Cubot Max 3 Review

Overview and specifications

Cubot continues its line of big-screen smartphones with the Cubot Max 3. With a 6.95-inch diagonal size, this device can easily fit in the "phablet" category - the way big-screen smartphones were called a few years ago. Such a diagonal is still deemed as big nowadays as well. Some of the additional interesting specs include a 5000 mAh battery and a 48MP main camera. Here's a detailed list of Cubot Max 3 specifications.

What's in the box

The Cubot Max 3 is placed in a white, rectangular box. The top of the lid has a photo of the product with the model name, while the brand name is imprinted on the sides. Inside the box, in addition to the smartphone itself, you will find:

• Basic in-ear headphones with a USB-C plug
• 5V/2A charger (EU plug)
• USB Type-C cable
• Silicone protector for the back
• Quick start guide and other documents

Design, build and controls

The Cubot Max 3 is quite good-looking, actually, with an elegant overall appearance. The big screen does make an impression, especially when you turn it on. The body is made of polycarbonate. It is available in two colors - black with a silver-colored frame and green with a gold-colored frame. We are reviewing a green unit. The rear shell has a matt grainy finish and is removable. The frame has a glossy finish. The combination of both is appealing to the eye. The rear shell does attract lots of fingerprints and having in mind it's plastic, it is recommended to use the silicone protector included in the box. With a width of 77 mm, the Cubot Max 3 is one of the narrowest smartphones with a 6.95-inch display and a 5000 mAh battery. It is also the lightest one among those, with a weight of 219 grams. The thickness, on the other hand, is the highest - 9.35 mm. The height of the device is average - 173 mm. The large display dominates the front of the smartphone and offers very thin bezels. The top one is 3 mm thick and houses the light and proximity sensors and the LED notification light. The earpiece is very small and placed between the display and the frame. The bottom bezel is 5 mm thick. The onscreen navigation bar appears above it but you can enjoy a better full-screen experience if switch to gesture navigation. The side bezels are 2 mm thick. The display has a punch hole in its top-left corner which houses the selfie camera. On the back, there's a big circle in the upper half of the handset, which houses the three cameras and the LED flash. Despite the Cubot logo with CE certification sign at the bottom, there are no other elements on the rear shell. In order to access the SIM card trays and the microSD card, you have to remove the rear shell. This also allow you to remove and replace the battery. The right frame is where the power button and the side-mounted fingerprint sensor are located. The Volume button is placed on the left frame. The top frame is bare and the bottom one is where you get the USB Type-C port with two openings for speakers. However, the left one covers the microphone, while the right one covers a real speaker.

Display

The Cubot Max 3 is fitted with a 6.95-inch IPS display with a resolution of 720 x 1640 pixels. From the Display Settings, you can switch on/off the Dark Theme, manage the Night Light (reading mode), switch on/off the Adaptive Brightness toggle, choose a wallpaper, screen timeout, font size, display size, screen saver, manage the LED notification light and lock screen options. We measured a maximum brightness of 430.809 cd/m². The lowest white luminance is 8.03 cd/m². The highest black luminance is 0.309 cd/m² and the lowest is 0.000 cd/m². The average static contrast is around 1400:1. The temperature of the white point is 7900 K. The CIE diagram demonstrates a color space coverage that's not properly calibrated to match exactly 100% of the sRGB color space. The display panel has a traditional vertical striped RGB subpixel arrangement.

OS, UI and software

The Cubot Max 3 runs on almost stock Android 11. The same is also used on the Cubot KingKong 5. The icons, floating screens, notification cards, and quick settings shade all have an angular design with sharp corners. The model supports app shortcuts, Google Discover, At a Glance, notification dots, conversations, bubbles, and history, screen time management, gesture settings, etc. The pre-installed apps include the usual Google and Android applications. No bloatware at all. The Settings features customized icons for the various menus which are not grouped thematically and the layout is more compact.

Mobile, wireless, and wired connectivity

The Cubot Max 3 does not have a SIM tray. The rear shell is removable and this gives you access to separate slots for the Nano-SIM cards and the microSD card. Both SIM cards support 4G, the supported network bands are 2G GSM (2/3/5/8), 3G WCDMA (1/8), 4G FDD-LTE (1/3/5/7/8/19/20), and 4G TDD-LTE (B40). The EU SAR values of the model are 0.454 W/kg for the head and 0.35 W/kg for the body. The wireless connectivity options of this smartphone include Bluetooth 5, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi Hotspot, Wi-Fi Display. The smartphone also supports NFC and works with GPS, GLONASS, and Beidou. The device is equipped with a USB Type-C 2.0 port and a side-mounted fingerprint sensor. The connectivity options also include Android Auto in case you have a smart car that supports it as well as Nearby Share.

Performance

The Cubot Max 3 is equipped with the 12nm MediaTek Helio A25 (MT6762V/WD) chipset that is built on TSMC's FinFET production process. It houses an octa-core CPU with four 1.8GHz Cortex-A53 core and another quartet of those but clocked at 1.5GHz. The graphics department is handled by an IMG PowerVR GE8320 GPU clocked at 600 MHz. There are 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage onboard. The latter can be expanded via a microSD card. Other smartphones with a Helio A25 SoC which we have reviewed are the Cubot KingKong 5, Cubot KingKong 5 Pro, Doogee N30, and the Blackview BV6600. The AnTuTu 8 score is 84,144 points . The AnTuTu 9 score is very low for this chipset, simply because it can't pass the 3D part of the test and gets zero points for it. The Geekbench 5, PCMark Work 3.0, and 3DMark Sling Shote results are typical for other smartphone based on the same system-on-chip.

Rear cameras

The Cubot Max 3 is equipped with three rear cameras. The main one uses a 48MP Samsung S5KGM1 sensor with a 1/2" optical format and a 0.8 μm pixel size. The camera has an f/1.8 aperture, snaps 8000x6000 photos, and shoots FHD videos at 30 fps with EIS. The second rear camera is a 5MP GalaxyCore GC5035 macro one with an f/2.2 aperture, 1/5" optical format, and a pixel size - 1.12 μm pixel size. Finally, there's the 0.3MP depth-sensing unit which uses either a GalaxyCore GC030a or a GalaxyCore GC032a sensor. The cameras are aided by a single LED flash.

Selfie camera

The front-facing camera of the Cubot Max 3 uses a 16MP Sony IMX471 Exmor RS sensor with a 1/3" optical format and a 1.00 μm pixel size. It is paired with an f/2.2 lens. The camera shoots photos with a resolution of 4608 x 3456 pixels and 1080p videos at 30 fps.

Battery Tests

The Cubot Max 3 has a 5000 mAh Li-Ion battery that is removable and arrives with a 10W (5V/2A) fast charger. All battery tests we run on the devices we review are developed by us and performed with the screen of the device being calibrated to 200 cd/m². Battery-saving features are disabled. The battery of our review unit charged in full for 3 hours and 39 minutes with the provided USB cable and charger. The charging process maintains a steady speed from 0-70% of the battery's charge. The device needs 1 hour and 50 minutes to reach this level. After that, charging slows down a bit and even more so, after the 80% is reached 20 minutes later. It takes 1 hour and 30 minutes to fully charge the device. The battery's temperature starts at 31°C and maintains it for two hours with a single jump to 33°C at the 30-40th minute. After the second hour, the temperature starts decreasing at the end measures 25°C. During our intensive browsing test, the battery of our review unit lasted for 12 hours and 10 minutes. The discharging process is relatively steady from the start until the end with a minor increase in speed after the battery drops to 45%. The battery temperature starts at 29°C, reaches 32°C in 20 minutes, and remains at this level for 7 hours. After that, it continues to increase slowly, measuring 35°C in the end. The video test for battery life uses a 1080p video at 30 fps with a ~20Mbps rate. Our review unit's score from this test is 14 hours and 12 minutes. The discharging process starts slowly and the battery charge drops by 1-2% after the first half an hour. After that, the process gains speed and maintains it until the end. The battery temperature starts at 28°C, reaches 3o°C in half an hour, and remains at this level until the end. For the 3D Graphics/Gaming test, the YEBIS OpenGL ES 3.0 3D Tech Demo is used. The result from this test is 8 hours and 24 minutes. The discharging pattern is relatively from the start until the end. The battery temperature starts at 25°C. After 1 hour and 10 minutes, it reaches 36°C and maintains it for 4 hours. Then, it goes up a degree to 37°C and remains at this level until the end.