The Siam 7x ($449; 16GB) seems like a good idea on paper, but falls short in reality. Siam's concept is similar to what we saw in the YotaPhone: The 7x is a 5-inch unlocked smartphone with a secondary e-ink display on the back that can be used for reading, notifications, and even music and photos. But the screen itself is finicky to the touch, and you have to use Siam's own apps, which means you can't read books purchased on your Kindle or from Google Play Books. Add lackluster performance, short battery life, and a heavy software layer, and the Siam 7x becomes hard to recommend over less interesting, but more functional, unlocked phones like the Google Nexus 5X.
Design and Features
Measuring in at 5.59 by 2.78 by 0.35 inches (HWD) and 6 ounces, the 7x is a brick of a phone. It's bigger, thicker, and heavier than the 5-inch HTC One A9 (5.74 by 2.79 by 0.29 inches; 5.04 ounces), but that's somewhat expected due to the second display. Overall, the phone feels premium and is easy to use in one hand no matter which side you're looking at.
The power button is on the right, with two separate SIM card slots below it. The first slot takes a nano SIM card, while the second takes either another nano SIM or a microSD card. The 7x worked with a 64GB Leef Pro card, but not a 200GB SanDisk card. You'll find the volume buttons on the left, two speakers and a micro USB charging port on the bottom, a 3.5mm audio jack up top, and an IR blaster, which lets you control TVs.
Displays and Apps
The standout feature of the 7x is its e-ink display, but the front-facing, 1,280-by-720 panel is the one you're primarily going to be interacting with. For its 5-inch size, 720p is a fine resolution. It's not as sharp as the 1080p panels you'll find on the Nexus 5X or the HTC One A9, but it's bright, has decent viewing angles, and is usable outdoors.
Similar Products
Google Nexus 5X (Unlocked)
HTC One A9 (Unlocked)
OnePlus X (Unlocked)
Motorola Moto G (2015, Unlocked)
Sony Xperia Z5 Compact (Unlocked)
Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 (Unlocked)
Google Nexus 6P (Unlocked)
It's hard to be as positive about the 960-by-540 e-ink display on the back. At 4.7 inches, it's almost as big as the front panel, but nowhere near as responsive. Attempting to interact with the screen is an exercise in patience, as it often fails to register touches. Unlocking it, for example, often takes a few tries, and interacting with apps usually requires repeated taps. The refresh rate is slow, and sometimes leaves behind a faded, ghost image of the previous screen.
Getting content on the e-ink display is done through six preinstalled apps: E-Card, E-Manager, E-Music, E-Notes, E-Photos, and E-Reader. E-Card lets you import phone contacts and generate a business card with a name, phone number, email, and a QR code. E-Manager doesn't seem to do anything beyond launching each of the various E-Card apps. E-Music lets you control music contained in your phone's storage or on an SD card. E-Notes lets you add a weather widget, calendar, and an agenda to the screen. E-Photos lets you display the pictures you take. And E-Reader lets you download and read ebooks.
The main problem is that there's no third-party integration for any of these apps. Everything runs off internal storage or a microSD card If you want to add music to E-Music, for example, it has to be local; you can't use it to stream songs on Spotify. The same goes for E-Reader. If you use Kindle for ebooks, you won't be able to read any of those books here. And if you're reading an article online, or one you've saved in Pocket, there's no way to throw it up on the e-ink display. In addition, there's no way to mirror Android onto the e-ink display, as you can with the YotaPhone 2.
Network Performance and Audio
The Siam 7x is sold unlocked with support for GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), WCDMA (850/1900/2100MHz), and LTE (2/4/7/17) bands. It will work on both AT&T and T-Mobile, but its LTE banding makes for better performance on AT&T. I tested phone in midtown Manhattan with an AT&T SIM. Indoors I was largely restricted to 3G connectivity, though outside I saw a high of 15Mbps down and 9Mbps up, which is on par with what we've seen on AT&T devices like the LG G5. There's no dual-band Wi-Fi or NFC.
Call quality is good. Earpiece volume could be higher, but transmissions are clear and natural. Noise cancellation is strong, getting rid of loud traffic and wind noise.
The 7x is made in partnership with SMS Audio and should come with SMS Audio Biosport Earbuds that plug into the 3.5mm audio jack, but we received generic earbuds with our demo unit. Wired sound quality is good, but doesn't seem exceptionally better than what you get on most phones, and Bluetooth sound quality is average. The bottom-firing speakers get nice and loud, and there's a set of audio profiles you can choose from, including General, Silent, Meeting, and Outdoor, which mostly serve to adjust volume.
Processor, Battery, and Camera
The Siam 7x doesn't have the processing capabilities you expect from a $450 phone. Under the hood, there's 2GB of RAM and an entry-level MediaTek MT6735A processor clocked at 1.3GHz. That's the same hardware you'll find on the Blu Life One X, which costs a third of the price. The 7x scored 30,471 on the AnTuTu benchmark for overall system performance, which is no match for the Snapdragon 617-powered HTC One A9 (41,018) or the Snapdragon 808-powered Nexus 5X (51,808).
To its credit, the Siam 7x doesn't feel particularly sluggish in general use, though there were instances of unresponsiveness when too many apps were running in the background. Games like Asphalt 8 and GTA San Andreas were a bit choppy in testing.
Battery life is poor, clocking just 2 hours and 45 minutes in our battery test, in which we set screen brightness to maximum and stream full-screen video over LTE. That's far less than you get with the Nexus 5X (6 hours and 32 minutes) and the HTC One A9 (6 hours and 45 minutes), both of which have similar battery capacity and screen sizes.
The 16-megapixel rear-facing camera doesn't perform as well as its megapixel count might lead you to believe. Outdoors, there are often patches of noise located around areas of fine detail, like tree branches and bushes. Images tend to look soft even in well-lit settings and muddy under low-light conditions. If you manually focus and give the camera plenty of time to adjust, it's possible to take crisp shots, but more often than not you'll find that picture quality is middling at best. Video recording is better at 1080p and 30 frames per second. The front-facing 8-megapixel camera has the same problems as the rear, taking shots that are often too soft.
Software and Conclusions
The Siam 7x comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop, but you can barely tell because of the heavy custom UI layer running on top. Icons are redesigned to the point that I had to hunt to find the Google Play Games and the Google Play Store apps because of how unfamiliar everything is. Most OEMs don't redesign Google apps, so it was surprising to see that Siam does. The app drawer has also been removed, so all your apps are splashed across the home screens.
The Settings menu remains the same, but a Gesture Recognition option has been added. It provides some useful functionality, like the ability to double tap to wake the screen, drawing C to launch the camera, M to launch music, and swiping up to open the dialer, among other shortcuts. All of the gestures worked reliably in testing and you can edit the default apps and replace them with apps of your choice.
Helix ear recognition is an interesting feature built into the Siam Security app. True to its name, you can unlock your phone by using your ear. The front-facing camera registers your ear shape, and holding the phone up to the side of your head will unlock it. Unfortunately, I couldn't register my "earprint"—perhaps my ear is strangely shaped. That said, I can't imagine most people will opt to use this feature compared with a standard unlock code or pattern, since you need to bring the phone back down to eye level after unlocking it anyway.
Aside from the E-ink and Google apps, there's a host of preinstalled apps. These include Bagan Keyboard, BestMe Selfie, Blue Magic, BuzzFeed News, Compass, Confide, FM Radio, File Manager, OfficeSuite, RunKeeper, SD Scanner, Siam Security, Smart Remote, Skype, and Whatsapp. None of this bloatware can be uninstalled, and you're left with 9.16GB of available storage.
The Siam 7x is a unique device, but its e-ink display simply doesn't offer enough functionality to overlook the phone's dated hardware, short battery life, and heavy software load. If you're looking for a capable unlocked phone, there is really no shortage of comparably priced options to choose from. The Nexus 5X gets you more powerful hardware, a stock build of Android, and a much better camera. The HTC One A9 offers a more premium metal body and solid overall performance. Or you can save some money by picking up the Alcatel OneTouch Idol 3 4.7 or the Motorola Moto G, both of which offer an impressive combination of features and performance for the price. And you'll have plenty of money left over to pick up an ebook reader like the Amazon Kindle Paperwhite.
The Siam 7x is a unique unlocked Android phone with a secondary e-ink display on the back, but that isn't enough to make up for lackluster hardware, poor battery life, and heavily customized software.
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