iLa Silk REVIEW: New Chinese Brand with Really Good Budget Phone

Not long ago, another Chinese company called iLa appeared on international smartphone market. Not many people know about this company yet, but perhaps you will hear more often about them.

iLa Silk is the second smartphone that was released under iLa brand. It is radically different from the first model. I think the first model iLa X was not the most successful device. New phone iLa Silk has very stylish design and more interesting features, compared to previous generation. So, let’s make review of new phone, and decide – should you buy this phone or not.

iLa Silk Specification:

• Operating System: Android 8.1
• Processor: 8-core, Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 1.4 GHz
• Memory: 4GB RAM + 64GB ROM
• SIM cards: support for two sim cards
• Networks: 2G: GSM B2 / B3 / B5 / B8; 3G: WCDMA b1 / b2 / b5 / b8; 4G: FDD-LTE B1 / B2 / B3 / B5 / B7 / B8 / B20; TDD-LTE B38 / B39 / B40 / B41
• Display: 5.7″ IPS with HD + resolution (1440 * 720) with a ratio of 18:9
• Front Camera: 16 MP
• The main chamber: 13 MP + 2 MP
• Battery: 3000 mAh
• Connectors: Micro USB, 3.5 mm (audio), slot for microSD
• GPS: yes

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iLa Silk: Unboxing

Starting from the package, iLa company tries to attract attention of user. It is completely velvet box with embroidery roses Rosgburg on the front side. As you know, many phone manufacturers don’t think about package, and use regular white cardboard box. However, iLa try to popularize the ancient Chinese traditional craft of embroidery. The manufacturer even claims that this is the manual work! But I don’t really believe in this. In general, the package is very attractive.

Among available accessories are MicroUSB cable, power adapter, user manual, branded silicone case, protective film, a clip for SIM cards.

iLa Silk: Design

The body of smartphone is completely made of plastic. The glossy back panel leaves fingerprints. Thanks to full-screen design, it feels like a smartphone with 5.2 inch diagonal. In general, the back cover of iLa Silk is is very similar to ZTE Blade V9. By the way, there is built-in headphone jack!

iLa Silk has good built-quality. It doesn’t leave scratches and other damage during our review. The smartphone is available in three colors: black, blue, gold.

On the front panel you can see 5.7-inch display, camera, earpiece, sensors and LED notification. There is already factory film on the display.

On the backside there is a flash, main dual camera and  fingerprint reader.

The scanner is located in a convenient place. It works almost perfectly, very quickly and without mistakes recognizes the fingers. In general, finerprint reader is much more convenient and unlocked faster than by pressing the power button and swipe on the display.

On the right side there is a power button and a volume rocker. The left side has only SIM card slot. It is hybrid, which means you can use either two SIM cards or one SIM card and one memory card.

The upper edge of the phone is completely empty, and on the lower edge is located 3.5 mm audio connector, MicroUSB port, a talking microphone and speaker. The external speaker is not even bad, but I did not have enough volume, in my opinion it plays quietly.

iLa Silk: Battery

The battery of iLa Silk has a capacity of 3000 mAh. My USB tester shows a maximum capacity of 2975 mAh. The battery is discharged evenly, there are no dips or jumps. When Wi-Fi is turned off, the battery does not practically discharge into standby mode.

When watching movies with 50% volume, 50% brightness, Wi-Fi turned off, the phone loses 15% per hour. When watching a video on YouTube with 50% brightness, the device loses 17% per hour.

iLa Silk: Display

iLa Silk equipped with 5.7-inch HD+ display with a resolution of 1440×720 pixels. It supports 10 points multi-touch.

Despite the modest resolution, the image on the phone is clear. The screen at any angle does not distort the color. Also it has excellent color rendition, saturation and brightness margin.

I cannot call the smartphone a bezel-less, no matter how much the Chinese like this word. Of course, there are bezels on sides, but they are very thin.

iLa Silk: Connectivity

iLa Silk supports all available network generations: 2G, 3G, 4G. I tested GPS in the center of my city, and it recognized my location instantly.

iLa Silk: User interface

Out of the box, the smartphone runs on Android 8.1 Oreo. From my first unboxing, 2 updates have already arrived “by air”. They should fix some minor bugs in software, but the main purpose of these updates was to improve the cameras, which I’ll talk about a little later.

iLa Silk runs on stock Android, and it is a big advantage. Everything works smoothly, animation without friezes.

The on-screen buttons can be hidden if necessary. Out of the box, all Google services are installed. Also there is FM radio. In general, there is really nothing to tell about the operating system itself, since it is stock Android. During my using iLa Silk (3 weeks), I didn’t find any viruses or problems.

By the way, the smartphone supports OTG.

iLa Silk: Hardware

iLa Silk is powered by 8-core processor Snapdragon 430 from Qualcomm with a frequency of 1.4 GHz. The smartphone has 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal memory.

For the test, I launched some popular games. Asphalt 8 started without any problems on the maximum settings, WoT Blitz has stable 60 FPS on the average graphics settings, but Into the Dead 2 could run good only with low graphics settings.

As for the sensors, iLa Silk doesn’t have any problems, everything work stably.

The settings menu provides adaptive brightness control, and when the phone is pushed to your ear during a call, the display will be locked.

My phone iLa Silk scores 59599 points in AnTuTu.

iLa Silk: Camera

The main camera has two sensors: 13 + 2 MP. The dual camera is really dual. Thanks to the processor from Qualcomm, it’s not just a second camera “for a tick”. The smartphone uses special algorithms for processing photos with a blurred background. In good lighting conditions, the smartphone takes really good photos with background blur. In general, the camera of iLa Silk is decent.

In addition to “bokeh” mode, there is another interesting mode called UBI Focus. It allows to change the focus point on taken images.

The video is recoded in Full HD resolution. I really like the fact that autofocus works very fast and clearly when shooting video.

The front camera of iLa Silk has 16 MP sensor, and it is very good. The selfie photos are clear, and they have excellent quality. Moreover, the front camera has wide viewing angle.

In general, the cameras are not very surprised, and it is really good. I did not expect high quality from an unknown brand.

Conclusion

Summing up, I would like to say that iLA Silk is very good budget phone. You may say that $160 is too much for unknown brand, and it is better to buy Xiaomi device with the same processor. However, don’t forget that this phone has 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal memory. Also there is good dual camera. So the price is really good for this phone.

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iLA Silk Video Review

Source: gizchina