Cubot King Kong Mini 2 Smartphone Review- Small outdoor phone without IP protection

[Redaktion]

Cubot wants to further improve the concept of a tiny outdoor cell phone with its second King Kong Mini. The manufacturer increases the size of the battery, makes the screen even brighter, but also increases the price. Is the mini outdoor smartphone still worth it?

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Cubot-King-Kong-Mini-2-Smartphone-Review-Small-outdoor-phone-without-IP-protection.519894.0.html

[Lou-co]

A very similar phone that it would be great to have a comparison with (and a test itself) is the Unihertz Atom L. A small outdoor phone with good battery life is a very viable category, I think

[Robrazil]

Great article !!
I am using a King Kong Mini 1 (KKM1) in Brazil since 2020 february and it is working fine with 2 sim cards, replancing my old samsung J1 ace.
About the speaker located on the back, being easily be covered with the hand, I solved it buying a "Gel Silicone Phone Protective Back Shell Soft TPU Case" and even with your hand on it, the sound is heard.
One thing forgotten to say is the KKM1 comes with android 9 while the KKM2 comes with android 10.
Unfortunately, even the KKM1 having the same hardware of the KKM2, only less battery, is not possible upgrade the KKM1 to android 10 using the offical firmware of the KKM2 (CUBOT_KINGKONG MINI2_A061C_V07_20201113) available to download in Cubot website.
If you have a KKM1, like me, and want upgrate it to android 10 so you have to do that with an unofficial ROM like LOS or AOSP but some phone resouces can be lost and the warranty too, if you bought it less than 1 year.
It's unbelievable the CUBOT try to force KKM1 custormers buy the new KKM2 for not releasing the KKM1 update to android 10. This only collaborates the KKM1 customers give up the CUBOT brand.

[landsome]

A very similar phone that it would be great to have a comparison with (and a test itself) is the Unihertz Atom L. A small outdoor phone with good battery life is a very viable category, I think

I have both. Unfortunately, the Atom L is much heavier (2x), considerably larger, and annoyingly less grippy. It also has a considerably faster CPU, 2x memory, 4x drive, a much better (but still average) camera, lots more endurance, and a few other extra amenities, including IP68 certification. It also costs well over twice as much. A very hard choice between the two, but the Atom L is not a small phone, just a smallish one with a small display.

[Theo]

I've got the KKM2 and I've tried to measure the battery capacity by logging the usb power while charging. (I'm an electronic engineer after all)
The actual battery in the KKM2 is near about 2400 mAh, or 9 Wh. Cubot lists the battery as 3.000 mAh, and in the Android sysinfo a 3.100 mAh can be found, but this is not true.

The phone is using while charging approx 1.3A at 5V for 81 minutes, followed by a 22 minute time of 600mA on average. Thus it's using 9.9Wh from the charger. With an estimated efficiency of 90% for the internal charging electronics the battery only absorbs 9Wh to go from 5% to 100%. With that the battery only is somewhere in the range of 2400 mAh

The phone does not support any high speed charging; 5V 1.3A is the best and fasted it will do. No PD or QC is implemented. On the other hand; it can be charged from 5 to 100% in about two hours.

[Theo]

This is an addition to my previous message (as guest I can't edit a post).

When analyzing and redoing the measurements (as an engineer I can't trust a single measurement and I need to measure it three times)  the charging data I found something weird with this phone. When logging the USB power the KKM2 will use about 11 Wh to charge from 0 to 100%, resulting in a battery capacity of about 2400 mAh (assuming 90% charging efficiency and an average cell voltage of 4.0 volt while charging)

But once the phone states it's charged 100% the charging will continue for 40 minutes with a reduced current; in my test setup it started with 600 mA and reduces to 300 mA after 40 minutes with  an average current of about 500 mA. After that the usb current went to zero. In this 40 minutes an additional 350 mAh was added to the battery, making it a 2.750 mAh battery over all.

Once the charger is disconnected and the phone is used the battery status will go to 99% quite fast; it will not remain for a few hours on 100% and then start to decrease to 99%, 98% and so on.

Meaning the phone its charging indicator is not completely correct; when it's indicating it is charged to 100% it is only charged to something about 87%. After 40 minutes being on 100% charged the battery really is charged. I'm running LineageOS, so possibly this is just a Lineage bug. Possibly somebody else can confirm.

On AliExpress a KKM2 battery can be found. This battery looks completely different than the one used in the KKM1; where the KKM1 is using a battery in a plastic case (like any user replaceable battery) the KKM2 battery is just a typical lipo cell without case, allowing to fit a larger battery.

So I have to rectify my previous conclusion; the Kingkong Mini 2 battery has a real capacity of about 2.750 mAh. But note to leave it connected to the charger for at least 45 minutes once it mentioned it is charged completely....

[Lagaffe]

Précision importante, non mentionnée dans le test

La carte mémoire interne, bien que correctement configurée, ne peut être lue que par un ordinateur Windows, Pas par un Mac
J'en ai reçu confirmation par le SAV Kubot

GROS HANDICAP !

[Glycosylase]

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