LeTV, primarily a video content company from China that also makes its own TVs and more recently starting building smartphones as well, unveiled the Le Max Pro smartphone at CES with many technological “firsts” for 2016.
The Le Max Pro isn’t too different from LeTV’s previous Le Max smartphone. The company thought the existing design was good enough, and instead of going with a full redesign with the Le Max Pro, it put its energies into bringing new technologies to the fore.
These brand-new technologies include a Snapdragon 820 chip, Qualcomm’s next-generation processor, the ultrasonic Sense ID fingerprint reader (also from Qualcomm), multi-Gbps short-range 802.11ad connectivity, and 4 GB of fast LPDDR4 1866 Mhz RAM.
The Sense ID sensor promises to make fingerprint authentication more cloning-proof thanks to the “3D scanning” of the fingerprint. Although the Le Max Pro comes with the fingerprint reader on the back, just like the latest Nexus phones, LeTV said that in the future, the Sense ID reader may find itself behind the front glass. As Sense ID uses ultrasonic technology, it can read fingerprints through dirt, oils, glass and even metal.
If all of these technological firsts weren’t enough, the Le Max Pro will also ship with UFS 2.0 flash storage, which is currently the fastest mobile storage standard available and promises speeds significantly higher than the latest eMMC standard. Samsung also used it last year in the Galaxy S6. The options include 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB of UFS 2.0 internal storage. The phone doesn’t come with a microSD slot, though.
The device is quite large, with a 6.33” display, although it’s one of the most compact devices out there, featuring a high glass-to-body ratio, giving the phone an “edge to edge” look. The side bezels are almost non-existent, and the top and bottom bezels are quite slim as well. The display has a resolution of 2560x1440, which seems to be standard in large, high-end smartphones these days.
The Le Max Pro also comes with a 21MP camera on the back, with Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF), an “UltraPixel” 2.0um camera on the front, a USB Type-C connector, and Cat 12/13 LTE, which is integrated into the Snapdragon 820 chip.
The device has a relatively large battery of 3,400 mAh, although it’s probably a little smaller than what you’d expect on a 6.3” device. The smartphone will also support Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, IR, and MHL connectivity options. Dual-SIM is supported as well, but it’s not active, which means users will have to switch between the two SIMs themselves.
The LeTV Le Max Pro will arrive with Android 6.0 Marshmallow along with its EUI (eco user interface) on top, which integrates the company’s video streaming services into the operating system, making them easier to access.
LeTV hasn’t said when the device will be available exactly in the U.S. or elsewhere, nor did it mention at what price point it will be offered, but we should learn more about it in the coming months.
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware. You can follow him at @lucian_armasu.
