OUKITEL K10000 Max Review: Rugged Looks & A High-Capacity Battery
The perfect companion for the adventurous type.
OUKITEL is one of those companies that, unless you live in China or one of the few other areas that its devices are possibly sold, you wouldn't know it existed. While the company's devices are not necessarily well-known to the majority of consumers worldwide, nor is the brand, OUKITEL actually releases quite a few Android devices to market, spanning a wide range of tastes for consumers and offering up phones with plenty of features. One of its more recent offerings is the OUKITEL K10000 Max, which we've had time to check out over the past week or so. Let's take a closer look at the phone to see how it compares to other OUKITEL devices and how the phone stacks up overall.
Specs
When it comes to the specifications here, there are a good few that stand out from the pack that make this a device seem like a worthy phone on paper, though right off the bat this is not a device you'll want to consider if you need something for a daily use phone in the U.S. because it will not support U.S. networks. Beyond that, the OUKITEL K10000 Max is equipped with a 5.5-inch FHD display which may lead you to think that this phone is on the smaller side, but on the contrary it's actually quite large. The display is not the phone's main focal point though. It's biggest and baddest attributes are the battery with a 10,000mAh capacity, and its capability to be H2O submersible, a fact that OUKITEL is so keen on highlighting that it made sure to stamp it onto the back of the phone. This ability is thanks to the IP68 rating, making it dust and waterproof. It's also shockproof, so you shouldn't have any worries about dropping the device.
Moving on the phone also comes with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, and it supports expandable storage if you have a MicroSD card. It's powered by a MediaTek MT6753 octa-core processor, so it doesn't exactly chug along and feels really anything but sluggish, which is a good thing if you want a phone that runs well without much lag. Camera-wise the K10000 Max comes with a 16-megapixel main camera on the back and an 8-megapixel secondary camera on the front for selfies and video chat. Though the phone doesn't work in the U.S. it does support dual Nano SIM so you can use it with two different numbers if need be. Lastly, it has a fingerprint sensor on the back for unlocking the device, and the software inside is Android 7.0 Nougat, so it's a bit behind but not by much.
In The Box
While some phones don't come with much in the package the K10000 Max is not one of those phones. Inside once you open the box up you'll find the phone on top, and underneath it you'll find the wall adapter, the charging cable which is USB Type-C, an OTG cable, and you get a free screen protector if you like putting those on.
Hardware & Design
The looks of this phone scream rugged, so if a rugged device is what you're looking for than the K10000 Max is just the phone for you because it doesn't just look the part as it was built specifically with the ability to be rugged in mind. Style-wise, it's not the most stylish phone out on the market, but then again the rugged ones never really are. That said it does hold up well as it comes with a really nice build quality to it and it doesn't feel like it's fragile so you won't have to worry about ever dropping it. Naturally you'll want to try and avoid dropping it if you can, but in the event of an accident the phone should be perfectly fine.
For the hardware build material OUKITEL has used a grippy yet tough plastic exterior for the phone's body, and this is what will allow it to accept the shock from drops. You'll find the volume buttons on the right side as well as a dedicated camera button at the bottom of the right side, which you'll need to hold down for a second or two before it activates. On the left side you'll have the power button adjacent to the camera button, and on the bottom and top you'll find the charging and 3.5mm ports respectively, sitting neatly behind seals to help with the water resistance. On the back, the camera is in the top left corner, with a giant LED light bar across the top edge, and the single speaker in the bottom left corner. Overall, the design is not something you'd choose if you're in the market for the most sleek-looking phone, but if you're more concerned with function than form you shouldn't be disappointed.
Performance
As briefly mentioned above when talking about the processor from MediaTek the K10000 Max is a decent performer. It had no problem whatsoever multitasking during the time spent with it as we routinely used it to browse the web, scroll through social feeds, and watch videos or listen to music in the background and left everything open allowing us to switch back and forth between apps effortlessly. We also tested the phone by playing some games with it and for this purpose we used Arena Of Valor, a popular MOBA game coming from Tencent which has some pretty decent graphics and fast-paced gameplay with nice special effects. During gameplay there was actually a tiny bit of lag but for the most part it wasn't too noticeable so if you're a mobile gamer the phone will work just fine for this purpose.
Display
The display is Full HD so it shouldn't be expected to look terrible by any means and it certainly doesn't. Unless you absolutely despise anything below Quad HD at this point, the clarity and sharpness of picture and graphics on the display of the K10000 Max are actually pretty good. The brightness of the screen comes through nicely without having to crank things all the way up, colors are nice and vivid without being too over saturated, and of course one of the most important factors is that the screen responds well to the touch of our fingers which means OUKITEL used a nice digitzer here, something that isn't always the case with some of the phones on the lower end of the market. The short of it, this is a nice display that performs its tasks and does them well, and even outside with plenty of sun it didn't get too much glare, though if it did you could simply turn up the brightness and be just fine.
Benchmarks
Like with all phones we ran this device through a few different benchmarks to see how things ran on paper, and although you'll get a more accurate idea of how the device performs if you actually use it, benchmarks do serve their purpose to lay some groundwork in showing you what performance might be like. To do this we ran the phone through Geekbench 4, AnTuTu, and 3DMark for the graphics, and you can see the results from those tests in the gallery of screenshots below.
Battery Life
Talking about the battery life seems almost laughable because of how ridiculously high the battery's capacity is, but OUKITEL is known for putting batteries with a high capacity in its phones so this is nothing new for this company. As the name suggests it comes with a battery that has a 10,000mAh capacity and when it comes to battery life OUKITEL has squeezed the battery life of a tablet and then some into the size of a smartphone. This thing will last you for days on end with normal use and you won't have to worry about charging it. On average the phone would run for around 19 to 20 hours before nearly running out, and unless you're constantly planning to use it for around 20 hours continuously then chances are you won't be charging it for at least two days, especially considering that much of the time throughout the day the phone's display might be off. If battery life is your main concern, definitely get this phone.
Sound
There is only one speaker so I wasn't expecting anything spectacular in terms of sound, and while I wasn't too disappointed I wasn't blown away either. The audio quality on the K10000 Max is just ok, providing just enough output to suffice for streaming videos and games at a comfortable level and still being able to hear everything pretty clear, but the moment you need to turn the volume up a little bit more the sound starts to become just a tiny bit distorted and tinny and if you're big on audio you'll notice. If you're not too worried about the sound then the quality is likely just fine. Overall the sound on the phone is decent enough and shouldn't be something that you back away from the device because of unless you want the absolute best sound smartphones can offer.
Phone Calls & Network
Like many devices that come out of China and other international markets, this device was not built for U.S. networks so it cannot be used in the U.S. for voice calls over cellular. You can however use it for calls over Wi-Fi through apps like messenger, Hangouts, or even Duo, which came preinstalled by the way, and when doing this the sound quality of calling was fine according to what we were told. So if you're using this in a region where it is supported then you should have no issues. As far as the networks it supports, you can find the frequencies down below.
2G: 1800, 1900, 850, 900
3G: 2100, 900
4G FDD LTE: Bands 1, 20, 3, 7, and 8
Fingerprint Sensor
The fingerprint sensor is a bit of a mixed bag. While it does work and it works pretty well in terms of recognizing the fingerprint that you record just about every time without an issue, there were a few instances where it had trouble picking things up and I had to tap it a second or third time. This didn't happen very often so it is mostly a non-issue but something to look out for. As for speed, it's not the quickest but it opens up at a reasonable speed for being useful (usually), and the main thing is that it functions well. The one downside really is that the size of the phone sometimes makes this fingerprint sensor hard to touch, so if you're someone with smaller hands you might have trouble with this.
Software
This looks like pretty much stock Android software so you wouldn't be able to tell the difference just by looking at it or by sticking to the normal menus. Once you travel over to the settings though, you'll see a few options that aren't available in stock Android devices, such as the gesture wake option, the gesture motion option, and the DuraSpeed. Gesture motion will allow you to take screenshots, enter the camera, and adjust the volume all by swiping two or three fingers at the same time. You'll swipe three fingers down for a screenshot, three fingers up for entering the camera, and two fingers up or down to adjust the volume.
As for the gesture wake the name should be pretty self explanatory. With this option you can launch apps or functions from the lock screen by drawing gestures on the display in the sleep state, which will wake the display and then launch the corresponding action. This comes in really useful if you want to go straight to a certain app or game the moment the screen unlocks, and there are a good few of the gestures so you can set up more than just a couple of apps for this. Other than those particular traits there's not much else that's different that you won't find in an AOSP build of software, which many people are likely to be familiar with. The software is easy to get used to and it works well without being buggy, so it's a nice experience with this device which hasn't been the same for every OUKITEL phone we've ever used.
Camera
Every phone has to make a compromise somewhere and for the OUKITEL K10000 Max that somewhere is the camera. While pictures taken are not too bad if you have the right lighting, the moment you lose even a little bit of good lighting the picture quality starts to drop more significantly than you would expect. If you're not planning on taking a lot of photos then you may not find this to be an issue, but it's something to consider. Overall though it's worth reiterating that the picture quality is ok.
Where the camera felt more lacking was in the amount of options it offers to users. There are almost none when it comes to extras or features. You have a standard photo mode, a standard video recording mode, and a panorama mode, and that's basically it aside from a list of filters you can apply to the photos before you take them. This is a completely bare bones experience for the camera and it leaves a lot to be desired, and if a good smartphone camera is something you want, you should probably look elsewhere as the experience with the K10000 Max is a little bland.
The Good
Extremely high-capacity battery
Rugged build
IP68 Rating
Fingerprint sensor recognizes recorded fingerprints nicely
Water, dust, shock proof
Decent performance
Decent display
Picture quality is ok
The Bad
Lackluster camera experience due to almost no options or extra features
No NFC
Doesn't work with U.S. networks
Fingerprint sensor can be a bit slow to unlock sometimes
Wrap Up
There are reasons why the OUKITEL K10000 Max is a decent phone and reasons why it's a not so decent phone. The obvious reasons why you might want a device like this are the battery and rugged design, meaning you'd rarely ever have to worry about damaging it from drops or dings and you won't have to charge it at the end of every day. On the other hand it doesn't have the best sound quality or the best camera experience. That said it is also a phone which only costs about $250 USD which isn't a whole lot considering all the other specs and the fact that it does function well as a smartphone overall in most areas.
Should you buy the OUKITEL K10000 Max?
If you need exceedingly long battery life, or a rugged phone that you can dunk under water, or both, then this is the phone for you, so long as you don't need to use it in the U.S. as it will not work here for cellular service. This also wouldn't be a bad choice for someone who is primarily thinking of using the phone internationally if it supports the above-listed network frequencies.
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