The pachyderm punch: El Reg takes just-over-a-ton Elephone P8000 to tusk

SoC it to me

I could find nothing to criticise about the P8000’s 64-bit MediaTek MT6753 SoC which combines a Mali T760 graphics chip with eight Cortex-A53 cores, all capable of running at up to 1.3GHz. With 3GB of RAM the system has more than sufficient grunt to keep everything running smoothly, no matter what "everything" entails.

MediaTek SoC delivers solid benchmark scores. P8000 is a little short on sensors though

Running the usual AnTuTu and 3DMark bench tests the P8000 gave a good account of itself. Scores of 34,200 and 4,396 (for Ice Storm Extreme) respectively are not to be sniffed at. In a more practical test, the P8000 ran Gameloft's NOVA 3 and EA's Real Racing 3 perfectly. There was no excessive heat generated under heavy gaming load either.

The 5.5-inch, 401dpi display is an IPS affair. It’s not the best IPS screen I’ve ever laid eyes on but nor is it the worst. Brightness, colour saturation, contrast, viewing angles; all are more than acceptable if not class leading. One word of warning, it’s not covered in Gorilla Glass or anything like it, so a screen protector (Elephone bundle two in the box) is a must.

P8000 shown here with supplied screen protector over, and El Reg on, 5.5-inch display. Both essential. Circular bright blue LED acts as notification light

Elephone has opted for a brace of Samsung-made cameras for the P8000, 13MP on the back and 5MP up front. Neither will win any awards for optical excellence but they both take a solid image and work quickly. The main camera can record video at 1080p and 30fps, the front at 720p. The flash is plenty bright enough too.

The large grille at the bottom of the back panel suggests a big speaker. Maybe even two. It flatters to deceive. The single speaker looks much like that fitted to my trusty Samsung Galaxy S5 and sounds like it too; competent but uninspiring.

Elephone's launcher is a lot like Hola. Fingerprint scanner works, app permissions should be part of stock Android

On the back you'll find a fingerprint sensor that you can use to secure your P8000. Setting the scanner up takes a good few minutes but once done it worked pretty reliably. Ten unlocks tried in a row resulted in eight first time successes.