Vernee Mix 2 review - an inexpensive Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 clone?

Foreword: Vernee Mix 2

And the almost rimless smartphone from China greets you every day! The Vernee Mix 2 is an 18: 9 smartphone that was announced at the end of September 2017 and has also been available since October 2017. Despite the confusing version number 2, it is the manufacturer's first “tri-bezel-less” smartphone. A Vernee Mix (1) was never released. Presumably it is a “joke” of the manufacturer, with a view to that  Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 .

Design, workmanship and delivery

After the 10th or so Chinese smartphone in the so-called “tri-bezel-less” look, this design type is no longer a special feature. The particularly small distance to the upper edge of the housing is typical. The smartphone is one of the tri-bezel-less devices in which this distance of 5.5 mm is not particularly narrow. The one that was only tested a few weeks ago  Elephone S8  comes to just 4 mm, for example. The lateral gaps are also rather modest at 3.5 mm. The overall dimensions of the smartphone are 157.8 x 76.2 x 8.2 mm. The weight is 195g.

 The Vernee Mix 2 is constructed as follows: 

On the one hand, the front side is the 6-inch display with a resolution of 2K. Due to the design, the front camera is located below the display. The 15 mm wide space between the display and the housing frame, which is only used for the front camera, catches the eye. Instead of accommodating capacitive control buttons or even a home button here, Vernee simply left the area unused. Pity! The narrow earphone is located in the middle above the display. The proximity sensor is located below this on the left. Vernee has placed a notification LED above it, but it cannot be individually adjusted.

The metal and black housing frame includes the typical power button on the right side of the frame and a volume rocker underneath. The SIM tray is located in the upper part of the right side of the frame. This can be equipped with two nano SIM cards. A 3.5 mm audio jack is available and is located in the upper frame section. The underside of the frame is typically formed by a central MicroUSB socket, an adjacent loudspeaker and the microphone. Unfortunately, Vernee decided against the current USB-C standard.

The glass back of the Vernee Mix 2 is a real eye-catcher. At the same time, it is also particularly prone to fingerprints. Once held in the hand and the back no longer shines so nicely. The haptic perception is positive. The rather narrow smartphone can be easily grasped and lies securely in the hand despite the rather smooth glass back. Further features of the back of the smartphone are a dual main camera with an LED flash next to it, a circular fingerprint scanner and the imprinted manufacturer logo including model information.

 The processing quality is not objectionable. You will look in vain for unsightly gaps between the frame, display and back. The power button and volume rocker sit firmly in the case and have a comfortable pressure point. The scope of delivery includes the smartphone, a silicone protective cover, a charger, a microUSB cable, another screen protector for the front and back (a front protective film is also already on the smartphone), as well as a multilingual user manual.

Display

As expected, the display is also clearly in the foreground with this smartphone. The IPS display of the Vernee Mix 2 has a diagonal of 6 inches and has a resolution of 2160 x 1080 pixels. As a result, the smartphone has a point density of 402 PPI, which results in a razor-sharp display. The aspect ratio is 18: 9. In contrast to conventional 16: 9 smartphones, the device appears much longer and at the same time narrower. However, many apps and videos are not yet adapted to the 18: 9 format, which leads to unsightly black bars at the edges. 

The manufacturer specifies the screen-to-body ratio as 93.07%. This results in a screen-to-body ratio of only 77.3%. As is so often the case, when it comes to China smartphones, you shouldn't rely on manufacturer information! Vernee is silent about the screen protection used.

The color rendering of the display is comparatively cool. Colors are shown as natural as possible and not too saturated. A subsequent adjustment of the display is not possible due to the lack of MiraVision. What stands out is the really good contrast representation of the display. The viewing angle stability is just as unobjectionable. Colors, brightness and contrast are retained very well even at different viewing angles. The maximum luminance of the panel is 440 cd / m². The display is easy to read in the sunshine. The automatic brightness adjustment works with a delay of only a few seconds and precisely detects changing light conditions.

The touchscreen supports up to 10 simultaneous inputs. All inputs were recognized precisely and without delay during the test phase. Unintentional ghost touches did not occur.

Performance

When choosing a processor, Vernee opted for the MediaTek Helio P2017 (MTK25CD), which was introduced at the beginning of 6757. The processor consists of 8 Cortex A53 processor cores that clock at a maximum of 4 x 2.5 GHz and 4 x 1.6 GHz. The Mali-T880 GPU is responsible for the graphic computing power.

The Mix 2 is available with either 4GB or 6GB of RAM. The internal flash memory of the type eMMC5.1 offers a storage capacity of 64GB in both models. In addition, the internal memory can be expanded using a microSD memory card. If you want to use the memory expansion option, you have to do without the dual SIM function because of the hybrid SIM slot.

The MediaTek Helio P25 is usually a rock-solid mid-range system-on-chip that impresses above all with its good performance and, at the same time, good energy efficiency. However, the Vernee Mix 2 was not entirely convincing in everyday use. Compared to other smartphones with the same equipment, the Mix 2 showed signs of partial overload. Some apps only opened with a delay and in general it looked as if the system did not always run smoothly. Thermal throttling was also noticeable under full load, even if only slightly. The RAM achieved a speed of 4613.96 MB / s in the test, which speaks for a DDR3 memory. The internal eMMC5.1 flash memory achieved a write speed of 132.65 MB / s and a read speed of 106.51 MB / s.

Like everyday performance, gaming performance also shows signs of a system that is not running completely smoothly. Many mobile games can be played smoothly, but if you dare to play graphically demanding games, there will be more picture breakdowns.

user interface

The operating system of the Vernee Mix 2 is called "VOS" and is based on Android 7.0. In contrast to many other manufacturer user interfaces, VOS is largely based on stock Android. Among other things, there are additional features such as gesture control, the system optimization tool DuraSpeed, as well as the shortcuts of the status bar can be adjusted as desired. Bloatware or third-party apps are not preinstalled. Various Google apps are already on the smartphone.

 Updates are received over-the-air (OTA). It is not known to what extent the Mix 2 will be upgraded to Android 8.

Camera

 False advertising promises are not uncommon, especially with China smartphones. With regard to hardware features that are difficult to understand, it is often lied to say that the bars bend. Vernee also leads the customer by the nose with Mix 2. The smartphone was announced with a dual main camera, consisting of two Sony IMX258 image sensors and optical image stabilization. In fact, Vernee has installed completely different sensors, one of which is fake. The optical image stabilization, which already appeared to be implausible when the smartphone was announced, has in truth never found its way into the device. Nonetheless, Vernee continues to advertise the smartphone with an “OIS” and, in a funny way, in connection with “telephone lenses”, which should presumably mean an optical telezoom (which also does not exist).

main camera

The main camera's image sensor actually used is a 13 megapixel AR1335 1 / 3.2 inch CMOS from ON Semiconductor. Vernee says the aperture is f / 2.0. Judging by the driver, the additional fake sensor is a Galaxycore GC0310 VGA image sensor. A conventional LED flash is available.

The recording quality of the main camera is just about what you can expect in the price range around € 150. In good lighting conditions, reasonably acceptable image recordings are possible. However, you shouldn't expect a high level of detail and high image sharpness. Some image recordings are very noisy and tend to be slightly blurred towards the edges of the image. Unfortunately, the automatic white balance does not work satisfactorily, which results in images that are strongly falsified in color.

The autofocus gives satisfactory results. The focus is precise and, at least in good lighting conditions, also comparatively quickly. In poor lighting conditions, however, it becomes increasingly sluggish. The release time is still acceptable, if not particularly fast. The promised telephoto zoom is a purely digital 2-fold zoom. There is definitely no optical image stabilization.

Features of the camera app include the conventional photo and video recording mode, a FaceBeauty mode, a blur mode, a mono mode, a panorama mode and a pro mode. The blur mode offers an artificial bokeh effect that is created by prescribing a circular unsharp mask. The Pro mode is a manual recording mode that offers setting options for white balance, ISO and light value.

 The main camera records videos with maximum FHD (1080p) resolution. The maximum frame rate is 30 frames per second. In poor lighting conditions, however, this is reduced to less than 9 frames per second, which leads to very jerky and hardly usable video recordings. The recorded sound is acceptable if it sounds slightly dull.

Front camera

The front camera is made up of a 5 megapixel Galaxycore GC5025 image sensor and an f / 2.8 aperture. Due to the position of the front camera below the display, you should turn the smartphone accordingly before each selfie. Taking usable selfies with this front camera is downright torture. Most of the pictures taken have a clear image blurring and also appear washed out in color. If you finally took a reasonably clear picture, it is usually completely overexposed. The front camera records videos with a maximum resolution of 480p.

connectivity

Telephony

In mobile communications, the smartphone can be operated with two nano SIM cards at the same time (dual SIM). The 2G, 3G and 4G frequency bands customary in this country are supported. The Vernee Mix 20 also gets along very well with LTE Band 2. The reception quality is convincing for both telephony and mobile surfing. What is said is transmitted clearly and distinctly.

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth

The smartphone is equipped with a dual-band WiFi module (802.11 a / b / g / n /) for wireless data transmission. Bluetooth is supported with version 4.0. The reception quality in the WLAN is below average. In the test, it was hardly possible to establish a stable connection to a 5 GHz network. In the 2.4 GHz network, the reception strength was sometimes so low that a stable connection could only be established in the room in the router. In the Bluetooth network, the Mix 2 again works as expected.

GPS and sensors

 Points are also deducted when determining your position via GPS / GLONASS. The smartphone has such a miserable satellite reception outdoors that is even trumped by other smartphones inside the building. Accordingly, it takes forever to even find a GPS fix. If a GPS fix is ​​found, it is usually lost again quickly. The smartphone is simply unsuitable for navigation. The sensory equipment consists of a proximity sensor, a gyroscope, an acceleration sensor, a brightness sensor and an e-compass.

Fingerprint scanner

The fingerprint scanner unlocks the smartphone precisely. Out of 10 unlocking attempts, 9 are recognized correctly on average. However, until you land on the home screen after successfully unlocking it, it can take 2 seconds.

Battery

The battery of the Vernee Mix 2 has a capacity of 4200 mAh, which roughly corresponds to the measured value. One charge is enough to get through the day with normal use. The average screen-on-time is between 6 and 7 hours.

Pump Express Plus ensures that the smartphone can be charged quickly. The charger supplied also supports this function. The battery is charged by 1% after just 75 ½ hours. A complete charging process takes an average of 2 ½ hours. If you instead charge the smartphone with a non-PE + compatible charger, the charging process takes about 4 hours.