Hardware > Phones >

www.dx.com/p/852473734
https://www.doogee.cc/detail/x-series/111

A very inexpensive yet capable phone.

At a glance, it seems okay. Android and every app I've seen have many UI flaws, but that's not the X20's fault.

After a week of use, I have to say this is a fantastic phone. It's the perfect beginner's smartphone and there's nothing I've done that's been limited in any way whatsoever by its specifications. I have not run out of storage or memory.. not even close. Do note that I haven't played any games, and I probably never will.

I am really ticked that it doesn't have OTG support, so I can't use the microSD for anything but charging. Powering off, pulling my charging dongle out, removing the half-case, removing the battery cover, removing the battery and moving the CD card back and forth is an awful, awful, way for me to edit files.

• The minimum volume is way too loud.

  • See Adjusting Android volume.

• I don't think the bottom USB-C port works for a USB key.

• dx.com Doogee X20 forum

Front

Right side

Back

Bottom

Top

stuff ∞

• Front view

  • (top left) Camera
  • (bottom) Speaker
  • (bottom left) Split-screen (touch sensor, not a button)
  • (bottom center) Combination fingerprint scanner and home button
    - This button appears largely unused except for the split screen functionality.
    - Fingerprint scanning can be "disabled".
  • (bottom right) - Unknown (touch sensor, not a button)

• Right side view

  • (top) Volume rocker
  • (middle) Power button

• Back view

  • The back cover is plastic and easily removable.
  • (top left) Dual cameras
  • (to its right) LED flash

• Top

  • Headphone jack

• Bottom

  • (left) TODO - unknown
    - It looks like a little indented reset button, like on a CD-ROM drive.
  • (center) Combination microUSB charger / data.

• Left side (has nothing)

Other notes:

• The dual sim cards are underneath the back cover.

• The battery is removable / replaceable.

  • It is 2850 mAh

• The microSD slot is underneath the back cover.

  • Anything put in the microSD slot must be removed before the back cover can be removed.

Specs ∞

See https://www.doogee.cc/products/x20/spc.html

• Processor - MT6580 Cortex-A7, four cores, 1.3 - 1.5GHz

  • This is a range because it can burst to a higher value. It's minimum value is surprisingly high.
  • GPU - Mali-400, 500MHz
    - (on arm.com)
• Video recording - 1080p

• Screen - 720 x 1280 (720p)

  • contrast - 1000:1
  • Touchscreen - Multi-touch IPS

• Android 7.0

  • TODO - Upgradeability to be determined.

TODO - Opinions ∞

Note that Android will have notes on it.

• TODO - Daylight readability

  • Probably great. It's very bright. So bright that it has a "vision saver" which turns down the blues. I personally dislike that mode, but I think it's especially good for people who use their phone with the lights off (e.g. in bed)
• Excellent UI responsivity
• Excellent Web browser responsivity

• The battery life seems excellent.

  • I've only used it around the house and have turned off all power-saving features except for some automatic per-application magic, that I think throttles the CPU based on what app is running.

• A crazy amount of memory and drive space.

  • I don't understand why people need more than 2GB memory and 16GB storage.

As I understand, the X20 will have a nearly-stock Android. I won't know enough to know the differences between stock and any customization.

Pre-order impressions ∞

• For my first smartphone, I was most interested in a basic one, but with Android 7. Phones that sell with an old version worry me. Unfortunately this is 7.0, but hopefully it is upgradeable.
• I pre-ordered this from dx.com.
• The presentation of the X30 was crap enough that I didn't clue in that it was an upgraded X20.

• I had looked at quite inexpensive rugged and waterproof phones, but the Doogee X20 stood out for me.

Differences between the Doogee X20 and Doogee X30 ∞

• Price - The difference in price was trivial.
• Expansion - The difference in expansion maximum is probably artificial, but even then the 128GB microSD cards are expensive, so it's unlikely I'd ever use that. By the time such sizes become low-enough cost I'd be likely to replace the phone.

• Battery - The talk time difference is notable but not important for my expected usage. Maybe my opinion will change later. Notably, the X20 has a removable battery and the X30 does not.

2017-10-27 ∞

• The back cover removal was difficult to figure out.
• It only has English (US) and Spanish.
• It was confusing to have to tap the password field to pull up the virtual keyboard.

• Google are a bunch of cunts. The configuration to cut them off for privacy is obviously intentionally difficult.

  • Warning: Do not set up WiFi before checking all your settings!
• It has a speaker-strip at the back-bottom, and the audio gets muted a lot when it is put down.

• Its minimum volume is very loud.

  • See Adjusting Android volume.
• Can't play a YouTube video and then go about my business. A video gets paused when I switch to my desktop.
• Perhaps it was my hard-reset, but my serial number got reset to 0123456789ABCDEF
• In the list of apps is "System Manager", which has an "Application freeze" option, which is nice.
• A lot of the interface is awkward.
• Holy shit, Google asks to send all data through their servers, to optimize settings. I remember being horrified at this concept back when Opera was fairly new.
• The screen seems dark for YouTube videos.
• Formatting an sd card took a hell of a long time to figure out.
• Oh neato, It has Over-the-air programming, which is horrible.

• Chrome: I see no way to go 'back'

  • One guy set his home page to javascipt:window.location.back(), but I see no way to set my home page!
  • It's supposed to be the 'back' button on the phone, but that's set to pull up the task manager for me.
  • I futzed around and apparently it's the 'forward' button, on the bottom-right. Sigh.

• Fucking chrome play store bullshit needs a Google account, which requires a phone, with service, that can accept texts. Fuck right off already.

  • Visit duckduckgo, or some other search engine that doesn't poison your links, and search for the app you want.
  • Copy the store link.
  • Paste it into https://apps.evozi.com/apk-downloader/
  • Get annoyed that you have to go into settings to allow third-party packages, then get to the file manager, the Downloads folder and run the .apk manually.
  • Do this to install Firefox.
• Fuck me, I still have to copy-paste into that downloader.

Removing the cover and accessing the battery ∞

If your phone is new, it will not turn on until you do this!

• Hold the phone normally, with the glass facing you, and the front-camera at the top-left.
• Look at the phone's right edge.
• Turn it over a little, so you can see the back a little.
• Hold it in your left hand.
• Notice how the screen is a little in-set from the side ridges. I will call this the "glass-part".
• The back-cameras will be at the top, on the left.

• Placing the nail of your right-hand on the edge of the glass-part, pry the thicker ridge away.

  • You can do this even if you chew your nails so they're very short.
• Be patient and persistent, as soon as you notice a little movement, you know you are doing it right.

• Do not be afraid of pulling off the camera or side-buttons, they are not associated with this cover.

If your phone is new, your battery will have a sticker over it. Pull it off and replace the battery. Line up the contacts from the battery to those on the phone.

The power button is the smaller one on the right-hand side. Hold it.

TODO - Connecting an Android 7.0 phone as a USB device ∞

automatic on Debian ∞

This is automatic on debian-live-9.4.0-i386-cinnamon (stretch)

on Devuan ∞

Devuan-1.0.0-jessie-i386-DVD

# As root:

# I may have done more.. I can't remember:
\apt-get  install  jmtpfs

mountpoint='/mnt/mnt'

\mkdir  --parents  "$mountpoint"
\chown  user:user  "$mountpoint"
\jmtpfs  -o allow_other  "$mountpoint"
# You might need to:
#\mount  -o remount,user,umask=0000  "$mountpoint"

# Unmount with:
\fusermount  -u  -z  "$mountpoint"

Earlier notes ∞

# Tested 2017-10-27 on Devuan-1.0.0-jessie-i386-DVD

# as root
apt-get install android-tools-adb
usermod -aG plugdev user
adb kill-server
adb devices
# If you get the following error, exit any menus on your phone and re-try.
# error: protocol fault (no status)

lsusb

Bus 001 Device 065: ID 0e8d:2008 MediaTek Inc.

# as root
echo 'SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0e8d", SYMLINK+="android_adb", MODE="0666", OWNER="user"' > /etc/udev/rules.d/50-doogie-x20-fix.rules
chmod a+r /etc/udev/rules.d/50-doogie-x20-fix.rules
/etc/init.d/udev restart
udevadm control --reload-rules

0x0e8d