MIX

Specifications

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of the device, and what it’s like to live with it as your day-to-day phone, it’s worthwhile talking about what’s under the hood. The Doogee Mix packs the following:

• 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display
• Helio P25 Octa-Core 2.5GHz
• 64GB storage (expandable with a MicroSD card)
• 4/6GB LPDDR4x
• Android 7.0
• Dual rear-facing cameras (16MP main camera, with a 8MP secondary camera)
• 5MP front-facing camera
• Fingerprint reader (which also doubles as a back button)
• Dual-sim support

It comes with an all-metal unibody design (which, I add, is a magnet for fingerprints). Charging is done through the phone’s MicroUSB port. Alas, Doogee seems to have missed the memo on USB-C.

All about the screen

The Doogee Mix’s unique selling point is its screen, which is as close to being completely borderless as you’ll get in a device at its price point. The screen measures 5.5-inches, while the bezels measure roughly 1mm. This gives it a screen-to-body ratio of 93-percent.

That said, bezelless-screen is only worthwhile if it’s any good. Personally, I found it to be a mixed bag. It’s gorgeously bright, and is eminently readable in bright weather.

Unlike many phones of its stable, colors simply popped — they weren’t dull, although you wouldn’t know that from the photos. Feel free to blame the turgid, perennially-overcast British climate.

The biggest downside is that it’s pretty low-resolution — at 720 x 1270, it’s not even full HD. At the price you’re paying, you should expect 1080p goodness, and the step-down is eminently obvious.

Software and performance

Unlike a lot of its Chinese stablemates, the Doogee Mix ships with a recent version of Android. It runs Android 7.0 Nougat, and mercifully little has been done to modify it.

There’s also a little floating widget, which lets you put the phone in all sorts of different modes. Read Mode keeps the screen on at all times, for example, while Game Mode disables the menu and back key, in order to prevent you from inadvertently bailing from what you’re playing.

The workhorse powering the Doogee Mix is the Helio P25 — which boasts eight cores. The processor in the Mix comes clocked at a respectable 2.5Ghz. Backing this up is yesteryear’s Mali T880 GPU.

The review model sent to me comes with 4GB of RAM, although as previously mentioned, Doogee sells a 6GB variant.

It handled the day-to-day stuff admirably. As someone who ‘hoards’ (for lack of a better word) tabs and open apps, it was able to cope with my profligate phone habits without breaking a sweat.

I’m not much of a mobile gamer, but I did try it out with some games — like the awesome aquatic racing game, Riptide GP2 — and there were scant signs of slowdown or lag. It was all very smooth.

Camera

Usually, in phones at the Doogee Mix’s price point, the camera is just serviceable. Not awful, but not amazing either. They’re okay for blurry concert photos, or Instagrammed snaps of your dinner. Anything more, and you’d better spend more.

The Doogee Mix’s setup is different. It’s weirdly decent, and packs two rear-facing cameras; a main 16MP camera, plus an 8PM assistant camera. These use a Samsung’s ISOCELL CMOS sensors, which first emerged in 2013 with the launch of the Galaxy S5, and are designed to perform well in low-light conditions.

I was impressed. Photos were bright and didn’t feel particularly saturated, and I got some lovely depth-of-field when taking close-ups.

The placement of the camera posed further problems, as it’s easily obscured by the palm of your hand, as you grip the device. To avoid that, you have to shift your grip further up the device, which feels a bit awkward and unnatural.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly fine camera. Snapchatters and video-callers won’t be disappointed, but it’s certainly something to be wary of.

Final thoughts

It runs a contemporary version of Android with scarcely-any tweaks, and has enough ‘oomph’ to handle whatever you throw at it. And the camera is pretty solid too — certainly above-and-beyond what you should expect at that price range.

And — perhaps a rarity for budget phones — it looks really good.

Even if you don’t buy the Mix, you should pay attention. This device is indicative of the fact that bezelless screens are soon to become the norm, and will be available at almost every price tag.

If you’re truly desperate for a bezelless phone, the Mix absolutely fits the description, and it does it at an unfathomably low price point.