BQ 5004G Fox smartphone - advantages and disadvantages

In 2019, BQ introduced the BQ 5004G Fox smartphone to the domestic market, the advantages and disadvantages of which attracted everyone's attention. For a budget model worth 3890 rubles, the phone turned out to be very interesting.

About BQ

The company's products are known for their high quality and affordability for all segments of the population.

It is purchased by parents for children or simply those who want to save money. For reasonable money, buyers get a smart gadget and a stylish device. The staff of the company consists of highly qualified developers and designers who do a great job. Their style cannot be confused with any other brand. And it's not even the company logo that matters, but individualism.

Production begins with brainstorming creative professionals who create an initial image and pass it on to the technical team, which brings it to life. After assembly and quality control, the output is a unique device with its own image. The 5004G series can be safely called this.

Description BQ 5004G Fox

The phone weighs 126 grams and measures 66.1x138.5x9.1 mm. Classic case type with colors:

• black;
• pink;
• gray;
• silvery.

It has an all-plastic design with no metal surround. The 4.95 inch 2.5D bezel-less rounded edge touchscreen is a capacitive on-matrix display with an accelerating Mali-400-MP2 module. There is an automatic image rotation, the resolution corresponds to the color TFT and is 960x480 pixels.

The heart of the device is the MediaTek-MT6580 processor with overclocking up to 1.3 GHz and four cores. For its class, it works quickly, but to improve efficiency, the developers installed Android 8.1 in a light version of Oreo Go Edition. The operating system has a minimal set of options, but the user can install other applications on his own. The calculation was made for this, since it allows you to reduce the cost of RAM. Windows of programs and websites open without delay.

There is a rear and front camera of 8 and 1 MP with LED flash. Their quality of shooting is sufficient for the existing screen. However, on a computer, photos and videos do not lose the saturation and color reproduction at all. There is digital zoom in the settings. There are also several modes for different lighting, including sepia and negative.

There is a speaker next to the selfie camera. The placement of the control and power buttons is standard - on the right. There is a microphone in the lower part of the case, there is another one for noise suppression, just below there are USB and 3.5 mm connectors. The phone itself has a radio and supports AAC, MP3, WMA, WAV. In addition to the headphones, there is also an external speaker with good volume characteristics. Music lovers will be able to store their favorite music on a flash drive up to 32 GB. The internal disk has 8 GB space. Although this is not so much, experts advise using it for installing programs. But the cache and paging files are best transferred to a removable drive.

The functionality of the device includes flight mode, flashlight, voice control, including dialing.But in order to call someone, there is no need to name the numbers, it is enough to voice only the name of the subscriber. You just need to put the kryzhik in the options and try to always speak in an even and distinct voice. The system does not always understand if the intonation changes.

The battery capacity is 2000mAh. At first glance, this is not enough, but in fact it is enough for several hours of video watching when the screen is always on. He is the main consumer. Even the communication modules do not consume as much as the display.

It supports GSM and 3G cellular communications. There is no support for fourth generation networks, although today they are already considered obsolete. There is Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, satellite navigation only GPS. Here it is not clear why there is no Russian GLONASS standard, since the assembly is domestic.

Externally, the phone looks very nice and stylish. Has good ergonomics, fits perfectly in the hand. If you close the logo, then at first glance you won't say that this is a budget smartphone. Very good design for its price category.

Characteristics table

Hardware build and performance

The brain of the smartphone is the MediaTek-MT6580 quad-core processor. Its manufacturing technology is 28 nanometers. The 32-bit cores are based on the Cortex-A7 with ARM architecture. The maximum overclocking frequency is from 420 to 1300 MHz. It was born back in 2015 and formed the basis of budget models of smartphones in both the entry and middle segment. It supports cameras up to 13MP and high and full screen resolutions, including hardware encoding OpenGL ES 2.0.

Unfortunately, it cannot work in 4G LTE networks, since it has not undergone modifications and improvements since its release. But even so, it is widely used in inexpensive devices. The reason is its availability in the market and its low cost.

It is suitable for all types of firmware, so the developers, wanting to offload the chipset, installed a light version of Android 8.1. Also, in order to optimize the work, cameras with medium resolution were selected. Air cooling, but even under intense load, the rear wall of the case is not heated.

The device itself shows good performance. Mobile applications open in one click. Doesn't slow down if you run several programs at the same time. The manufacturer took a light version of the firmware, so the set of software is minimal. Since the assembly is Russian, they are all based on the Yandex. It is assumed that users will install the software they need by themselves, and there is no need to think about what they might need.

It includes maps and navigation, but by American satellites via GPS. The connection is stable, but the priority is network determination of its own location and routing. Drawing happens instantly.

The Internet connection is always stable even on the track, which indicates a powerful antenna module. Behaves well in games of medium difficulty without lags and falls. Gamers will definitely note this fact, since many retro games are in this format. They are especially appreciated in the inner circle. In general, this phone shows excellent performance, stability and communication stability for its value.

Screen and graphics

The visualization is based on the Mali-400-MP2 video accelerator with overclocking up to 412 MHz. This is a simple yet reliable module from MediaTek. It is capable of working with 2D and 3D images.For optimal playback, the developers have selected a display with a resolution of 960x480 pixels. It is a 217-dot deep liquid crystal display with a diagonal of 4.95 inches.

A simple and very reliable die that has proven itself over the years. It is capable of playing high definition (HD) videos and photos. The picture quality is beyond doubt. Heavier and more capacious ones are given to her with difficulty, but for budget models this behavior is the norm.

There are standard dimming options to save battery power. They are convenient when the user is on the road and there is no way to connect the device to the mains. The color scheme does not suffer. The palette is not poor, it is even noticeable in my own photographs. Silhouettes and outlines are clearly visible, including in darkened images. Direct sunlight does not affect visibility either.

Works stably in online games without lags and dead squares. The rendering of textures is close to real. It functions without falling even in "games" with three-dimensional graphics, responds to user actions, which can be critical in some situations. Here is the merit not only of the capacious sensor, but also of the matrix. With its low cost, it is made with high quality. Thanks to the synchronization of processes, it accelerates at the right time and goes into normal mode under normal load. This avoids overheating and performance degradation.

The phone produces video files without distortion in FULLHD and HD quality. It doesn't matter if it's an online movie viewing. The third generation of networks has a lower speed compared to the fourth, so sometimes it starts to load more information. There is no such thing over Wi-Fi, there is parallel buffering and content rendering.

Memory

The chipset includes single-channel LPDDR2 and LPDDR3 modules with a frequency of 533 MHz, 512 MB each. Together they form 1 gigabyte of RAM. For permanent storage of information, 8 GB is allocated. The hardware supports removable media up to 32 GB for a total of 40 "gigs".

The developers recommend storing programs on the internal disk, and transferring the remaining files to a USB flash drive. The cache should also be sent here. Such a scheme will reduce the load on the microcircuits and optimize the system operation. The small volume of disks is due to the presence of cloud services that offer free space for user files.

A Yandex disk is already embroidered into the operating system, but the hardware does not prohibit the use of other services. With this scheme, the user only wins, since all information will be stored in the cloud and will remain available at any time. Relevant for travelers and tourists, since you do not have to carry SD cards with you. They always take a lot of photos and videos. It definitely needs to be stored somewhere.

Download and upload depends on the quality of the connection and the data transfer rate. However, buffering is fast due to the acceleration of the chipset itself. Nowadays, most of the filming takes place by broadcasting to the network. The phone itself is equipped with a slot for two SIM cards (dual sim). There is always an opportunity to choose which operator to use to access the Internet.

In the case of transferring the cache to a USB flash drive, the swap files will also go there. It is necessary to experiment, since this method does not always optimize the operation of the Internet and games. Different models of SD cards have different write and transfer speeds. Therefore, in some cases, it is wise to leave it on internal media.

Cameras

On the body there is one front and one rear camera for 1 and 8 MP. Since the chipset supports sensors up to 13 MP, the developers have chosen the best option. But when shooting a video, you should be prepared that it will be only 5 MP. However, there is an option to change pixelation from 1280x720 to 3264x2448 at 30 frames per second. The quality corresponds to HD and FullHD.

There is bokeh and image stabilization function. Autofocus allows you not to search for faces on your own, the system will do it all for the user. I was pleasantly surprised by the digital zoom, which does not reduce the quality of images.A slight absent-mindedness of the contours appears, but it does not affect the general background. The flash is LED and very bright. Therefore, at night he takes pictures almost like during the day. There is a change of shooting modes from normal to panoramic in HDR format.

There is no blur when shooting while walking or moving objects. Of course, the speed should not be high. If you photograph, for example, matches from a stadium, then even with digital zoom, people are clearly visible. Experts say that over time, lens clouding occurs in such cameras, which affects the quality. This is a "disease" of many cameras, but this was rarely seen.

Battery

The smartphone is equipped with a 2000 mAh non-removable battery. At first glance, this is very little, but in fact in the power-saving mode it is enough for a day of active conversations. There is no fast charging option, but this is not due to a whim of the phone developers, and the chipset does not support it. With such a small capacity, the battery lasts for 12 hours of video watching, 18 hours of audio listening and 10 hours of surfing the Internet.

Reviews

Not being a fan of expensive flagships, I decided to change my smartphone. They attract with their affordability and do not hit the family budget hard. There was an option to purchase a Chinese or domestic assembly. Friends recommended taking the latter option. In the store I saw a BQ 5004G Fox and looked at it. It attracted attention with its design - stylish, beautiful and with a twist. In terms of technical characteristics, it even surpassed Chinese devices in many ways. I tried cameras, videos and photos, I liked everything very much. The cost is quite affordable, for such a price you can only buy a push-button telephone. In this case, a smart device with high performance. This is how BQ was born. After the purchase, I have never let it down, it always works clearly and stably. The screen is so sensitive that in winter you can operate the device with mittens. I have never regretted a purchase during all this time.

Advantages and disadvantages

• affordable;
• stylish;
• productive.

• no fast charging;
• no headphones included.

Conclusion

The BQ company appeared on the market quite recently, but during this time it managed to increase its customer base several times, pushing out foreign competitors. They managed to do this thanks to the quality and availability of their products. The equipment of this brand has been working for years stably and without failures. Production is gaining momentum every year. However, when evaluating the parameter, do not forget that this is a budget segment.