Blackview P10000 Pro: Battery-Monster with 11.000 mAh battery for $199.99

Blackview is a Chinese smartphone manufacturer that focuses particularly on outdoor smartphones. Apparently, however, other niche smartphones are also being commissioned. Now a new battery monster leaves the Blackview factory. The Blackview P10000 Pro with an 11,000 mAh battery has arrived and is competing with the UleFone Power 5!

• Blackview P10000 Pro
  • at TomTop for $199.99 | AliExpress for $229.99 | GeekBuying for $242.99

Design in the best Blackview manner

The Blackview P10000 Pro produces is already outwardly unmistakable. The basic shape of the smartphone is also known from outdoor devices such as the BV9000, with its four bevelled corners and the alternation between plastic and metal elements. However, the majority of the back is made of artificial leather. In contrast to the UleFone Power 5, at least one layer of “real artificial leather” is used here and not just plastic, which should look like leather. This makes the back feel pleasantly soft and of a higher quality. Overall, however, this Blackview smartphone also looks a bit bulky, which is reinforced by its enormous dimensions of 16,5 x 7,7 x 1,47 cm.

Unfortunately, the workmanship cannot keep up with the design. The keys wiggle audibly, the imitation leather stands out at one point (picture below) and both the SIM slot and the fingerprint sensor have a different colour tone from the metal sides around it. These are not absolute deal breakers, but cloud the otherwise good workmanship at Blackview.

On the upper edge of the screen is a small metal element in which the auricle is hidden. On the right below are two front cameras. At the bottom of the screen there is neither an IP-68 logo (no rating available) like other Blackview smartphones nor a home button with fingerprint sensor. Instead, this one moves to the right side, which we already know from the BV8000 Pro. Above it is the power button and the volume rocker, the SIM slot is opposite on the left side.

On the back you place the dual camera including flash and the Blackview logo. There are three versions of the P10000 Pro: Mirror Silver, Mirror Grey and Leather Grey. So you can choose whether you prefer a reflective back or a matt imitation leather back. If you choose the glass back, the weight increases by 3 grams to 293 grams compared to our version.

Display: good average

Most of the front is occupied by the display, which measures 5.99 inches diagonally and comes in a modern 18:9 aspect ratio. The screen edges are clearly visible, but are a bit more filigree than you are used to from the manufacturer. The IPS LCD panel resolves in FullHD+ (2160 x 1080P) and thus offers a pixel density of 403 PPI. The display is therefore beautifully sharp and individual pixels cannot be seen with the naked eye. Good contrast, natural colour reproduction and enough brightness for sunny days round off the good impression.

The touch screen reacts quickly and reliably, but can only detect five fingers at a time. Ten fingers have become standard in the price range, but most of them should not really mind. Worse is the increased susceptibility to fingerprints. So you have to clean the P10000 on your T-shirt more often than most smartphones. Maybe you can help here with an armoured glass foil, because the two enclosed plastic protection foils (one pre-installed) do not bring any improvement.

Performance

Just like UleFone, Blackview uses the Helio P23 processor from MediaTek. This also makes a lot of sense here, because this CPU is more energy efficient than the minimal stronger Helio P25 processor. The maximum clock frequency is 2.0 GHz in one of the two clusters. The other one is more power efficient and offers a frequency of 1.5 GHz. In addition, there is a combination of 4 GB RAM and 64 GB internal memory (expandable). Even if 6 GB RAM are becoming more and more established, 4 GB RAM is an absolutely sufficient value!

Thanks to Mali-G71 GPU, games like PUBG Mobile run smoothly on a medium level and the performance is absolutely suitable for everyday use. Nevertheless, the P10000 Pro is a bit slower than other smartphones with the Helio P23 CPU, which is most noticeable in app startup times. But this could be improved with the announced Android 8.1.

Android 8.1 update announced

Yes, unfortunately the Blackview P10000 Pro still has Android 7.1 nougat as operating system, although it was not released until March. Personally I would have wished for Android 8.1 Oreo at the start, so it was only announced, but without a concrete date. After all, the security update with April 2018 is quite current and we already had a small update in the test period, which gives us hope.

Apart from the version, I’m quite happy with the software, because Blackview didn’t make things worse here. The changes are one iconpack (matter of taste) and two pre-installed apps, which can be uninstalled (InfoHub) or deactivated (Kika keyboard). All Google services are of course directly available and the added gestures and shortcuts are mostly useful and work as expected.

Fake dual cameras on both sides

The Blackview BV9000 had really blown our minds with the integrated camera. The “Dual” camera with the 16 megapixel sensor and the 0.3 megapixel sensor is unfortunately only disappointing. The secondary camera is like the Power 5 a dummy and offers absolutely no advantage. Here I would wish for a trend towards a good single-cam instead of a wasted dual-cam.

The Blackview BV9000 had really blown our minds with the integrated camera. The “Dual” camera with the 16 megapixel sensor and the 0.3 megapixel sensor is unfortunately only disappointing. The secondary camera is like the Power 5 a dummy and offers absolutely no advantage. Here I would wish for a trend towards a good single-cam instead of a wasted dual-cam.

Main camera with useful shots

The built-in 16 MP Sony IMX298 sensor is no stranger. He has done decent services in the Xiaomi Mi 5, but that is already over two years old. Of course you can get something out of it with the software, which unfortunately doesn’t really work with the Blackview P10000 Pro. Here it is sometimes too unnaturally reworked and sharpened. In good lighting conditions, the shots are still okay. However, if it gets a little darker, noise is quickly added and details are lost. The HDR and portrait modes are unfortunately not usable at all.

Front Camera / Selfie Camera

Also the two front cameras are actually only one camera, because the secondary one is again only a dummy. The combination of 13 megapixels and also 0.3 megapixels should provide decent selfies and serve for face unlock. Normal shots are also useful here, as long as you don’t want to take a portrait.

11.0000 mAh Battery-Monster

Similar to the UleFone Power 5, which I recently tested, the battery is the central feature of the Blackview P10000 Pro. However, Blackview relies “only” on a battery with a capacity of 11,000 mAh! That’s not a new record, but it’s getting pretty damn close. Only the Power 5 and the Doogee BL12000 can surpass this. But what’s the point? Blackview advertises quite offensively with 50 days standby time. Even 60 hours of telephoning or 18 hours of gambling are no problem.

Unfortunately, these values are somewhat high, 11,000 mAh are not exactly low capacity, but that alone does not make for a good battery life. A Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 with a much smaller battery, but the super adapted MIUI operating system for example also creates a very good battery life. Unfortunately, the P10000 Pro only has 16 hours and 48 minutes at half brightness. By comparison, the UleFone Power 5 has lasted more than 11 hours longer at only 2,000 mAh. So there is still a lot to be optimized here! The charging process is better. Pump Express 4.0 technology brings the huge battery back to 98% in “just” two hours.

The headphone connection is missing

The Blackview P10000 Pro’s main connector is the USB Type C connector on the bottom. Experience has shown that the manufacturer does not use a 3.5 mm jack connector and supplies a jack-to-USB adapter instead. This is especially funny in this case, because extra headphones with jack connection are included. With such a large mobile phone the connection would have fit in my opinion. Wireless connection options are available for this purpose: Bluetooth, Dual Band WiFi, GPS and GLONASS are on board.

Surprisingly good Face Unlock

In addition to a notification LED and a well-placed fingerprint sensor, there are also features such as Face Unlock. Of course, this is not as secure as a fingerprint, but it works surprisingly often and quickly. Also our standard test to just hold a photo in front of the camera did not work this time. Thus, for example, the competitor of UleFone could be easily tricked. The fingerprint sensor is also easier to reach than the Power 5 due to the slightly higher placement on the right side.

The scope of delivery is quite large as usual. Besides a cover and the two foils there are also adaptors for OTG, jack and microUSB. The USB cable also has an above-average quality thanks to metal elements.

Pity Blackview

Such battery-powered smartphones definitely only serve a small niche. Blackview really convinced us in the test with the BV9000, so I was optimistic that the manufacturer would deliver a very solid product again. A pity for Blackview is that I only recently tested the UleFone Power 5 and now the P10000 Pro had to compete with it and unfortunately is losing out in almost all respects.

Blackview has not delivered an absolutely bad smartphone here, but allowed itself too many errors and failed due to lack of software optimization especially in the desired paraded discipline of battery life. So I can only conclude with the recommendation of the UleFone Power 5.

What do you think of the Blackview P10000 Pro and battery monsters in general? Would you carry around almost 300 grams of cell phone every day?