Smartphones have been struggling to discover newer ways of wooing buyers and it my conjecture that the sales graphs now depend not on the premium buyer but to a segment that yearns for music and movies. Not that music was never the feature that buyers wanted but if you see the proliferation of photography groups on the social media, it has been apparent in the past months that everyone wanted to click pictures to remain in the ephemeral news bits. Everyone was clicking and, therefore, everyone wanted a reasonably good camera phone.
Yes, cameras touting a great megapixel and features to click the best time-lapse or panorama or a structured portrait had fast given way to terms like selfie panorama, slow motion, and capability to click clear low light pictures. These have fast become the norm and smartphones without the ability to help a consumer show-off with pictures that have taken the help of these camera functions are anyway not preferred. But the mass consumer is like Elizabeth from Pygmalion who switches back to her primal instincts once a few basics have been met. This primal instinct is for better audio.
Most expensive smartphones do have an audio that is good any day… but this wasn’t the case with the cheaper versions that have been proliferating the Indian smartphone market. The buyers of less expensive smartphones were left high and dry with an audio that wasn’t worth even the pittance they seemed to be paying for such devices.
LeEco has recently introduced a new digital architecture in their CDLA technology that they will have us believe, enables end-to-end lossless digital music transmission. Thus the world’s first continual digital lossless audio standard has been incorporated in the new launches from LeEco – the two Superphones Le 2 and Le Max 2 are all set to redefine the smart phone audio technology world. The company wants us to believe their word that the existing Hi-Fi audio capability and the other with the CDLA technology are quite different. The difference, they claim, is unparalleled and the music experience from the device with CDLA technology is premium and seamless. LeEco has also unveiled the world’s ?rst Type-C CDLA Earphones which consumers can get access to at a competitive price.
Let me also mention here that the Le 2 comes with a standard combination of 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM and is powered by the Octa-Core Qualcomm ® Snapdragon TM 652. This smartphone has a 16MP rear camera and 8MP front camera. Clicking clear pictures is obviously not over-looked in this device though I must mention that I am writing all this only on hearsay and will wait for the smartphones to reach me. Only after using such a device can anyone say with conviction that the camera output is as good as it is claimed to be. This device also mentions it has an in-cell display that allows the device to have its external trim looks. The phone, importantly, does not lack in any of the newer connectivity protocols and has, in addition to 3G, LTE and GSM, a reasonable support for all 4G bands in India and also will have VoLTE very soon over an OTA.
The second generation of Le Max, which is Le Max2, is also powered by a Qualcomm ® Snapdragon TM 820, has a combination of 4GB RAM + 32GB on board memory or 6GB RAM + 64GB on-board memory. What surprised me most during the launch of these phones is the brazen way the features were compared to industry leaders like the Galaxy devices from Samsung and the iPhones from Apple. I use an iPhone and can give a decent comparison only once the devices are with me… until then, I can only give a wry smile and say, ‘You are confident, Le Eco, but claiming a 40% faster performance than most competitors’ models can put you on a slippery turf as the overall long-term performance of any device depends on a lot more factors and parameters than just RAM.’ Having said this, I must mention that the Le Max2 has a 5.7 inch 2K Super Retina Display that the company claims to be the best display for VR equipment. This smartphone has a 21MP rear camera with a F2.0 aperture with OIS for blur free images even in low light, and a front camera with 8MP for the selfie fanatics. The company big shots threw in a lot of impressive technology jargon like 6P lens, PDAF, Closed Loop, OIS, Dual HDR and Dual-tone flash that have been included in the devices. This model comes with a dual-band and dual-antenna, which means Le Max2’s Wi-Fi speeds are much 4 times faster than most of its competitors, who are on the Wi-Fi 2.4G band and twice as fast as those on the Wi-Fi 5G band.
LeEco, formerly known as Letv, was founded in November 2004 by Jia Yueting and Liu Hong, and is the world’s first video company to go public with a market capitalization of more than $12 billion USD. Headquartered in Beijing, China, it has regional headquarters in Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley and is attempting to reach out to the tech-crazy population on buzzwords like ‘Ground-breaking technologies and Disruptive Pricing’… and to my mind this seems like a fair ploy. The Le 2, with a price of Rs 11,999 and the Le Max2, with a price tag of Rs 22,999 with the 6GB+64GB version at a price of Rs 29,000 also includes a one-year membership. The devices are available on Flipkart as well as their own ecommerce venture LeMall dot com. The company spokesperson helpfully informed me that ‘LeMall is an important step in establishing LeEco’s foot print in India. It will serve as the primary channel for customers to engage with LeEco and become a part of the ecosystem through the products and services.’ But frankly, I am not so upbeat about this entire strategy. Will write more on the advent of online ecommerce sites in another article another time…
What must be mentioned here is that low priced smartphones are poised to take sales graphs on an upwards trend and the emphasis on music and movies is surely a strategic thought that is worth some attention. This focus on CDLA gives LeEco some sort of a unique USP and gives our lower middle class and the cash-strapped youth more reasons to walk around with their earphones or headphones glued to their ears. However, smartphones are not about passivity anymore… and even these consumers will soon feel the need for more. The way #2Future is still far away…
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Is audio going to be the new buzzword? LeEco launch in Delhi
LeEco devices have economy
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Arvind Passey
09 June 2016
