MLAIS M9 Review
—————————-
Where purchased: gearbest.com
Price paid: $65 on promo. Currently on $84.99
Here is quite an extensive review on the MLAIS M9 Phone by Simon Hill of Digital Trend. I do not and will not claim to reinvent the wheel and perform and type again what has been said. I would strongly recommend you guys to have a look at the review.
What I will do however, is address some of the things not covered by the review.
Specs of the MLAIS M9 taken from the MAIS website.
OS: Androi OS, v4.4.2(KitKat)
CPU: MTK6592-1.4G MHz 8-core high-speed processing platform
MEMORY: 1GB RAM +8GB ROM
SIM CARD: Support Dual sims dual standby, Double Micro SIM
FREQUENCY: (BAND)(MHZ) WCDMA 850/2100/ GSM 850/900/1800/1900
NETWORK: 3G， EDGE， GPRS， EGSM ，WAP， WI-FI
SCREEN: 5” QHD OGS（960 x 540 pixels）*Claimedto be Gorilla Glass*
FRONT CAMERA: 5MP CAMERA
REAR CAMERA: 8MP CAMERA AF with True Flash LED ， F1.8
BATTERY: 2800mAh
CHARGE INPUT: 100-240V, OUTPUT: 5V-1000mA
SIZE: 146x71x7.5MM
SPEAKER: 3D box
Sensor: Light sensor , G-sensor , P-sensor, Gesture sensing
BLUETOOTH: BT4.0
GPS: GPS+AGPS Navigator
Language: English, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Italian, German, Dutch, French, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Russian, Arabic, Indonesian, Malay, Thai, Vietnamese, Hindi, Hebrew, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese.（It has updated 48 languages）
COLOR: white, black
Certification: CE/Rohs
Accessories: 1*USB cable, 1*multi-language user manual, 1* box, 1*charger , 1* screen protector
Here are a list of pros and cons from the above review.
—————————————————————————————-
Highs
Good performance
Decent battery life
No bloatware
Stylish design
Low price
Lows
No notification LED light
Questionable camera performance
Inconsistent quality
Aftercare concerns
Additional features/issues mentioned in review but not accounted for in the summary of pros and cons.
Additional Pros:
Powerful ledlight (Of course, this will be great to use as flashlight)
Quick charging - 25% charge in 30 minutes.
Good outdoor pics (note: No image stabilisation though)
Good call quality even in areas of poor reception
MicroSD upto 64GB
Almost stock android experience
Additional Cons:
Poor low light camera performance.
Flaky GPS. (Author reported using only GPS freezes the unit)
Relative Issues:
No 4G support (Not like this is an issue if you are buying the phone as the specs are well advertised)
Stock browser is laggy (Just uninstall the damn thing!)
No preinstalled GAPPS (gmail, youtube, map) - All could be properly installed though.
My first impressions:
————————————-
PROS:
Wow that thing is lightweight. Makes my redmi 1s appear like a brick.
The screen is lovely even if its QHD. Very good brightness I can barely differentiate with the redmi 1s 1280*720 screen.
Extremely responsive UI.
Build quality is excellent in my sample.
Came with a plastic screen protector and back cover protector.
SO SO:
There was a small speck of dirt under the plastic protection.
My real life use of the device:
———————————————-
- GPS was perfect once it locked up. Took 4 minutes first time and 30 seconds the 2nd time. If you have poor GPS reception, read below for a fix.
- Battery life is good but not excellent. DU battery saver reported 21 hours of use vs 35 for the xiaomi. It is my 3rd charge though and the figures are increasing. It was initially 18 hours. It definetely is not 2200 MAH more like 1800 imo.
- Phone does not heat/overheat unlike my xiaomi.
*- *Little bloatware. Only one garbage ‘sammy app’
- Wifi worked flawlessly especially when downloading apps from the play store unlike the Redmi 1s.
- Extremely bright screen even with brightness tuned down to zero. Had to install a screen dimmer to use at night.
*- *The stock launcher had dissapearing icons issues when apps were moved to phone memory after rooting. A fix would be to install a new launcher. The stock one is more than enough for average/non-rooting users.
- Keeps showing an error on boot about sim card not found if only one sim card installed.
- Extremely loud boot up sound. PUT MOBILE IN SILENT BEFORE REBOOTING AT NIGHT!
- The phone memory partiotining is a mess….Why on earth partition it into a system and internal memory. What a headache. I will try partioning a SD CARD and see how the phone reacts.
- Not the sharpest of camera images with much grain and noise even in good lighting conditions.
A video on the medium setting was somewhat ‘soft’
- It is non rooted. See below how to root.
I would like to add that this phone comes with Gorilla Glass, Dual Sim and is currently on promo for about $88 onGearbest. Even less than the $110 advertised. The phone is also NON-ROOTED.
What are the POTENTIAL issues that can be addressed and be fixed by the user?
————————————————————————————————————
GPS hanging: Install the MT EPO GPS FIX (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.chxdev.mtgps)
Poor stock browser: Install any browser of your choice on the play store
Google apps missing: All can be installed and will work fine
No notification led light: An application like DU Battery Saver will help you know the charge of your mobile.
Non-rooted: Can be rooted using ‘KinGO Root’ (Kingo Android Root - the most reliable free Android rooting tool) with PC + USB cable or use an android app (forgot the name. Ill update later its much easier)
What more could I have wanted in this device at this price point?
Well, honestly, for this price, not much besides maybe a 1280 * 720 screen but then again, you would probably have to give up on faster performance, slightly better battery life and maybe the price would have been hiked up a few dollars.
PS: This is a non sponsored review and I paid for my unit. IF it was sponsored, I would have added screen shots comparison, videos and more 
I also bought 3 more of it and is considering to buy yet 2 more.