In 2014 iNew was very popular with their iNew V3. At that time it was one of the very few phones that had a nice design combined with decent hardware. They were the first to put NFC on a budget phone. However, iNew has been relatively silent this year. That is until they released the iNew L4, the 5000mAh battery phone.

This phone is not a powerhouse by any means. This is only meant for those people who don’t care about the performance of the phone, but really care about the battery life. The iNew L4 comes in two versions, a 1GB and a 2GB RAM version. Here we are looking at the 1GB RAM version. If money is not a problem, definitely go for the 2GB RAM version.

The box of the iNew L4 is pretty simple and straight forward. iNew includes the following in the box:

Silicon Protective Case USB Wall charger (5V 1.5A) Micro-USB cable Earphones USB OTG Cable (Which can be used to charge another phone from the L4) Quick Start Guide, Warranty and safety guide

Design

On the front to the top there is the earpiece, light and proximity sensor, notification LED, and the 5MP camera. Unfortunately the Notification LED is only Red color.

The phone has a 5.5-inch HD display, which is sub-par when compared to phones in the similar price range.

To the bottom there are the Menu, Home and Back buttons which are not backlit. Another sacrifice.

On the back you can find the 13MP rear camera with an LED flash, the iNew Logo, and to the bottom you can find the speaker which is again, sub-par.

To the bottom of the phone, there is the microphone, on the right, there are the volume rocker and power button, on the top, the 3.5mm headphone jack, and the Micro-USB slot, finally there is noting to the left.

The back is removable and here you will find the 5000mAh battery, the dual SIM-Card Slots, and a Micro-SD card slot.

There is double tap to wake (ie D2W) Which is a welcome addition considering the price of the phone. The phone also has a few smart gestures which enables to unlock the phone, launch the music app, etc.

UI & Software

The UI of the phone is a slightly modified version of Google’s Now Launcher. iNew, like many other Chinese manufacturers has added a Theme store to customize the phone. Although fairly limited, it is a welcome addition and a step in the right direction.

The UI feels fairly smooth, but it does lag under heavy usage. This could only be because of the 1GB RAM on this model. There is virtually nothing special in the UI department, everything is left stock, and feels very smooth for the most part. The iNew L4 ships with Android Lollipop out of the box.

Display

The Display is a 5.5-inch 720 X 1280 24-bit display, which is quite underwhelming. The viewing angles are just fine, and the color saturation could be better.

The display is multi touch enabled. It is a 5-multitouch panel as seen in the test below.

Reception, WiFi & GPS

The phone has really powerful wifi and cell reception. I have used in concrete rooms with 2-foot thick walls, and the phone was able to maintain 80% cell signal, and 100% WiFi signal from almost 20 feet away in another room.

GPS is also pretty fast on the L4. I’m surprised at how fast and accurate the test was. If you are an out-door person, camping, this will really come in handy along with the 5000mAh battery.

Special Features

HotKnot : HotKnot is a kind of NFC that enables users to share files between two supported phones, just by touching them together.

MiraVision : MiraVision is a custom software that helps enhance the display quality.

Smart Wake : Smart wake is a way to quickly launch apps with gestures on the phone when the screen is turned off. There are a lot of options to choose from to launch various apps like Music, Camera, Flash Light, etc.

Wireless Update : iNew is pushing out updates every now and then, so, they implemented the Wireless update option for the OTA’s.

Battery and Power-bank

The iNew L4 comes with a massive 5000mAh battery which will make the phone last for at least 2 days or more depending on the usage. The cool thing is about this phone is that it can charge other devices as long they use a regular USB cable to charge. Below you can see a demonstration of how this works.

Using the provided USB-OTG cable connect the OTG cable to the L4, and connect another regular USB to micro-USB of another phone, and it charges charging. This will come in handy when you want to quickly charge up your Bluetooth headset or charge a friends dying phone.

Speaker Test

The speaker on the phone, like many other smartphones is not that great. I tried to listen to some Electronic, Pop, and Rap, it is very quiet, and virtually not even hearable in loud situations.

Camera

The Phone comes with a 13MP back camera, and 5MP front camera. On the flip side, there are two apps to use the cameras with. Camera 360, and the Stock Camera app. Although Camera 360 is not my personal favorite app, it does get the job done and has a few extra kinks to add to the experience.

The camera performs decent in bright conditions, and is very decent in low light, so is the story with the front facing camera.

The software options on the stock camera app are fairly generic, and easy to understand, so, I’m not gonna go in-depth into this.

The camera performance, as you can see from the samples below is really good under bright light. The pictures are sharp, the color is good, and there seems to be no over-processing of the image.

The flash light is very strong, and will come in handy in low light as well. The LED is really “cold” in temperature and it will reflect in the pictures as well.

Synthetic Benchmarks

AnTuTu

CPU-Z

Gaming

Gaming on this device is decent at best. Casual games like Candy Crush or Angry Birds are playable, but graphically intensive games like Real Racing 3 are very hard to play, with a lot of lag and dropped frames.

Conclusion

This phone is for the people who don’t need high performance but need a phone with Good battery life. The performance reflects in the camera as well. Don’t expect too much from this phone apart from the killer battery life. The L4 has a large battery, which is comparable to most modern power-banks. And it is just that, a power-bank which happens to have a smartphone baked in.

Pro’s

Decent GPS

Design & Build

Camera not too bad for the price

The 5000mAh Battery

Con’s

Charging takes a lot of time

Rear Speaker could be better

Launcher and UI are a little un-optimized

Unnecessary lag in UI

No Compass or Gyro

The con’s are very understandable given the price of the phone. And the Laggyness can be fixed with the 2GB RAM model of the L4. Overall this is a pretty decent phone for the price.

Who is this phone ideal for? Outdoor people who like to hike or go on rides, travelers, students, or anyone really who don’t usually have access to a charging port for most of the day. Do I recommend this phone? YES! But, go for the 2GB RAM model, it’s a little more expensive, but it’s worth it.

What did you guys think? You think this is a phone worth picking up? Let us know in the comments below.