Just in case you are concerned that your current 5 inch smart phone screen is not big enough, don’t worry because now there is the Hisense’s X1. The X1 is a 6.8-inch Android smartphone first introduced at this year’s CES. Hisense isn’t calling it a phablet, but we think it qualifies for that designation just on the basis of screen size,
The X1, which is slated to launch in China before the US, comes outfitted with what we’d expect from a high-end smartphone: Snapdragon 800, 13-megapixel camera, 1080p IPS display, 3,900mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat. So the performance and shine are there, but its dimensions stop it just short of being practical in daily use.
With Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 powering the X1, the overall user experience zips along smoothly and briskly. There’s hardly any hesitation when effecting input actions, accessing the app drawer or launching applications. And viewing angles are also excellent, owing to that IPS display. The X1’s also runsa light skin atop Android, but it’s not so cluttered as to make the phone confusing and nearly unusable a la Samsung’s TouchWiz. Though the X1 model at CES was on running 4.3 Jelly Bean, Hisense says it will ship with KitKat onboard.
Inside the case comes outfitted with what we’d expect from a high-end smartphone: Snapdragon 800, 13-megapixel camera, 1080p IPS display, 3,900mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat. So the performance and shine are there, but its dimensions stop it just short of being practical in daily use.
Hisense is currently aiming for a late Q2 launch for the US market and will release the X1 under the Sliver brand, but that’s primarily for unlocked availability. The company is apparently also in talks with two US operators, so we could eventually see a subsidized model hit the states sometime soon. The only other thing you need to know about the X1 is that it’s not LTE-capable; it’s HSPA+ only. Hisense does have an LTE-capable model for the US market, the X3, but it wasn’t available at the company’s booth.
