AliExpress S24 Ultra Smartphone Review

AliExpress S24 Ultra Smartphone Review
https://youtu.be/psUVFvAJvag

More Info and Purchase: https://www.aliexpress.com/p/wishlist/index.html

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Blog: https://marcoscucom.wordpress.com/2023/12/16/aliexpress-s24-ultra-smartphone/

I have bought quite a few items now from AliExpress, some good, some bad. I have seen the many listings there for what claim to be high-end smartphones at crazy low prices and wondered what you actually get for your money. Well, now I know. The same phone is available from a wide range of suppliers on AliExpress under different names and prices.

I ordered what was listed as an S24 Ultra 5G Android 13 Smartphone with a 6.82-inch screen, 16G of RAM and 512Gb of storage, all for just under £70. What a bargain!

After several weeks of waiting, finally it arrived, packaged in a plain but quite upmarket black box. Inside was the phone itself, a spare screen protector (one al was already fitted), a USB-C headset, a stylus pen, a USA fitting power adapter (I had ordered a UK one), a transparent gel phone case, a rest key, a short USB-C charging cable, and a simple generic user guide. The quality of the accessories was cheap, generic and low end, and the headset, when I tried it, had perhaps the worst sound quality I have ever encountered in a headset of that type. None of that bothered me too much as the phone itself did look good and seemed to be well made and rather 4eup market.

Then I switched it on or tried to. It took and still takes between thirty seconds and a minute to power up and get to the desktop. I installed some apps that would tell me about the internal hardware so I could see how much it differed from what was claimed.

My video shows screenshots of the DevCheck Pro app showing a detailed breakdown of the phone hardware, but here are some key features.

Operating System
Claimed. Android 13
Installed. Android 5
Screen
Claimed: 7”, 3200x2280
Installed 5.48”, 1600 x 720
RAM
Claimed: 16GB
Installed 1GB
Storage
Claimed: 512GB
Installed: 5.1GB
NFC
Claimed: Yes
Installed: No
Wifi
Claimed: Dual Band
Installed: 2.4Ghz only
Phone
Claimed: GSM, 4G, 5G
Installed: GSM
GPS
Claimed: Yes
Installed: Yes
Cameras
Claimed: 48MP/72MP
Installed: 1.9MP/1.9MP
Battery
Claimed: 8800mAh
Installed: 7000mAh

There is GPS - sort of - but the claimed fingerprint recognition and NFC are missing. It also claims to support 5G calls but this I doubt. The built in software information says it supports 5G but since this is incorrect and innaccurate regarding other specifications, I suspect this too has been spoofed.

The phone is so slow as to be almost unusable and the operation system is so old that most modern apps including YouTube and Facebook will not even install. In my tests the maximum video resolution I could get from it was 720p@20fps and the maximum image size was 1600 x 1200.

The good things about it are the presentation, build quality and the screen, which is actually quite nice.

So there it is.

My advice would be to stay well clear of cheap phones on AliExpress or other similar websites. I knew, of course, I would not be getting what I paid for but I did not expect it to be quite so bad as this, and I did at least expect some sort of a functioning phone for the money.

Music: YouTube Audio Library: Blue Mood - Robert Munzinger