Konka R1 hands-on review: Can it gain a foothold in the fierce market of thousand-yuan phones?

When it comes to KONKA, most people think of TVs. Indeed, KONKA does have a place in the TV brand. However, with the convergence of the current electronic manufacturing industry, many manufacturers have begun to cross-border in small steps. For example, Lenovo, which mainly operates PC business, has also started TV and mobile phone business, and Gree, which mainly operates air conditioners, has also started mobile phone business, not to mention some old TV manufacturers such as Hisense and Skyworth.

Konka has been in the mobile phone market for a long time, having established its mobile communications department in 1999, and also produced some excellent products in the era of feature phones. However, after the popularization of smartphones, it is difficult to find Konka products on the market.

Not long ago, Konka released the R1, which is known as a 1,000-yuan boutique, and launched the slogan "Konka mobile phone, craftsman spirit". So does this R1 have the "craftsman spirit" as it claims? And can it reverse the current situation of Konka mobile phones being tepid? Let's take a look at the product first.

Packaging accessories and appearance:

This time, Konka R1 does not use the compact packaging commonly used in the thousand-yuan phones on the market, but instead uses a medium-sized paper packaging box. The overall style is similar to OPPO and VIVO.

  Open the box cover, and the main body and accessories come into view. This time, Konka R1 includes 1 host, 1 replaceable battery, 1 charging plug, and 1 USB data cable. A transparent soft phone case is also included under the body, which feels pretty good.

When I took out the phone, the first impression was that it looked like a certain HTC phone. In this era of industrial design, many phones borrowed other designs to save costs. However, the "ID borderless" effect created by the black panel and black wallpaper still gave people a good visual experience.

The front of the phone is relatively simple, including a light sensor, an earpiece, a distance sensor and a front camera. Virtual buttons are used at the bottom instead of the commonly used physical buttons. However, despite the use of virtual buttons, the length of the bottom is still "touching", and the screen-to-body ratio is really not flattering.

The camera on the back of the phone is slightly raised but not noticeable, within an acceptable range. The flash is relatively simple, using only a single flash with a single color temperature.

At the bottom of the back of the phone is the Konka logo and speaker. However, placing the speaker on the back will block the volume when the phone is placed flat on a table to watch videos or play music.

The headphone jack and USB jack are located on the top of the phone. The volume button is placed on the upper left side of the phone's frame, but it is a little inconvenient to adjust the volume when holding it with one hand because it is too high.

There is only one noise reduction microphone at the bottom of the phone, the power button is on the right side of the middle frame, and there is a groove at the bottom. You can open the back cover by picking up the groove to replace the battery, SIM card and TF storage card. It should be noted that although the back cover is treated with frosted spray, making it look like metal, it is actually a large plastic. However, the feel after treatment is better than that of glossy plastic. Moreover, the screen is slightly narrower than the middle frame, so that the screen will not be stressed first when the phone falls, which reduces the risk of broken screen to a certain extent. From these two points, it can be seen that Konka is still attentive to this R1.

Hardware parameters and network support:

Driven by Internet companies, the hardware configuration of the current thousand-yuan mobile phone market has been growing year by year. Especially in the second half of last year, the release of Redmi NOTE2 directly brought the MediaTek helio x10, which was originally positioned in the mid-to-high-end, into the price range below thousand yuan, and a batch of thousand-yuan mobile phones followed suit. So what are the hardware parameters of this Konka R1?

Konka R1 does not use the popular MT6795 in the current thousand-yuan phones, but the MT6735P, which is the next best choice. This soc uses a quad-core A53 CPU with a main frequency of 1GHz. The GPU integrates Mali-T720, which can integrate up to 8 cores, with a L2 cache of 64-256kb and a maximum frequency of 695MHz. Moreover, the 5-inch 720p screen and 1G running memory are really outdated today.

Although the backwardness in parameters does not mean the actual experience is bad, the advantage of this SOC is that MT6735P is MTK's first integrated full network chip, supporting GSM/EVDO Rev. A/CDMA2000 1x/TD-SCDNA/WCDMA/TD-LTE/LTE FDD standards, among which EVDO Rev. A/CDMA2000 1x is the first time to appear on MediaTek's SOC, and the patent license comes from VIA Telecom. However, due to the limitation of GPU, the maximum screen resolution only supports 720P. It seems that Konka's choice of this resolution screen is really a compromise for the chip.

In terms of network, Konka R1 supports dual SIM dual standby, and both the primary and secondary SIM cards support China Mobile 3G (TD-SCDMA), China Unicom 2G/China Mobile 2G (GSM). It is a pity that the processor does not support full network access.

In actual running points, Konka R1 scored about 24,000, which is still a bit behind the current data of 40,000 or more. However, it is still relatively smooth in daily use.

Daily use and system experience:

First of all, it should be noted that Konka R1 does not use the current mainstream Android operating system, but Yun OS, which is now known as the third largest operating system in the world. Konka customized it and named it Yiyou (YIUI).

Compared with the Android operating system, Yun OS is not much different, including the operating interface and usage logic, and is compatible with most Android applications on the market. Konka R1's customized system based on Yun OS is more like an ordinary Android system with some domestic customization, but it is not without highlights.

Swipe left on the main screen to enter an aggregated interface, which integrates some news, discount information, travel and other daily information, and can be customized according to personal preferences. The overall experience is good.

Some system-provided application icons are marked with an upward sliding arrow, which will call out a quick operation interface, allowing you to quickly set and view without entering the main application interface. This effectively simplifies our frequent switching of applications.

In general, Konka R1 does have some remarkable features in terms of software, but compared with the well-known domestic MIUI, FLYME or Smartisan OS, it lacks its own characteristics and is difficult to continue to attract users. In this regard, Konka still has a long way to go.

Can it gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive thousand-yuan phone market?

Today, with the increasingly fierce market of thousand-yuan mobile phones, as a group of Internet manufacturers enter the market, cost performance has become the most important keyword in this market. And judging from various hardware parameters, Konka R1 is undoubtedly not up to this point.

However, the high or low parameters do not represent the smoothness of daily use experience. In this era of general hardware surplus, providing a smooth experience is the real job of a thousand-yuan phone, and from this point of view, Konka R1 is qualified. In addition, Konka has done some things in the field of thousand-yuan phones that other brands have not done, such as the ultra-wide-angle front camera and the KK fast charge that claims to be able to fully charge in 70 minutes.

Judging from these and other aspects such as the body workmanship and packaging, Konka seems to be learning from OPPO and VIVO to take a path that ignores cost-effectiveness, but it seems to be lacking in brand positioning and market awareness.

If you want to put aside the cost performance, you must undoubtedly create your own characteristics. Compared with other brands of thousand-yuan phones on the market, the R1 has some unique features, but they are not many. If Konka wants to get a share of the fierce thousand-yuan phone market, it needs to make persistent efforts.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.