BQ Aurora SE smartphone review: a fresh look at the budget flagship

Key Features of the BQ-6000L Aurora

I respect BQ. They don’t climb into the top segment. State employees - like everyone else - are boring. But the smartphones at the top of their line are good. This is the umpteenth time I’m testing their products - and there’s really nothing to grumble about. Although, of course, I’ll find something to grumble about.

The BQ-6000L Aurora is positioned as a “frameless camera phone.” They are lying, of course. And the frames are in place. And although there are four cameras, Aurora is as close to the moon as top-end camera phones. However, the smartphone is good. No obvious weak points. Lots of memory, normal processor. With the battery - I’m just surprised how great everything is with the battery. The screen is bright and oleophobic. Cameras. Not top ones, of course. But certainly no worse than that of “classmates”.

Lyrical digression

And thanks to Aurora, an epiphany came to me. I realized that there really are situations in life when face unlocking is a really irreplaceable thing and a thousand times more convenient than unlocking with your finger. It dawned on me when I went outside on a dark, frosty night to torture the camera and take test photos. Suddenly I realized that I didn't need to take off my gloves. Because the city night lighting is enough for the smartphone to recognize my frozen face. And the screen is very sensitive to the touch of the most ordinary gloves.

Communications and sensors

Can you name at least one reason why the BQ 6000L Aurora is cooler than the vaunted iPhone X, which costs the equivalent of two used Russian cars? We can.

The owner of Aurora is able to unlock the device using both a fingerprint and a face . BQ found a way to fit both scanners into the device without spending a fortune or generating countless discussions on mobile forums. Most importantly, both the fingerprint sensor and Face Unlock technology (analogous to Face ID) work above all praise. Face unlocking happens so quickly that you don’t even have time to notice it – and there’s no fancy 3D modeling.

You can add a fingerprint and adjust Face Unlock in the “Security” settings section (the “Smart Lock” subsection).

As for wireless communications, the standard set on the BQ 6000L is Wi-Fi, 4G and Bluetooth 4.2. Alas, Aurora does not support NFC - when installing Android Pay, a warning appears that you can pay from your smartphone only for purchases that were made via the Internet.

Appearance

Metallic, weighty. The assembly is excellent.

As befits a smartphone with an 18:9 screen, the Aurora is quite narrow. Although calling such devices frameless is somewhat strange. Full side frames of approximately 4 mm.

Two colors - gold and black. I don’t know how gold plating behaves, but ferrous metal is very easily soiled. The body quickly becomes covered with clearly visible fingerprints.

The camera block protrudes noticeably.

There is an LED, the brightness is just right.

Boring details

Above the screen are two cameras, a flash, a speaker, and sensors.

Below the screen is empty; the Android buttons, like all elongated smartphones, are on-screen.

At the back, everything interesting is at the top. A block of two cameras and a flash in the left corner. What wasn't centered? It would be nicer. The fingerprint scanner is in its rightful place in the center, at a considerable distance from the cameras.

The top is empty.

It's thick underneath. Audio output 3.5 mm, Micro-USB, microphone, speaker.

On the right are the buttons - volume rocker, power button.

On the left is a card tray.

Appearance

The appearance of the BQ-6000L Aurora is recognizable. It’s not difficult to guess whose developments the company’s engineers were inspired by when creating a new camera phone. This becomes obvious after turning on the device, but the software will be discussed in a separate section of the review.

The case with a metal back and large plastic inserts is made of high quality, does not creak or play, but we have identified a couple of controversial solutions from an ergonomic point of view.

Firstly, although they tried to give the body a rounded shape, they even used slightly curved glass, the plastic chamfer around the perimeter of the screen nullifies these efforts. The smartphone feels angular in your hands.

Secondly, the connectors located at the end of the case are not well processed and are rough to the touch. If you are used to supporting the body of your smartphone with your little finger, you will constantly feel unevenness on the bottom.

The location of the mechanical keys on the right, closer to the middle of the case, turned out to be successful. They are easy to press, and the knurling on the power key makes it easy to recognize by touch.

On the front panel of the smartphone you can see: a pair of cameras, a speaker and a block of proximity/light sensors. An LED event indicator is also hidden here and a large white backlight diode is located. The fingerprint sensor is located on the back of the smartphone, above the brand logo.

The camera block protrudes slightly from the body. It combines a pair of sensors and a single-color LED flash and blends seamlessly into the design. The appearance of the BQ-6000L Aurora leaves a pleasant impression.

Internals (iron)

MediaTek Helio P25 is a fairly serious chipset for “second-tier” devices. Top brands disdain them. But in “Chinese flagships” it is found all the time.

There are some discrepancies regarding the maximum frequencies of processor cores. Many places indicate 2.6 GHz. But, it seems, on this device there is no more than 2.4 GHz on the first four cores and 1.7 GHz on the second.

Our chip is quite far from top chips. But both according to parrots and according to my personal feelings, the speed of the smartphone is quite sufficient. It is comfortable to live on it.

They were not greedy with memory. There is more than enough RAM, and flash memory too. Please note that the card tray is combined. So if you manage to use up all the free 50 GB, you will have to sacrifice a second SIM card.

Sensors - a full set. There is both a gyroscope and a compass.

The fingerprint scanner is in its usual place in the center of the back. Works good.

I was pleased with the facial recognition. It works, even in very dreary lighting. True, activation requires pressing the power button, so the fingerprint scanner is still much faster and more convenient. But, as I already mentioned at the beginning of the review, it’s a great help outside in winter.

Synthetic tests

AnTuTu 7.0.4

AnTuTu 6.2.7 3DMark Sling Shot Extreme Geekbench 4.2.0 PCMark Work 2.0

AndroBench 5

A1 SD

Review of the BQ-6200L Aurora smartphone

The Russian electronics brand BQ has expanded its Aurora line with another new product by the end of the year. The first-born of this line, BQ-6000L, performed well at the beginning of the year, but now an even more functional model BQ-6200L is being released as a logical replacement, which has taken the position of the main flagship in the entire BQ mobile family. A large edge-to-edge display with a fashionable aspect ratio, a powerful hardware platform, a dual camera and support for artificial intelligence - BQ takes its products to a new level, while remaining within an affordable price range. Today we will tell you in detail about this interesting new product from the world of budget mobile technology.

Key Features of the BQ-6200L Aurora

• SoC MediaTek Helio P60, 8 cores (4×Cortex-A73 @2.0 GHz + 4×Cortex-A53 @2.0 GHz)
• GPU ARM Mali-G72 (MP3) @800 MHz
• Operating system Android 8.1
• Touch display IPS 6.2″, 2246×1080 (19:9), 402 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 4 GB, internal memory 64 GB
• MicroSD support up to 256 GB
• Support Nano-SIM (1 pc.) + Micro-SIM (1 pc.)
• GSM networks (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• WCDMA/HSPA+ networks (850/900/1900/2100 MHz)
• LTE networks FDD Cat.7/13 (Band 1/2/3/5/7/8/20), TD (Band 38—41)
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 and 5 GHz)
• Bluetooth 4.2
• No NFC
• USB Type-C, USB OTG
• No 3.5mm audio output
• GPS, A-GPS, Glonass
• Main camera 16 MP, f/2.0 + 5 MP, autofocus, 1080p video
• Front camera 16 MP, f/2.0
• Proximity and lighting sensors, magnetometer, gyroscope, accelerometer
• Fingerprint's scanner
• Battery 3000 mAh
• Dimensions 155×76×7.9 mm
• Weight 197 g

Appearance and ease of use

The new flagship BQ has a catchy and attractive-looking body with a nice, neat design. From a distance it looks as luxurious as, for example, the latest Oppo RX 17 Pro, even if the back is not ceramic, but lacquered plastic. It looks impressive - almost like glass.

The company has tried and invested as much as possible in the appearance of its new smartphone. Of course, because the BQ-6200L Aurora is its flagship device, and high hopes are pinned on it. The side frame is solid, metal. The edges of the rear and front panels are rounded, as are the corner parts in plan.

Due to the massive metal frame, the BQ-6200L Aurora is quite heavy. In the hand, the smooth surfaces of the case slide and collect fingerprints. There are no complaints about the quality of materials and assembly - everything fits perfectly, does not creak when compressed, the body is solid.

The camera module on the back side protrudes slightly outward, but in general the back surface is so wide and flat that the smartphone does not wobble when you touch the screen and lies stable on a hard surface.

The fingerprint scanner area is conveniently located on the back panel under the index finger, it is easy to find by touch, it is slightly recessed and therefore stands out well tactilely. There are no complaints about the operation of the scanner; it works clearly, without failures.

The front panel, unfortunately, did not receive an LED event indicator - but it received the notorious “bangs” (aka “unibrow”). The cutout is very wide, and the small pieces remaining at the edges of the weather display do not make the weather display; it would be better to just leave an even segment above the screen without any cutouts. This very cutout houses the front camera, as well as an infrared LED and an infrared camera for the 3D Face Unlock facial recognition system. This function works excellently - flawlessly in any conditions, unlocking works even in complete darkness.

Below the screen there are no touch-sensitive hardware buttons or a fingerprint scanner; only a narrow strip of empty space is left here.

Hardware control keys are located on one side edge, which is convenient. There are no complaints about the buttons themselves; their size and rigidity are normal. They do not differ in texture, but are still easily identified blindly.

A surprise awaited us when examining the card slot. This flagship has so many claims to the top level that the presence of a slot for an outdated Micro-SIM card seemed rather strange. Here, only one slot is intended for Nano-SIM, and for the second we had to get a long-abandoned adapter. The company representatives themselves consider this an advantage rather than a disadvantage, but in our opinion, Micro-SIM should not be in today's flagship. In addition, to install a microSD memory card, one of the SIM cards will have to be removed - guess which one. Hot swapping of cards is supported.

Another unpleasant surprise is the disappearance of the 3.5 mm audio output for headphones. It is clear that this is fashionable, but is the target audience of the BQ brand ready to fork out for wireless headphones? In principle, the smartphone comes with an adapter for wired headphones to a USB Type-C connector, but there is still a residue left.

At least, the USB port is represented by the current Type-C connector, and here, at the bottom end, is the main speaker, which is very loud, it should be noted.

The BQ-6200L Aurora apparently goes on sale only in one black design option; there is no information about others yet. The color is without a gradient or iridescent sparkles, but the smartphone still looks catchy. The hull did not receive protection from water.

Screen

The BQ-6200L Aurora features an IPS display with 2.5D Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The screen measures approximately 68 x 142 mm (68 x 136 mm including notch), 6.2 inches diagonally, and has a resolution of 2246 x 1080 (with an aspect ratio of 19:9), so the pixel density is about 402 ppi. The width of the frame around the screen on the sides is about 3 mm, the indentation at the bottom is about 8 mm, and at the top - 5 mm (together with the “bangs” - 10 mm). The screen occupies 81% of the front surface area, which by modern standards is not so much. For most models that boast this parameter today, the figure is close to 90% or even higher.

You can adjust the display brightness manually or use automatic settings based on the ambient light sensor. Multi-touch tests diagnose support for 5 simultaneous touches. Supports working with the screen while wearing gloves.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections Alexey Kudryavtsev . Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are better than those of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) screen (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photograph in which a white surface is reflected when the screens are turned off (on the left is Nexus 7, on the right is BQ-6200L Aurora, then they can be distinguished by size):

The screen of the BQ-6200L Aurora is noticeably darker (brightness according to photographs is 103 versus 115 for the Nexus 7). The ghosting of reflected objects in the BQ-6200L Aurora screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS - One Glass Solution type screen). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (glass/air type) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of intense external illumination, but their repair in the case of cracked external glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be replaced. The outer surface of the screen has a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (slightly better in efficiency than the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed much more easily and appear at a lower speed than with regular glass.

With manual brightness control and when the white field was displayed in full screen, the maximum brightness value was 470 cd/m², the minimum was 18 cd/m². The maximum brightness is high, therefore, given the excellent anti-glare properties, screen readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at an acceptable level. The reduced brightness level allows you to use the device even in complete darkness without any problems. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (it is located to the left of the front speaker slot, on the edge of the “bangs”). In automatic mode, as external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. The operation of this function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider: with it the user can try to set the desired brightness level in the current conditions. If you leave everything at default, then in complete darkness the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 18 cd/m² (normal), in an office illuminated by artificial light (approximately 550 lux) it sets it to 105 cd/m² (also normal), in a very bright environment ( corresponds to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) increases to 470 cd/m² (to the maximum, as needed). We were satisfied with the result, but we tried to reduce the brightness in complete darkness, knowing that there was such a request from our readers. Unfortunately, we were unable to do this; the brightness does not drop below 18 cd/m². It turns out that the auto-brightness function works adequately, but has a limitation on the minimum brightness. At any brightness level, there is no significant backlight modulation, so there is no screen flicker.

This smartphone uses an IPS matrix. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which identical images are displayed on the screens of the BQ-6200L Aurora and Nexus 7, while the screen brightness is initially set to approximately 200 cd/m², and the color balance on the camera is forced to switch to 6500 K.

There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field.

And a test picture:

The colors on the BQ-6200L Aurora's screen are overly saturated and unnatural; the color balance of the Nexus 7 and the screen under test differs.

Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors did not change much on both screens, but on the BQ-6200L Aurora the contrast decreased to a greater extent due to the strong black bleaching.

And a white field:

The brightness at an angle of the screens has decreased (at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), and the decrease in brightness is approximately the same.

When deviated diagonally, the black field becomes much lighter, but remains relatively neutral gray. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is excellent:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1300:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 19 ms (8 ms on + 11 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 29 ms. The gamma curve, constructed using 32 points with equal intervals based on the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.20, which is equal to the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve deviates little from the power-law dependence:

By default, the function of dynamically adjusting the backlight brightness is enabled in accordance with the nature of the displayed image: the darker the average image, the lower the backlight brightness. Fortunately, this feature can be disabled in the screen settings (Economical backlight), which is very good.

The color gamut is noticeably wider than sRGB and approaches DCI:

Let's look at the spectra:

The components are well separated, allowing a wide color gamut to be achieved. Note that on screens with a wide color gamut, without appropriate correction, the colors of regular images optimized for sRGB devices appear unnaturally saturated.

In the settings, you can select one of the color temperature correction profiles and reduce the intensity of the blue component (three steps):

In principle, bright light can lead to disruption of the circadian rhythm (see the article about the iPad Pro with a 9.7-inch display), but everything can be solved by adjusting the brightness to a comfortable level, and there is absolutely no way to distort the color balance, reducing the contribution of blue sense. However, this setting can be used to correct the color balance, since even when you select the “Warm colors” option in the first list, the color temperature is still too high, about 7700 K. When you set the slider to the “Medium” position, the color temperature becomes close to standard 6500 K (see graphs below). At the same time, the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) on the gray scale is below 10, which is considered a good indicator for a consumer device. In addition, color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue, which has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not of serious importance, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

To summarize: the screen has a high maximum brightness and has excellent anti-glare properties, so the device can be used outdoors on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable, but not completely low level. It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works adequately (except for the limitation on the minimum brightness). The advantages of the screen include the presence of an effective oleophobic coating, the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and visible flicker, high contrast, excellent uniformity of the black field, good color balance (after a small correction). Significant disadvantages are the low stability of black to the deviation of the gaze from perpendicular to the screen plane and an excessively wide color gamut. In general, taking into account the importance of characteristics specifically for this class of devices, the quality of the screen can be considered high.

Cameras

As a front camera, the BQ-6200L Aurora uses one module with a 16 MP sensor resolution and an f/2.0 aperture lens. There is a mode for blurring the background and creating animated emoji. There is no autofocus. The shooting level is good, and the program depicts the front object well, even hair, carefully blurring the background - in general, everything is very good for this level of smartphone.

The main camera of the smartphone has the same characteristics as the front one (16 megapixels, f/2.0), only it is supplemented with a 5-megapixel module for blurring the background in portrait photographs. The main innovation of the MediaTek Helio P60 is the use of a dedicated co-processor (APU), specially designed to work with applications based on artificial intelligence (face, object and scene recognition, as well as improved camera functions). Thus, the new chipset installed in the BQ-6200L Aurora provides its owner with access to advanced functions - learning-based recognition of faces, objects and scenes. AI support can be disabled.

A set of settings is collected in a convenient menu, where everything is just one or two clicks away. Options are selected by scrolling below the viewfinder screen, with more detailed settings popping up right on top of the viewfinder screen. There is also a manual settings mode. The most interesting of the additional modes are night and portrait with background blur. There is no standard option to save pictures in RAW.

Examples of shooting with the rear camera:

Let us repeat that we like the current photo processing in MediaTek cameras, when the noise reduction does not burn out all living things, but leaves discolored noise where it cannot cope with it. With this processing, even pictures from budget cameras look relatively good, and this is just such a case. Of course, there is no need to have any illusions: the camera cannot boast of either detail or sharpness, noise and traces of noise reduction are visible, sharpness noticeably drops towards the edges of the image (in this case, to the left for a change). Digital zoom (as always) is of no use; indoors the camera overuses increased sensitivity (image details degrade significantly), and night shots are no good at all.

The main camera can shoot video at a maximum resolution of 1080p at 30 fps; there are no more advanced modes. There is no optical stabilization either. The camera copes well with video shooting during the day, but at night it fails at all: autofocus does not provide sharpness, the noise is strong. The sound is recorded cleanly, no distortion from the noise reduction system was noticed.

Video examples:

• Video No. 1 (61 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 2 (60 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 3 (39 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 4 (41 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)
• Video No. 5 (37 MB, 1920× [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)

Telephone and communications

The MediaTek Helio P60 chipset has a built-in LTE Cat.7/Cat.13 modem capable of providing data transfer speeds of 300/150 Mbit/s. The smartphone supports all LTE FDD frequencies used in Russia (Band 3, 7, 20), but for some reason this does not help it much: within the city limits of the Moscow region, the device behaves uncertainly, does not linger in 4G, and constantly jumps to 3G. At least with a Tele2 SIM card, the “H” icon on the smartphone is lit more often than the “4G” icon.

Both Wi-Fi bands are supported (2.4 and 5 GHz), and there is also Bluetooth 4.2, but there is no NFC module, which is very frustrating.

The navigation module works with GPS (with A-GPS) and with the domestic Glonass, but without the Chinese Beidou. The first satellites during a cold start are not detected at lightning speed, approximately within the first minute. The device has a magnetic compass, which is necessary for the operation of navigation programs.

The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, while dialing a phone number, a search is immediately carried out by the first letters in contacts. Methods for sorting and displaying contacts are standard for the Android interface. In the conversational dynamics, the voice of a familiar interlocutor is clearly recognizable, the sound is loud and clear, there are no extraneous noises. The vibration alert is noticeable. VoLTE supported.

The platform supports active standby of both SIM cards in 3G/4G simultaneously. That is, the SIM card can be in active standby on a 3G/4G network, and not just on 2G, even if another card is assigned to transmit data on 4G. The cards operate in Dual SIM Dual Standby mode, there is only one radio modem.

Software and multimedia

As a software platform, the BQ-6200L Aurora uses Android OS version 8.1 with an add-on that significantly complements and expands the capabilities of the standard interface. The installed launcher has a menu of installed applications. All the most important settings are placed in a separate section of additional settings; there is also an unusual tab called “Properties”, and not settings are collected there, but detailed descriptions of some functions with pictures.

There is an application cloning mode for working with different accounts on social networks, broad support for gesture control, an additional virtual button on the screen, reducing the working area of ​​the screen for one-handed operation, changing the set of buttons in the navigation bar, and much more.

There are many installed applications, among them there are both useful (file manager, store of your own themes and the usual phone manager, which carries out comprehensive monitoring of the system for granting permissions, detecting viruses, protecting payments, clearing the cache, etc.), and free ones, who ended up here thanks to affiliate programs (Yandex, Avto.ru, AlfaStrakh and much more).

In terms of sound, the BQ-6200L Aurora turned out to be unexpectedly good: even the speaker produces excellent clarity and extremely loud rich sound, pleasant to the ear, especially when watching movies and games. The sound in headphones is also quite decent, although in terms of bass, the device, of course, does not reach top-end solutions. For its level, the sound is bright and rich, which is rare in budget smartphones; this is a big plus for the BQ-6200L Aurora. By the way, there is also support for DTS with a lot of manual settings and an equalizer with presets.

There is a built-in FM radio and voice recorder, the latter demonstrates good sensitivity.

Performance

The mediaTek Helio P60 single-chip system is used as the hardware platform for the BQ-6200L Aurora. This 12nm SoC is configured with an eight-core processor built according to the big.LITTLE design. Four ARM Cortex-A73 cores and four ARM Cortex-A53 cores operate at 2.0 GHz. The ARM Mali-G72 MP3 video accelerator operating at 800 MHz is responsible for graphics processing. The amount of RAM is 4 GB, and the built-in flash memory is 64 GB. Of these, about 52 GB of ROM and a maximum of 2.2 GB of RAM are free.

It is possible to expand the memory by installing microSD cards, and you can install applications on the memory card. You can also connect external flash drives in USB OTG mode.

MediaTek Helio P60 SoC was introduced in early 2020, the company's first platform with a multi-core AI-related mobile APU and MediaTek NeuroPilot AI technology. While this is still a completely new mobile platform, its level is above average. According to the developers, the combination of ARM Cortex-A73 and Cortex-A53 processors increases CPU performance by 70% compared to previous Helio P23 and Helio P30 chipsets, and also increases GPU efficiency by 70%. In theory, thanks to the use of 12-nanometer FinFET technology, the MediaTek Helio P60 should provide a high level of energy saving, but this smartphone could not demonstrate impressive autonomy.

As for performance, although the platform belongs to the middle class, it produces high results in tests. At least they are no worse than those of the relatively recent Samsung Exynos 7875 and HiSilicon Kirin 710, also positioned for upper-mid-level smartphones. In terms of processor performance, the Helio P60 even reaches the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660, which is very worthy, but, of course, it is no match for the graphics component.

However, the capabilities of this platform are more than enough for any needs and tasks; there are no problems with games either: the demanding Modern Combat 5, Mortal Kombat X and even Injustice 2 run without slowdowns. A smartphone on such a solid platform has plenty of power for future updates.

Testing in comprehensive tests AnTuTu and GeekBench:

For convenience, we have compiled all the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks into tables. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that they once passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions of test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in gaming tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark, the most powerful smartphones now have the ability to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

AndroBench memory speed test results:

Thermal photographs

Below is a thermal image of the rear surface obtained after 15 minutes of fighting with a gorilla in the game Injustice 2 (this test is also used to determine autonomy in 3D games):

Heating is localized in the upper part of the device closer to the right edge, which apparently corresponds to the location of the SoC chip. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 42 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees). Such heating cannot be called insignificant.

Playing video

To test the omnivorous nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a table.

Further testing of video playback was performed by Alexey Kudryavtsev .

This device apparently does not support DisplayPort Alt Mode for USB Type-C - outputting image and sound to an external device when connected to a USB port - which was discovered using the Tronsmart CTHA1 adapter. Therefore, we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself.

To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Method for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)”). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p), 1920 by 1080 (1080p) and 3840 by 2160 (4K) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 fps). In the tests we used the MX Player video player in the “Hardware” mode. The test results are summarized in the table:

Note: If both columns Uniformity and Skips have green ratings, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and skipping of frames will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect comfort viewing. Red marks indicate possible problems with playback of the corresponding files.

According to the frame output criterion, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is good, since in most cases frames (or groups of frames) can (but are not required) be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly at the height of the screen (in landscape orientation), one to one in pixels in the vertical direction, but in the horizontal direction the image is stretched to the right and left by several pixels and one pixel is cut off on the right and left (in case of hardware decoding). The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the actual range in the given file. Note that this smartphone does not support hardware decoding of H.265 files with a color depth of 10 bits per color.

Battery life

The non-removable battery installed in the BQ-6200L Aurora has a small capacity of 3000 mAh. MediaTek platforms have never been famous for energy efficiency; an IPS screen with a large area and relatively high resolution also consumes a lot of energy, so the hero of the review demonstrates a mediocre level of autonomy in all operating scenarios; autonomy is not his strong point. In real life, the device behaves the same way as most modern smartphones: it can last until an evening charge, but you shouldn’t count on more.

Testing has traditionally been done at normal power consumption levels without using power-saving features.

Continuous reading in the Moon+ Reader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) with auto-scrolling lasted until the battery was completely discharged in less than 13 hours, and when continuously watching videos in HD quality (720p ) with the same brightness level via a home Wi-Fi network, the device operates for less than 8.5 hours. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone can work for up to 4 hours, depending on the specific game.

Using its own power adapter, the smartphone is charged for 2 hours with a current of 2 A at a voltage of 5 V. In the first hour, the battery is filled with energy up to 63%, then the charging speed drops. The smartphone does not support wireless charging.

Bottom line

With a price not exceeding 16 thousand rubles, the BQ-6200L Aurora has several undeniable advantages. The smartphone has a high-quality large display with a fashionable elongated aspect ratio and a thin frame around it, as well as a powerful hardware platform - not a flagship, but the most interesting that MediaTek can offer today. In addition, the smartphone sounds very nice and blurs the background well with both cameras. And most importantly, it looks great: a device with such a worthy design looks clearly more expensive than its level.

There are disadvantages, but at a relatively low price they do not seem undeniable: the screen has a notch, and a wide one at that, there is no 3.5 mm headphone jack, battery life is low, there is no NFC, and in general there are questions about communication capabilities (although dual-band Wi-Fi Fi somewhat softens them). In general, the device turned out to be interesting and, one might even say, profitable: in terms of its main characteristics, it is a top-mid-level smartphone, and its price is more affordable than that of competing solutions from more well-known brands. There’s really nothing to complain about; this is a clear breakthrough for BQ, and overall, after getting acquainted with its new product, a pleasant “aftertaste” was left.

Communication with the outside world

For complete happiness, the only thing missing is NFC support. Yes, and Micro-USB is long overdue for the dustbin of history.

But there are all the necessary LTE frequencies and support for 5 GHz Wi-Fi. So, perhaps, let's not be picky.

Iron BQ 5732L Aurora SE

“Under the hood” the BQ 5732L Aurora SE has a MediaTek Helio P60 processor with a frequency of 2.0 GHz. A budget option, but energy efficient, which means the phone will have good battery life. Moreover, the battery here has an average capacity by today's standards of 3000 mAh, but it will be enough for one and a half to two days of active use. At the same time, 3 GB of RAM is enough to perform all the tasks necessary for daily use.

The interface does not slow down at all, which is primarily noticeable by the quick launch of the keyboard when typing in various applications. And also the absence of delays when responding to control gestures.

The volume of built-in memory is 32 GB, but with micro SD it can be increased by another 256 GB, which is very respectable for a budget employee. There is enough space for both photos and videos.

As for communication modules, everything is fair here without any special compromises - there is WiFi 5 GHz, LTE mobile communications. The only thing is that the Bluetooth module is of the previous generation 4.2, but this is not at all critical.

Screen

The screen is good, but not perfect. Firstly, the resolution is not the highest. Secondly, the minimum backlight brightness is too high.

But everything else is in perfect order. Bright, with oleophobic coating. Even working with gloves is supported.

Screen BQ 5732L

A reliable and practical IPS matrix is ​​installed here as a display, which does not fade and does not cause any other troubles to the owner. The colors are bright and rich, with good brightness control. The resolution is 1520×720 HD+, which is also comfortable for viewing content on a 5.86″ diagonal.

The aspect ratio is also made in the spirit of modern trends and is 19:9. Today, quite a lot of content on YouTube is produced precisely for this picture size.

Operating system and other software

Operating system Android 7.0 Nougat plus shell. What kind of shell it is is not explicitly stated anywhere. But judging by the logo, icons, and in general by how and what is arranged here, we are clearly looking at Gionee Amigo 4.0.

The shell is a little specific and unusual. Notifications - swipe from above. Switches - swipe from below. “Startup menu” - swipe from bottom to top in the center of the screen. There is no list of applications. Etc. But you get used to it. Nothing criminal.

Russification is normal, they did their best.

The settings menu is a bit confusing. I spent about five minutes looking for where they hid the facial recognition (“Security” - “Smart Lock” - “Face Recognition”, and for some reason it wasn’t found by searching through the settings).

A few third-party applications (UC Browser, Nine Store, Podari Zhizn). But, if necessary, everything is demolished without problems.

I was surprised by the “protection” of the password/pin code with a secret question. Like, for the forgetful. There are questions at the level of “what was your school number.” It is impossible not to choose a question, you cannot ask your own question. In short, if suddenly your childhood friend wants to reset your password, he will succeed...

The possibility of wireless updates is provided, but nothing arrived. And at some point, it suddenly started giving a gorgeous error: “Error connecting to the network. (java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Trust anchor for certification path not found)".

More screenshots

Options and packaging BQ Aurora SE

The BQ 5732L smartphone comes in a classic white package with an exclamation mark on the cover. I don’t know what this would mean - write your options in the comments.

The back side lists the main technical characteristics of the phone

Under the cover we find the phone itself, which turned out to be unusually small for most of today's models. Let's compare it with the seventh iPhone.

As practice has shown, these are the dimensions that are most comfortable for constant use.

In the box we find a charging cable, a power supply, detailed instructions in Russian and a paper clip from the SIM card tray.

The body material of the BQ 5732L is plastic covered with glass. Although at first it feels like it is metal, the gradient color of the lid gives it away. What glass is used for here is not very clear, since there is no wireless charging module or NFC contactless payment here.

It turns out that this is a purely design move. Definitely, it looks very beautiful, but due to this, practicality is lost, since the glass is easy to break. The same cannot be said about plastic, and even more so about metal. Is this necessary in a budget phone? You decide.

The cover is not removable. It contains a scanner and a camera unit with a flash. Finally, they are located symmetrically in the center of the body, which looks much more natural than those offset to one edge. This is exactly how all smartphones were made 3-4 years ago, until Apple introduced the fashion for horizontal and vertical modules in the corners, which was picked up by everyone else.

The volume control and lock buttons are in their usual places on the same edge.

The tray for SIM cards and memory cards is on the opposite side. It is pulled out with a pin and there is a combined view, either two SIM cards, or one plus a flash drive.

Bottom - power connector - attention - USB Type-C.

Well, on top there is a headphone output. It’s good that this time he didn’t go anywhere, unlike last year’s Aurora.

Battery

Pleasantly surprised. Over time, everything is great. To be honest, there were some concerns before testing began. Because MediaTek, not Qualcomm. But no. No problem.

Battery capacity is 4010 mAh, which is slightly above average. Battery tests gave 224% of my conditional standard. This is even a little better than the super-duper flagship Huawei Mate 10 Pro with its AMOLED screen.

It is unrealistic to discharge it in a day, even with very intensive use. My smartphone lasted an average of two days and still had a little time left.

Autonomy

A 4010 mAh battery is enough for the Aurora smartphone to work in normal mode (calls, searching for information on the Internet) from 2 to 2.5 days. If this is not enough, you can activate the power saving mode through the settings (“Advanced settings” - “Battery” - “Power management program”). True, then the performance of the device will decrease, but you can thank BQ for at least warning about this (hello, Apple).

The BQ smartphone does not support fast charging - this seems to be one of its most obvious shortcomings. It takes from 2 to 2.5 hours to fill the battery from zero to 100%.

BQ BQ-6000L Aurora as a photo and video camera

The main camera is neither outstanding nor disgusting. Nothing supernatural, but it is quite consistent with the class/price of the device. Very good pictures in clear weather. At night or indoors, you shouldn’t skimp on the film—it creates a lot of garbage.

The camera is dual, but how and why the auxiliary camera is used is not very clear. It seems, after all, only to create beautiful bokeh blurs.

The interface has a 2x zoom button. But, as far as I can tell, the dual camera has nothing to do with it - pure crop with interpolation to the original 13 MP.

Full size photos

The front camera is interesting. To begin with, honestly double. The main one is 20 MP and the wide-angle is 8 MP.

The main front camera really can take very high-quality pictures, especially in normal lighting. But you have to tinker. Night ones often look like they were passed through an enhancer. Daytime ones often have overexposed backgrounds. Etc. A lot goes to waste.

I mean, yes. Indeed the camera is very high quality. But the usual level of comfort, like flagships, is not here. There - click - and the software itself will modify the photo so that it looks beautiful. Here you have to tinker on your own.

The wide-angle front camera is weaker, but the viewing angle - wow - you can fit a large crowd into the frame. The fish-eye effect, however, has not been canceled...

Full size photos

Design

In the case of Aurora, BQ does not offer any radical design innovations: the shape with rounded edges makes the smartphone similar to other models from the manufacturer.

The device is almost entirely made of metal - only the inserts for the antennas on the rear edge at the bottom and top are made of plastic. The gadget is available in 2 colors: black and gold. We received a black Aurora for review. Most buyers prefer this one - it is believed that on a black smartphone it is not so noticeable that the display frames are very significant. Still, the device from BQ cannot be called frameless.

The arrangement of mechanical buttons and main elements is somewhat different from the standard one.

On the left is the SIM card slot. By the way, it is not hybrid, which is great - you can install a flash drive without removing the second SIM card. The following is interesting: SIM 1 and SIM 2 should be of different sizes - Micro and Nano, respectively. The nano-SIM does not lie tightly in the slot, which can cause an unpleasant rattling sound when, for example, you tap on the left edge of the case with your finger.

There are no elements on top. The manufacturer decided to place the 3.5 mm headphone jack on the bottom edge. A dubious decision - it turns out that the top part is empty, and at the bottom, in addition to the jack, there is also a MicroUSB connector, the main speaker, and a microphone for noise reduction. Such a strange arrangement of mechanical elements is probably due to the fact that there are a huge number of sensors located above the screen, as well as a dual front camera. There was simply no space for Jack.

On the right is the volume rocker and the Power key. The manufacturer deserves praise for the decision to make the power key embossed. Thanks to this, the user can quickly find the button by touch.

On the back surface of the case there are two “eyes” of the main camera and a fingerprint sensor. The location of the sensor is very good - there are no problems in reaching it with your index finger. But from the front we again see the triumph of asymmetry. While there are so many sensors above the screen that “there is nowhere for an apple to fall,” the area below the screen is not filled with anything. Why BQ decided not to post anything below is unknown - but there are probably good reasons for this.

BQ BQ-6000L Aurora as a GPS navigator

The tracks are smooth, satellites are caught quickly. Plus a bright screen, plus an excellent battery - an ideal navigator.

It's funny that the smartphone can't pick up BeiDou satellites. Only GPS and GLONASS. However, two of them are more than enough.

Test tracks

Review of BQ Aurora SE (BQ-5732L)

In general, the BQ 5732L Aurora SE does not have additional functional bells and whistles, which are typical for expensive flagship models, and which they are trying to introduce into state-priced models. But in many cases they are present only “for show” as a marketing ploy, since one cannot count on real work at such a cost.

But all the other basic functions work great here. Therefore, we can safely say that at the moment the BQ-5732L is one of the best smartphones under 10 thousand rubles.

BQ BQ-6000L Aurora as a toy

As expected, there are no problems with games. Iron of such power is enough with a decent reserve.

Camera overview

The BQ 6000 l Aurora review moves on to its photographic capabilities. What you notice right away is the presence of four cameras - a unique feature of a smartphone. The main camera uses two modules of 13 and 5 megapixels. The latter is used only for the background blur effect. By the way, Bokeh works well, but not always. Often part of the foreground is blurred; the algorithms still need to be improved. There is a manual shooting mode, retouching, a document scanner and even the ability to create GIF animations.

BQ 6000l Aurora review showed that photos taken during the day are distinguished by natural color reproduction and a wide dynamic range, but the detail leaves much to be desired if you look more closely.

At night, detail will be even worse, but color rendition remains realistic. The flashlights do not illuminate the frame, and it is not blurred, but a lot of noise appears.

The front camera is also double and is represented by 20 and 8 megapixel sensors. The additional lens is wide-angle, allowing even a large group of friends to fit into the frame. There is also a flash, which is useful when shooting in the dark. The quality of the pictures is quite good, but only in good lighting conditions.

Video is recorded in FullHD at 30 frames per second.

Conclusion

In its price category, the BQ Aurora smartphone turned out to be quite good. It offers an 18:9 edge-to-edge display, face unlock, front and rear cameras with Bokeh effect, but it also has a number of disadvantages. First of all, the lack of an NFC chip and the lack of 5 GHz Wi-Fi will cause inconvenience. Yes, and even though it has a lot of cameras, it has serious problems with detailing objects.

Advantages:

• Frameless screen 18:9;
• Excellent build quality;
• Facial recognition;
• Dual front and main cameras;
• Good performance for a budget employee.

Flaws:

• Lack of support for Wi-Fi 5 GHz and NFC;
• Insufficient detail in photos from both the main and front cameras.

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⇡#Display and sound

One aspect in which the BQ Aurora SE is simplified compared to the BQ Aurora 2 is the screen. In Aurora SE, it is not only smaller in size - 5.86 inches versus 6.2 inches, but also has a lower resolution: 1520 × 720. That is, it is an HD screen with a not very high pixel density - 287 ppi. If you look closely, you will notice a slight pixelation and a “ladder” on the fonts, but if you don’t pick on things, everything is, in principle, not bad.

The screen is based on a fairly high-quality IPS matrix. This is noticeable at first glance - the viewing angles are not bad; when tilted strongly, the screen does not change color rendition, although it noticeably loses contrast. There is a polarizing layer, a protective glass with a normal oleophobic coating (the manufacturer does not indicate the authorship of the tempered glass) and a good multi-touch coating with support for up to ten simultaneous touches.

The measured brightness level of the BQ Aurora SE display is 484 cd/m2. You can use your smartphone without problems both in the dark, indoors and outdoors, including in bright sunlight - the matrix allows this. In addition, there is also a light sensor in place, that is, the Aurora SE can control the brightness independently - and it does it quite well. The contrast level is also 1500:1. This is a very good indicator for an LCD display.

The display settings are standard - they mainly concern the interface and brightness. Aurora SE does not allow you to change the color rendering; you can only rely on the factory settings.

BQ Aurora SE, gamma. Yellow line – Aurora SE indicators, dotted line – reference gamma

BQ Aurora SE, color temperature. Blue line – Aurora SE indicators, dotted line – reference temperature

BQ Aurora SE, color gamut in automatic mode. Gray triangle – sRGB coverage, white triangle – Aurora SE coverage

The gamma of the BQ Aurora SE display is in perfect order - the curves behave quite stable, the average level is close to the standard - 2.23 (remember, the standard is 2.2). The high temperature is also not very bothersome: 7,500-7,800 K for a mobile screen is not bad at all, almost the norm, although not 6,500 K, which we would like to strive for. Nevertheless, most people prefer cool colors. But hardly anyone prefers a color space shifted relative to the standard (rather than expanded) - the colors are displayed incorrectly on the smartphone screen. However, the difference with the standard is not that critical - the average DeltaE deviation for the extended Color Checker palette (shades of gray + a wide range of color shades) when compared with sRGB is 5.76 with a norm of 3.00. That is, the screen is not configured very precisely, but it has happened much, much worse.

The sound capabilities of the BQ Aurora SE are quite standard for the budget segment - with a wired connection the sound is not bad, but not outstanding; without wires there are not enough signal transmission profiles at maximum quality (Bluetooth LDAC or aptX). It is better to use a smartphone with wired headphones. The external speaker is very good in terms of volume - moreover, in the parameters there is a special add-on that increases its volume situationally.

⇡#Hardware and performance

BQ Aurora 2 is one of the first smartphones based on the Mediatek Helio P60 platform and definitely the first of those that we tested. This is a fresh system-on-chip from a Chinese company that is continuously losing ground under pressure from Qualcomm, but is still striving to stay in the market. Helio P60 (MT6771) is a mid-range system, it uses the big.LITTLE architecture with eight computing cores: a quartet of ARM Cortex-A73 and a quartet of ARM Cortex-A53 with a clock frequency of up to 2.0 GHz. It is built using a 12nm technological process.

The graphics subsystem relies on an integrated ARM Mali-G72 MP3 accelerator with a frequency of up to 800 MHz. For its price segment, the BQ Aurora 2 gets more than decent performance - at least not lower, and often higher, than its competitors on low- and mid-range Snapdragon and Kirin. This is confirmed by both benchmarks and simple experience of working with a smartphone: applications open very quickly, there is some margin in gaming performance - most games will launch without the slightest problem, even if on the most demanding ones you will have to lower the graphics settings.

But the Helio P60, in combination with the BQ Aurora 2 cooling system, tends to throttle/switch to lower cores. According to the results of a 15-minute session of the CPU Throttling Test, the frequency decreased to 69% of the maximum with constant jumps towards the end - the platform remained in the “green” zone only for the first couple of minutes. Average performance level – 112 GIPS. Both are average for a smartphone in this class. For comparison: Nokia 7.1 showed a reduction in frequency to only 89% of the maximum.

The smartphone is equipped with 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of flash memory. A normal set for a mid-class device in 2018 - with the ability to expand the capacity using an optional microSD memory card (capacity up to 256 GB), which can be installed instead of a second SIM card.

⇡#Camera

BQ Aurora SE received a block of two cameras - today it is much more difficult to find a single-camera smartphone than a multi-camera one. Even a double module is already becoming vanishingly rare and is found mainly in the budget segment.

The Aurora SE uses a 13-megapixel module with an ƒ/2.0 aperture lens and a five-megapixel module with an unknown aperture. The second camera does not help the first with zoom, being responsible solely for blurring the background - and with several features.

The fact is that BQ in Aurora SE has placed a very serious emphasis on the capabilities of “artificial intelligence” - the Mediatek Helio P60 platform allows you to count on neural network calculations, and at a decent speed. They are used here for a variety of improvements in portrait mode: in the camera application you can find separate modes for “beauty photo” (the usual portrait mode with a beautifier), “bokeh” (blurring the background - but not necessarily when photographing a person) and “mask” ( the name speaks for itself). You can see in the screenshots that there is no manual settings mode and, for example, such familiar parameters as shooting with HDR - indeed, the emphasis on “smart” portrait modes turned out to be, perhaps, too bright. Most likely, the usual shooting options will be added in the next firmware.

Above you can see examples of BQ Aurora SE portrait photography using the built-in beautifier, which offers flexible settings: you can adjust skin smoothing, eye size, facial thickness and skin whitening (“beautiful face”). When shooting in this mode, artificial background blur is automatically turned on - if you don’t try to blur the background to the maximum in the “bokeh” mode, the smartphone does it carefully, without a “halo” that appears due to unsuccessful separation of the object from the background.

However, the smartphone can perform very well in “bokeh” mode. Above is an example of background blur behind an object in low light conditions. As you can see, he completely coped with the task.

An important feature of BQ Aurora SE was the ability to use neural networks not only for photos, but also for videos - although in both cases with the same goal of “beautification”. The mode, as you might guess, is called “beauty video” - it is filmed with HD resolution (720p), the quality is low. The anti-aliasing effect is clearly visible, but for some reason the video is compressed at the edges and cut off at the top and bottom - the picture turns out to be pinched. In a regular format, without the “beauty” prefix, the BQ Aurora SE can shoot videos with Full HD resolution, the quality during daytime shooting is quite decent.

Gallery of pictures

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The same can be said about photography - in daylight the BQ Aurora SE takes pictures well: color rendition is normal, white balance is not always stable, but generally within normal limits, detail is decent. There are problems with picture clarity at the edges of the frame, but I wouldn’t call them critical. In the dark, the smartphone performs much weaker - getting an unblurred frame with decent detail from it is not easy, but it is possible. Multi-frame exposure is not supported for either night or day shooting.

The 8-megapixel front camera with an ƒ/2.2 aperture lens does not have autofocus or flash, but just like the rear module, it can shoot in “beauty photo” mode with background blur. Moreover, the effect can be just as powerful (or wild, depending on how you look at it). Masks are also in place - example above.

⇡#Communications and wireless communications

The BQ Aurora 2 uses two operator cards (one micro-SIM + one nano-SIM) of the nano-SIM standard with one single radio module. At the same time, there is no need to choose which of them will work with 4G and which will not, both slots support LTE. The modem built into the Helio P60 allows you to count on LTE Cat.13 (download speed up to 400 Mbit/s), but specifically Aurora is friendly with LTE category 7, the download speed of which is limited to 300 Mbit/s, and transmission – 100 Mbit/s With. The range of supported 4G network bands fully covers the needs of a Russian user (as well as users from other CIS countries) - this is what you would expect from a Russian smartphone.

BQ Aurora 2, slot for SIM cards and microSD memory cards

But the Russian affiliation of the company still does not affect all the parameters of the smartphone - in particular, Aurora 2, according to the old unkind Chinese custom, is deprived of an NFC module. Those who like to pay using Google Pay or add a Troika card to their phone will have to either change their habits or choose a different phone. The rest is a standard set of communications: Bluetooth 4.2 and dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac. The navigation module works with GPS and GLONASS and demonstrates quite normal speed and accuracy.

Performance and benchmarks

The Russian company has not deprived BQ Aurora in terms of hardware - a powerful 8-core Helio P25 processor is paired with a Mali-T880 graphics accelerator, as well as 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of physical memory.

These are decent characteristics of the mid-segment, which should be enough for all the needs of a modern user. Everything about the interface and basic functions is perfect, applications launch quickly, the device works perfectly in YouTube, the browser, instant messengers and social networks - no freezes or slowdowns were noticed.

Games are also in perfect order - nothing lags or crashes, however, the back panel heats up quite quickly. We tested several resource-intensive games on the BQ Aurora, including Godfire, Mortal Kombat X, Overkill and World War Heroes. There are no complaints, you can play comfortably.

⇡#Design, software and ergonomics

The BQ Aurora SE clearly follows the design of the BQ Aurora 2 (BQ-6020L), except for the rear panel. Otherwise, everything is familiar: small but noticeable frames around the screen, a “meaty” cutout in the area of ​​the status bar, a classic arrangement of functional elements, a USB Type-C port.

But there are differences, including pleasant ones. Firstly, the mini-jack has returned in the SE version - the pursuit of fashion is of no use here, we are talking about the budget segment, where a smartphone costs like other wireless headphones. Secondly, the edges are made not of metal, but of plastic - this is easy to understand just by looking at them: there are no special “veins” for the correct operation of the antennas. Thirdly, the overall shape is different: the smartphone is more “square”, the back panel is almost not rounded at the edges.

BQ-5732L Aurora SE, front panel: at the top of the screen there is a cutout with a front camera, earpiece and light sensor

BQ-5732L Aurora SE, rear panel: in the center - a unit with a dual camera and a single LED flash, below it - a fingerprint scanner

At the back, this is a completely different gadget - the block with two cameras has moved from the corner to the center. It's hard to say whether the SE looks better than the regular Aurora. But in terms of color, it’s definitely fresh. In addition to the basic, completely black version, there are also two gradient ones: with a blue or purple tint, as in our case. This is the second BQ smartphone, after the Magic S, that can safely be called beautiful.

BQ-5732L Aurora SE, left side: slot for SIM cards and memory cards

BQ-5732L Aurora SE, right side: power and volume/camera shutter keys

I already mentioned the layout of the smartphone above - “Android” classics. The power and volume keys are on the right edge, the card tray is on the left, the mini-jack is on top, the USB Type-C port and the speaker are on the bottom.

BQ-5732L Aurora SE, top: 3.5mm headphone/headset audio jack, microphone

BQ-5732L Aurora SE, bottom: microphone, USB Type-C port and main speaker

The smartphone is quite compact - the 5.86-inch display with an aspect ratio of 19:9 is still not fully suitable for using the gadget with one hand, but at least the gadget fits well in this very hand and fits into any pocket without problems .

The cutout for the front camera and earpiece is quite large, but it does not interfere with placing all the necessary information on the status bar - from charge percentage to time. The latter, however, barely fits on the screen - the first number touches its frame. Well, the time and charge percentage are indicated in different sized fonts, and it looks peculiar. For haters of unibrows, BQ offers an option to visually get rid of it by filling the entire status bar with black.

The fingerprint scanner is located in the center of the rear panel, it falls directly under the index finger. This is a capacitive sensor, it works quickly and with a minimal percentage of defects. It is also possible to use an alternative way to identify the user - using facial recognition.

Screenshot gallery

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BQ Aurora SE runs on the Android 9 Pie operating system without any noticeable shell. But there are signs that the smartphone is “local” - this is an alternative Yandex search bar in addition to the usual Google one and a set of pre-installed applications. Moreover, both from Mail.Ru or the same Yandex, and just a few games, including, for example, Asphalt Nitro - not the latest version of the popular mobile racing simulator, but it works even on an inexpensive smartphone without the slightest problem.