China’s video streaming provider Letv has unveiled its first three smartphones, each featuring thin bezels and promising competitive pricing, to get a slice of an increasingly competitive global market.
The Le 1, Le 1 Pro and Le Max, showed off on Tuesday in Beijing, offer many of the mid- to high-end features expected of more expensive models from the likes of Apple and Samsung.
The top-end Le Max “phablet” sports a huge 6.33-inch screen offering 2K resolution, while being powered by the latest and fastest Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor and a good 4GB of memory.
Its main selling point, besides the zippy hardware, is a very thin bezel that is just 0.8mm wide. This gives it the look of an edge-less display, while keeping the phone relatively small despite the large screen.
It also has a number of world-beating features, such as a 21-megapixel sensor for its camera that’s made by Sony.
Like the other two phones launched at the same time, the Le Max supports the new USB Type-C adapter that lets users connect either end of their USB cable to the phone to charge it.
The Le Max also has a souped up sound section designed with the help of headphone maker AKG, promising superior audio for those who use their phones for music.
Indeed, Letv founder and chief executive officer Jia Yueting was at pains to tell reporters as well as supporters on Tuesday that the company’s new Android-based products were superior to the gold standard in China – Apple’s iPhone.
Weeks ago, he posted a controversial video likening Apple to the Nazis of World War II. At the launch on Tuesday, he chose to be subtler, only playing Apple’s famous 1984 ad, followed by a satirical version from Letv mocking Apple users as mindless followers of the company’s products.
Despite his various proclamations, the most important perhaps is his call for other manufacturers to follow his lead and declare the basic cost – or bill of materials – of the components used in each phone.
This way, consumers know the true cost of each device they are buying, he argued.
The cost for the top-end Le Max, cast in a metallic unibody and featuring a fingerprint sensor and dual 4G SIM card slots, is yet to be revealed.
But it’s expected to cost more than the mid-range 2,499-RMB (S$547) Le 1 Pro, which may appeal to a wider group of users. With most of the features of the Le Max, it has a smaller and more pocketable 5.5-inch screen, also offering a 2K resolution.
Importantly, as the Letv folks will stress, it is shorter and narrower than the iPhone 6 Plus. Mostly, this is down to the slim bezel as well as the metallic unibody.
And like the Le Max, it features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810 chip and 4GB RAM as well, so it is no slouch in terms of performance.
Finally, the entry-level Le 1 will be a challenge for China’s own low- and mid-cost handsets that have been getting all the attention of late.
Priced from 1,499 RMB, it would go head to head against the likes of Xiaomi’s MiNote, for example. It doesn’t have the metallic casing of its bigger Letv siblings, but it still boasts a slim 1.2mm bezel to attract users with its looks.
It sports a more cost-effective Helios X10 processor and still-very-respectable 3GB of memory, while having a less-sharp 5.5-inch screen running at a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080.
There are no firm dates or prices for their Singapore launch but they are expected to reach stores here in the coming months.
Another thing that is doubtful is the content that Letv is famous for in China. In its home base, it boasts 100,000 drama series and 5,000 movies in its catalog for local users. However, it remains to be seen if that content is available to overseas owners of its phones.
That matters because the company has pitched its user interface as one that is content-centric. Having watched a movie one evening, a user could have his phone’s wallpaper or alarm tone automatically switch to one that was tied to the movie, for example.
But it is uncertain if that would come to markets such as Singapore, where the company may not have licences to broadcast the programmes.
Still, the new phones are part of the China company’s ambitious plans to expand overseas. In China, it manufactures smart TVs to stream its own programmes, while also embarking on a smart car design that it hopes to bring to fruition in the years ahead.
Going by its big show-and-tell in Beijing, Letv’s hardware certainly look the part, but its services may take time to turn up in markets where its newest project – smartphones – may be reaching out to very quickly.
