Elephone Trunk Review

Introduction
Looking for your very first smartphone? Check Elephone Trunk out. It is an entry level smartphone from Elephone. Powered by 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 CPU with Adreno 306 GPU. Running Android 5.1 Lollipop. Loaded with 2GB RAM & 16GB ROM and micro SD slot for space expansion. Samsung 8MP rear camera and 2MP front camera for video and photo. 5″ IPS HD display and 2100mAh battery. Dual SIM support with 4G LTE. Loaded with Bluetooth 4.0 and FM support too. How does it perform? Let’s find out…

Specifications

  • Dimensions: 142.5 x 71.6 x 8.9mm
  • Weight: 138g (with battery)
  • CPU: Snapdragon 410 (Qualcomm MSM 8916)
  • GPU: Adreno 306
  • RAM: 2GB
  • Storage: 16GB
  • Display: 5.0″ HD
  • Battery: 2100mAh (7.98Wh)
  • OS: Android 5.1
  • Camera: Rear – 8 MP, front – 2 MP
  • SIM card: Dual SIM, dual standby (Micro SIMx2)
  • Wi-Fi: 802.11b/g/n (2.4G)
  • Bluetooth: 4.0
  • Positioning: GLONASS
  • Networks: GSM / WCDMA / LTE
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Package Contents

Package Content & Design
After opened the box, you can find Elephone Trunk protected well with plastic cover. And accessories like micro USB cable, 1A power adapter, screen protector and quick start guide. By the way, Trunk comes with screen protector pre-installed. Nice one. There are 2 colours to choose – black and white. And 5 arc back covers colours like white, black, blue, cyan and pink to suit your taste and personality. Personally, I love the back cover as it is made of soft touch matte material that free from fingerprint. Nice to see and hold.

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Earpiece, proximity & light sensor and front camera
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3 capacitive buttons with white back-lid

At the front, you can find the beautiful 5″ HD IPS display with vivid colours. Earpiece, proximity & light sensor and front camera are located above the display. And 3 capacitive buttons with white back-lid and mic at the bottom. You can find volume up/down and power buttons at the right. And earphone jack and micro USB port on top. Camera and LED flash are located on top of the back. And finally the speaker at the bottom.

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Earphone jack & micro USB port, camera & LED flash, volume up/down & power buttons
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Mic & speaker

After pop up the back cover, you can clearly see the 2 micro SIM and micro SD slots. And the blue colour 2100 mAh battery that you can’t miss out. You also can see the speaker much more clearly now.

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Micro SD & 2 micro SIM slots
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2100mAh battery & speaker

Performance Result

Camera
I believe most of the us are using smartphone as the camera nowadays. Therefore, I will cover Elephone Trunk’s camera first. It is loaded with Samsung 8MP front camera with 13MP boost and supports 1080p video recording. Lot of shooting modes like sunset, landscape and portrait can be selected to suit your need. And various filters in black and white, cameo, neon, etc are available as well. There are lot of other options can be played with too. Yes, HDR mode, face detection, spot metering are supported. The front camera is a 2MP shooter by the way. Trunk’s camera quality is decent. It is more than enough to use it for your daily social need on applications like Facebook, Instagram and more. Just check below photos to find out…

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HDR – Click for original
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Micro – Click for original
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Detail test – Click for original
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With flash – Click for original
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Front camera – Click for original

Software & Hardware
I love Elephone Trunk’s 5″ screen. Even though it is only HD screen but the colours are vivid and viewing angle is great. It surely make my daily activity like surfing, watching anime, YouTube MV and playing games pleasant. As for the speaker, it is okay only. Just don’t expect powerful bass from it but you can always plug in your favourite headphones or connect to Bluetooth speaker. Sound is much better then. Yes, there is FM radio support. Lot of smartphones don’t include this feature anymore. Nice one, Elephone. By the way, GPS lock is extremely fast. I can get GPS signal even inside the house. Great!

As for the connections, it supports 150Mbp 4G LTE on FDD Band 1/3/7/20 (800 1800 2100 2600). Too bad that my area doesn’t have 4G coverage yet. So I will update the review when I have the chance to test 4G connection. Phone call quality is good. I can hear others’ voice loud and clear. And the other way around too. As for storage, you will get 11.77GB usable out of 16GB internal storage. More than enough for normal usage. Besides, you can always plug in external microSD card if run out of space for videos and photos. No worry about RAM too. I still have around 1GB of free RAM left after system uses up 600MB and 330MB for running apps.

Elephone Trunk runs on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop which I believe it is stock Android OS with ELE launcher (ELE UI). Everything is running smoothly on it. Applications are categorized in folders like management tool, social, media, tools and more apps in ELE UI. There is no app drawer to list down all the apps in one place. No worry, you can always install 3rd party launcher that you prefer to replace it. Does applications run smoothly on Trunk? Able to play 3D games? Check out below video for its real world performance on ELE launcher, Android 5.1 OS, applications like built-in browser & Facebook and lot of games in both 2D and 3D. See it yourself…

Battery
Elephone Trunk has decent battery life. Easily last for 2 days on minimum usage with around 4 hours screen on. Of course, it will last shorter if use heavily non-stop for games, movie or surfing. But that’s still no problem to cater for your daily need. And it takes around 2 hours and a half to fully charge its 2100mAh battery.

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2 days usage
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Screen on details

Benchmark
You should know about the performance of Trunk with 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 CPU and Adreno 306 GPU after watched real world performance video. But here are the results from synthetic benchmarks like AnTuTu, Geekbench, Basemark OS and 3DMark for you that hungry for in-depth technical data.

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AnTuTu Benchmark v5.7.1
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Geekbench 3
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Basemark OS II
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3DMark Ice Storm

Any complaints? Yes, but minor ones. There is a bug that happened some time on ELE Launcher – blank screen after pull down to see notification quickly. And it just stay blank no matter what I do until reboot it. The home button light does not lid up until you actually press on it. What is the point of having it then? Finally, there is no notification light. You have to screen on to find out…

Advantages

  • Vivid 5″ HD display
  • Smooth performance
  • Decent Battery life
  • Dual SIM support
  • Fast GPS lock
  • Micro SD support

Limitations

  • ELE ROM & Launcher needs improvements
  • No notification light

Conclusion
Elephone Trunk is a nice entry level smartphone for newcomer. Perfect to use it for daily social life and playing casual games. Lovely 5″ HD screen and decent battery life make it pleasant to use. Interested? Do check out Elephone Website for more information. And get yours there.