near-perfectly symmetrical. Nothing about it is loose or cheap — all the buttons are responsive and easy to reach, and though it's a bit on the hefty side, that helps it feel like something substantial.

The LePro 3 is big, and thus not easily usable with one hand, but it's not wasteful. While the Pixel and the iPhone have uselessly large bezels, the LePro 3 keeps things relatively slim. More importantly, it actually makes use of that bottom bezel, putting a trio of capacitive buttons there instead of chewing up room on screen. Those buttons are in the wrong order — the back button is on the right instead of the left — but it's a net positive.

As far as features go, there's a fast charging USB-C port on its bottom, decent-but-not-great dual speakers on its front, an IR blaster on its top (if you ever feel like using it as a TV remote), and a large fingerprint scanner on its back. That scanner isn't as fast as what's on other devices, but it's in a comfortable spot, and it works well enough.

The caveat? It looks like a carbon copy of the OnePlus 3. In general, there's little that's visually distinct about it. But in my two weeks of testing, everyone else who got a hold of it thought it felt nice. I agree.

Inside that aluminum frame is a 4,070mAh battery. That's really big. Common wisdom would suggest a battery that large might bring a couple days of battery life — especially without a super high-resolution display — but LePro 3 isn't that efficient.

Still, it's good: I got around 9-10 hours of juice with an average mix of web browsing, video viewing, and sporadic game playing. It just needs the extra weight to get there.

This is a 5.5-inch screen with a 1080p resolution. That means it's not as sharp as the 2560x1440 resolution panels available elsewhere, but any difference is barely noticeable.

More significantly, this is an LED display, not the more vibrant and colorful OLED kind that's on the Pixel or Galaxy S7. Nevertheless, its colors are relatively accurate, it doesn't wash out at an angle, and the whole thing can get very bright. It's not the best, but it shouldn't bring many complaints.

Much like Huawei, LeEco slathers Google's "stock" Android — here version 6.0.1 Marshmallow, not the latest 7.0 Nougat — with a ton of modifications. And once again, that skin, called "EUI," hogs a lot of memory, while making few obvious changes for the better.

For starters, there's no app drawer. Instead, like iOS, you have to clutter your home screen with folders, or stuff apps onto other screens altogether. Swiping down on the home screen presents your notifications, but not quick settings for WiFi, Bluetooth, and so on.

Instead, those are stuffed on a separate screen with your open tabs, which you access by hitting the recents button. Visually, the icons for LeEco's stock apps are flatter and rounder than those from Google, which creates more disconnect. It goes on and on.

Since LeEco wants the LePro 3 to be just one part of a larger ecosystem of apps and devices, it preloads three different services: You can swipe right on the homescreen to get a Flipboard-like "LeView" feed, open the "Le" app, or click the "Live" button that is permanently attached to the home screen. Each one works in various ways, and looks fine, but are there whether you want them or not.

That could be forgivable if the videos themselves were any good, but they’re really, really not. Here are a few things that were promoted to me during my time with the LePro 3: "The Pink Panther 2, "Chairman of the Board" (featuring Carrot Top), "Snake Eater II: The Drug Buster" (featuring Lorenzo Lamas), and a video about Rihanna's style at the VMAs over the years.

I’m cherry picking, yes, but it really doesn't get much better. LeEco has one significant content partner in Lionsgate. Will they get more? Given its reported cash crunch, I can't say.

The iPhone 7 has been out for two months now, and the world seems to have gotten over its headphone jack hysteria. That's good. The decision still makes no sense, though. Wireless headphones sound worse and cost more. Most people do not buy them because of that.

Apple taking the jack away at least has some merit — a handful of Lightning headphones already exist. Very few USB-C headphones do, though. LeEco packs a pair of EarPods-aping earbuds in the box, but they’re nothing worthwhile. More likely is you’ll use the included dongle. Have fun keeping track of that.

As with the Pixel, you’ll want to keep the LePro 3 away from pools and faucets. There's also no way to expand the storage. Those omissions are a little more excusable with the LePro 3, since it's cheaper and roomier by default, but especially when it comes to water resistance, they’re things it really ought to have if it wants to be considered a leading phone in 2016.

More and more, the thing that separates the good phones from the great ones is the camera. The iPhone 7's, Galaxy S7's, and Pixel's are great. The OnePlus 3's is good. The LePro 3's 16-megapixel shooter is fine. It's not terribly slow, and in the right light, it's capable of some pretty shots, like the one above.

Again, for $400, it's not bad. But its rivals do a better job with detail, richness, shadows, and speed.

I mean, you can. It's right there on LeEco's ecommerce site. Go ask your friends if they plan on visiting LeMall.com, though, and chances are you’ll get some blank stares. That the phone doesn't support CDMA networks (i.e., Verizon and Sprint) is rough, too.

If you want it, you’ll have to buy unlocked, and bring it to a GSM carrier like T-Mobile or AT&T. Time and again, the vast majority of Americans have proven they don't do that.

It's a testament to just how good midrange phones have become that I can't recommend the LePro 3 outright. Two years ago, it would’ve been a revelation. It's got the fastest Snapdragon chip on the market! For $400!

But as smartphones have become commoditized, fast hardware has become less and less special. What a high-end phone needs now is clean, cohesive software, and a stellar camera. In both of those cases, the OnePlus 3 is better, while remaining close enough in almost every other aspect.

Try as LeEco might to make itself a thing, the LePro 3 isn't that different than any other phone from a Chinese manufacturer going after the US. For now, the OnePlus is still the pick at $400.

News

LeEco LePro 3: REVIEW