The best affordable 18:9 Phone – Doogee Mix 2 Review

This year we got to see some impressive budget friendly phones from China and the Doogee Mix 2 is no exception. With a price tag of about $200, the Mix 2 offers some unprecedented value in the budget conscious market.

Earlier this year we had the original Doogee Mix and that was among the first bezel-less phone but it didn’t feel like a premium phone. It was bulky and had a very cartoonish user interface.

The new Doogee Mix 2 keeps the wow effect from the original Mix but it adds a more premium and sophisticated feel to it.

It has a 5.99″ 18:9 1080P display that is just gorgeous; probably one of the best i have ever seen on a budget friendly phone from China. Not only it’s super sharp, it’s also very bright and with super vibrant colours.

I feel that i don’t have enough words to describe how nice the screen is and the pictures posted don’t do the screen justice.

Build Quality

Like a lot of phones these days the Doogee Mix 2 has glass on the front and glass on the back and a metallic frame that keeps everything together.

On the back of the phone there are two cameras and a fingerprint scanner with the fingerprint scanner being placed in a easy to reach spot.

The camera setup is composed of a 13MP & 16MP sensor and once again it gives the phone a more imposing look.

The fingerprint scanner is accurate 99% of the time but it’s not the quickest out there. It takes about half a second from the time you press the fingerprint scanner for the screen to unlock. It may not seem like a long time but if you used a flagship device in the past you will definitely feel that half a second wait.

The frame is somewhat thicker than most flagships and the phone feels a bit heavy weighting about 217 grams.

If you manage to keep it clean it looks great but that isn’t an easy task and every single fingerprint smudge will show up. Luckily there is a plastic case that comes with the phone and it will help you protect your investment.

The power button and the volume keys are located on the right hand side of the phone and they are placed in a easy to reach spot.

The Doogee Mix 2 doesn’t have a 3.5mm headphone jack anymore but there is an adapter that comes in the box. I am not a big fan if adapters but you could easily skip that and just use some bluetooth headphones.

At the bottom of the metallic frame there is a USB C port, the microphone and one speaker. The speaker gets somewhat loud but it’s not the greatest speaker out there and it sounds a bit distorted at the maximum volume.

The phone support OTG but it doesn’t seem to support fast charging. With that being said it takes about 3 hours to fully charge it from 0 to 100.

Luckily the phone gets great battery life from the non-removable 4060mAh battery inside and you won’t have to charge it very often. It will give you about 24h in between charges and about 10h of Screen on time and in my opinion that is pretty good.

You can find the Doogee Mix 2 at the following retailers:

Banggood: http://bit.ly/2hPGaqD

Aliexpress: http://geni.us/STkkE

Specs and Performance

The Doogee Mix 2 is powered by the Octa-core Helio P25 CPU that’s clocked at 2.5Ghz and paired with 6GB Ram, 64GB of internal Storage and Android 7.1.

Out of that 64GB of internal storage there are about 54GB left after the operating software but that can be easily expanded with an SD card. The phone can take either 2 sim cards or a sim card and an SD card.

The UI has changed dramatically since the original Doogee Mix and it looks and feels great. In a way it reminds of the UI found on the latest Samsung devices and this is definitely a step forward for the company.

Scrolling in between screens, opening apps and switching between apps is done very smoothly and fluidly. Since there are 6GB of Ram available multitasking works great as well and i had up to 12 apps running in the background at the same time and the phone didn’t kill any of them.

The Benchmark Results are very similar with what you would get from a phone with the Snapdragon 625, so we get an Antutu score of about 64000. That may not sound like much considering that the latest CPUs get scores around 160000 but if you think about it the flagships from a couple of years ago used to get scores around 40000.

The main difference you will feel when comparing this to a flagships phone is the time needed to open apps. The Doogee Mix 2 will need a second more to open and load each app. Once the apps are loaded they work just as good as they would do on a much more expensive phone.

The gaming performance is also adequate and i was able to play quite a few graphics intensive games without any issues. Once again, it will take a bit longer to load the games when comparing this with a more expensive flagship.

Screen and Navigation Buttons

As i mentioned at the beginning of the article the screen is absolutely gorgeous and probably the best thing about this phone.

The screen is sharp and it has excellent viewing angles; and what i love the most about it is how bright it gets. You can easily see it outside in direct sunlight and that’s nit something we see for a lot of affordable phones.

The sensitivity is on par with much more expensive devices and the screen can register up to 10 touches in the same time. Typing on the screen works great as well and i haven’t experienced any lag from it.

The navigation buttons are at the bottom of the screen and they can be switched around from the settings app and that makes it convenient depending what setup you were used to before this phone.

Connectivity

The Doogee Mix 2 supports 4G connectivity, dual band WiFi and Bluetooth.

Unfortunately there is no NFC available and the 4G and 3G bands supported are somewhat limited. Of course it depends on your location and the carrier that you will be using.

In Canada i was able to use the phone on the Rogers network on 2G and 4G. The WiFi connectivity is great but the range isn’t the best i have seen. If you are close by your router the Internet speeds are great but the further you move away the lower the speeds.

I have seen some other budget friendly smartphones in the past we better wifi range.

The GPS unit is one of the best i tried in the past couple of months and it only takes a couple of seconds to find your location. Once the location is found the phone doesn’t seem to loose it easily.

The Doogee Mix 2 has a gyroscope sensor as well and it works as intended. If you are into VR this phone would do great for that as well.

Cameras

On the front of the phone we have two 8MP cameras, one of them has a 88 degree viewing angle and the 2nd one has a 130 degree viewing angle.

The second camera is very useful for group shots since it has a wider angle. Both cameras take great pictures with plenty of light but the pictures become a bit grainy and out of focus in low light conditions. I have included some sample pictures in the video review that is posted at the bottom of this article.

On the back of the phone we have a 16MP Sensor as the main Camera and a 13MP sensor as the secondary camera.

The phone gives you the ability to take pictures with the “bokeh” effect, but unfortunately it doesn’t have edge detection and the “bokeh” effect doesn’t look too great. Once again i have included sample pictures in the review video.

Leaving that bokeh effect aside, if you just take pictures with the main 16MP camera the pictures turn out great. They are sharp and detailed and the colours are very accurate. The dynamic range could have been better but taking in consideration the price of the phone it is acceptable.

In low light the picture quality diminishes but that was to be expected. Even though the rear cameras aren’t perfect, this is the best camera experience that i have seen from any Doogee device up until now.

Overall the rear cameras aren’t perfect but i was able to take some great looking pictures with them and there is a lot of potential.

Conclusion

The Doogee Mix 2 offers great value and quality for it’s low price and if you are looking for an affordable phones this is one to consider.

The screen is one on the best i have seen for any phone under $500 and the performance won’t disappoint you.

The rear cameras could have been improved but hopefully that can be achieved thru software updates in the future.

You can find the Doogee Mix 2 at the following retailers:

Banggood: http://bit.ly/2hPGaqD

Aliexpress: http://geni.us/STkkE

If you would like more detailed information you can check the full review video below.

*Affiliate Disclosure

Some of the links used in the description will direct you to Amazon, as an Amazon Associate I earn commission from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.