Smartisan M1 & M1L Smartphones with Snapdragon 821 SoC Launched in China

Smartisan is the one Chinese manufacturer that is not known to many outside its home country. As the Chinese smartphone market has reached its saturation point, many Chinese brands are looking to expand their reach by selling their smartphones in the foreign markets, but as of now, Smartisan hasn’t yet revealed their plans to enter other markets. It has debuted the smartphone market in 2014 and till date it had launched just three smartphones – Smartisan T1, U1, and T2. As announced earlier, the company is expected to launch its latest smartphone Smartisan T3 today in China, but in a surprise, it has unveiled two smartphones namely Smartisan M1 and Smartisan M1L.

Both these devices come with a totally revamped design when compared to earlier Smartisan smartphones. Below the display, there are no three physical buttons. The two volume rockers can be found on the left and right edges of the device. The user can customize any one of the buttons for adjusting brightness. The Smartisan M1 sports a 5.15-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) in-cell display from JDI while the Smartisan M1L comes with a 5.7-inch Quad HD (2560 x 1440 pixels) in-cell display from Sharp. Both the devices run on Android based Smartisan OS 3.0 out of the box.

The devices are powered by  2.35GHz Snapdragon 821 quad-core processor coupled with Adreno 530 GPU clocked at 653MHz. There is 4GB/6GB of LPDDR4 RAM and 32GB/64GB UFS 2.0 storage on this devices. On the rear is a 23MP Sony IMX318 sensor with f/2.0 aperture, PDAF, OIS, and laser autofocus. It supports 4K recording and also captures slo-mo videos at 240fps. The professional mode in the camera app offers 32 seconds long exposure. On the front is a 4MP OmniVision 4688 sensor with f/2.0 aperture for capturing selfies.

The Smartisan M1 is backed by a 3,050mAh battery and the M1L comes with a bigger 4,080mAh battery. As they come with SD821 SoC, the devices also support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 for fast charging with the 24W power adapter. With just 5 minutes of charging, the M1L can last upto three and half hours on a voice call while the M1 can give four of call time. The Cirrus Logic professional decoder brings the high quality audio. The fingerprint sensor embedded into the circular home button on the front can unlock the device in just 0.2 seconds. It can also be used for authorizing payments on AliPay and WeChat.

The Smartisan M1L measures 159.66 x 78.96 x 8.32 mm and weighs 175 grams. On the other hand, the smaller Smartisan M1 weighs 146 grams and measures 149.36 x 71.75 x 8.22 mm. Coming to the pricing, the Smartisan M1 with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage costs 2499 yuan. The bigger Smartisan M1L  is priced 2799 yuan for the variant with 4GB RAM and 32GB storage and the 2999 Yuan for 6GB RAM variant with 64GB of storage. There is also stainless steel version of Smartisan M1L with mirror finish  that costs 3299 yuan (6GB + 64GB).