Cubot X18 Review

Cameras

The Camera app is quite standard. It has a shutter button and a video recording button to its left. The Camera settings are at the bottom left corner and the list with photos is accessed from the shortcut in the bottom right corner. From the right-hand side, you can adjust the HDR, flash, and video sound recording options as well as switch between the front and rear camera. At the top of the screen the icons for three shooting modes are listed: normal, picture-in-picture, and panorama. The Camera settings allow you to choose an exposure value, scene mode, white balance, image properties (sharpness, brightness, hue, saturation), ISO, photo resolution and preview size. The video options contain toggles for the EIS (electronic image stabilization), noise reduction and microphone. You can also adjust the audio mode and choose the video quality. Almost exactly the same settings are available for the front camera with the exception that it does not offer panorama mode and the photo and video resolutions are different from those of the primary shooter. Depending on whether you open a photo with the Gallery or the Photo app, you get two different ways of editing the images you've taken. Those under the Gallery app are the standard ones and include an application of filters and effects, adjusting the position (crop, mirror, rotate, draw, straighten) and the photo properties (exposure, saturation, contrast, shadows, etc.). Under the Photo app, you can also apply filters, adjust the light, colours and position but in a finer way.

Primary camera

The primary shooter of Cubot X18 packs a 13MP Sony IMX135 Exmor RS sensor with a 5.867 mm diagonal (size type 1/3.06"). It should take photos with a resolution of 4208 x 3120 pixels but is interpolated to 16 megapixels so the photos are with a resolution of 4608 x 3456 pixels. This sensor is combined with a 5-element lens with an f/2.8 aperture and blue filter glass. The camera is aided by a 1A single-LED flash. It shoots 1080p video at 30 fps. Other smartphones, which we have reviewed and have employed the same image sensor for their front cameras, are the Bluboo S8, Oukitel U20 Plus and the Elephone S3.

Secondary camera

The front-facing camera is equipped with an 8MP OmniVision OV8856. It should be able to take photos with a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels but is interpolated to 13 megapixels, so the photos are with a resolution of 4096 x 3072 (12.6 MP to be exact). The camera utilizes a 5-element lens with an f/2.2 aperture and is aided by a 0.5A single-LED flash. Other smartphones, which we have reviewed and use the same OV8856 sensor for their front cameras, are the Ulefone T1, Ulefone Armor 2, Oukitel U13, Coolpad Cool1, Asus ZenFone 3 ZE552KL, ZTE Axon 7, and the Zopo Speed 8.