THE FANTASTIC FLARE! FLARE ON!

THE FANTASTIC FLARE! FLARE ON!

UNBOXING MUNA!

FULL REVIEW:

Yes I Bought Three Units ;)

The Cherry Mobile Flare

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*** CHERRY MOBILE FLARE VS  CHERRY MOBILE TITAN HERE ***

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                Arguably the hottest and most highly anticipated phone of the year, Cherry Mobile Flare found its way to SM North EDSA stores and took the country by storm! Units were available at 1pm but Flarenatics, waited from 10am. When SM opened, there were already a lot of people, and I mean A LOT! I arrived at 10 and found myself almost at the hundredth spot! As time went by the line extended from the Cherry Mobile Store up to Globe up to Powermac. See the pictures! This was my first time to wait in line, truth be told I was amazed on how far and how many the Flare had reached. So why did it become so popular? Let me give you a hint, at a price of P4000 (Roughly $100 ) you get two cores, two sims, and two cameras. Titan also has these specs but price reduced by P2000 and size reduced by just an inch, would you want anything more? After the long wait for the release and the long wait to receive it, is it worth getting the Cherry Mobile Flare? Read on to find out!  

Oh yeah, Cherry Mobile SkyFire review is out :)

1. THE PACKAGE (8 out of 10)

1.1  The BOX

                AHHHH, the Box, for the third time I want to reiterate its importance to sales. A good looking box could mean better sales. The box of the Flare is pretty comparable to its bigger brother Cherry Mobile Titan. If you wouldn’t mind the Cherry Logo this is a good looking box. I have a biased taste for the Purple color so… Yeah. Behind the box it says:

Android 4.0

1.2 Ghz Dual-Core S4 MSM8225***

4 Capacitive Touch Panel

4GB ROM, 512 RAM

Expandable Memory

5Mp Rear, VGA Cam

***POWERED BY SNAPDRAGON S4 MSM8225

-This chip can also be found on HTC Desire X. If you have one or have access to one, their speed is roughly the same.

1.2 What’s in the Box?

            Unboxing time. Sweet delight! Knowing you have this one first is a definite OMG! Opening the box, you see the unit in plastic, removing the cover underneath the unit reveals a white 5V Charger, a manual, a USB cable that feels fragile and a bad headset**. Basically you get the same as the Titan.

** If you are an audiophile, the headset would disappoint 100%, if not, it still would disappoint you, as this headset made me love my Dynatech earphones more.

2. PHONE SUPERFICIALITY (9.4 out of 10)

                One Word: WOW! For a P4000 phone you actually get an executive looking phone comparable to the likes of Galaxy S Advance. No kidding. The phone looks and feels solid, if you prefer 4 inches for phones, it will feel at home the moment you hold it. Unlike its bigger brother, its back case is not prone to smudges or fingerprint. Another plus one would be the screen protector included. Sure its placement may have been rushed but it does save you a day or two to buy a better one; rather than barely using it without a screen protector. Reminder guys, THIS PHONE IS NOT GORILLA GLASS, TAKE CARE OF IT J

            As of today, I’m sure there are a lot of 4 inch screen protectors out there, and cases for the Flare is inevitable, take good care of your unit alright?

           

3. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

3.1 Speakers (6.3 out of 10)

                The loudspeaker is probably Cherry Mobile’s, or any other rebranding companies, strong point, happy to tell you, the loudspeaker of this phone is also superb. For the sound when earplugs are inserted, it would be unjust of me to judge it by using its crap of a headset, so I used my Dynatech and Sony Headsets, unfortunately, out of the three, none impressed me. Don’t get me wrong they are not bad, but I prefer my sounds louder. Comparing it to Sony Ericsson Arc S, Samsung S2, or even the Titan, loudness fails miserably and that is a minus one in my book as I prefer my music deafening. The louder the better.

3.2 Display / Video Playback (8.2 out of 10)

                4 Inch IPS*. 800x480. P4000? WIN. The colors are much more vibrant than that of the Titan. Its actually fun to browse pictures every now and then as the images are much more crisp. Playing movies or shows or whatever you want is a great experience as I was able to play almost anything. Lags are apparent for 1080p videos ang they are not tolerable, the highest I have tested is Batman Begins 1080p 1.6Gb. I suggest MoboPlayer or MX Player for maximum enjoyment.

Being a student, commute is an integral part of my life, with this phone, I can watch series or movies on the go in the jeep, I have been a victim of those heartless, scoundrelic bastards known to many as thieves, snacthers, budol budol assholatry, losing P4000 for your life is much easier to take than losing say perhaps a great cellphone such as a Galaxy S2 Skyrocket.

^^^^UPDATE: I suggest playing videos below 1Gb, over 1Gb causes considerable intolerable lags.

3.3 Gaming (9 out of 10)

                Gaming is a part of ALMOST every Android user. Having played Mainstream games

Angry Birds, Paper Toss, Fruit Ninja, Temple Run, Ninjump, Plant Wars blah blah blah. I have yet to experience any lag. Its actually fun to play with Flare, but I am yet to play it extensively, and see if the rumors of fast heat-up is true. Same as with its brother, it outran Sony Arc S and plays games as well as my current Samsung S2 4G LTE. Lags may appear but as I have said, I enjoyed playing with this device for me to notice the lags. Its no Note 2 or Motorola Photon 4G but hey, its 4k!

            Another clincher to a 9.5/10 rating is the ability to play NBA 2k13 smoothly(smoothly for me, at least). Hands down, in terms of playing, I prefer the Flare over S2 anyday, the game ran perfectly for me. I am reluctant to play other HD Games as I am a console and handheld gamer. It just so happens I really love NBA that I played it on the Flare, and it was a delight. Two Thumbs up!  

^^^^UPDATE: WHEN PLAYING TEMPLE RUN I HAVE NOTICED IT IS TILTED TO THE LEFT 

3.4 Camera (7.4 out of 10)

These Images are from Flare.

Coming from a the Titan, I would expect this phone to give same quality of shitty images if compared to current camera giants of today. I was really impressed with what I saw. Maybe it was the screen or what, I don’t know but I was surprised to see the images are better than what I had expected from Cherry. Its far from an E72 or any good 5mp shooter to date, but this, by far, has the best camera on a rebranded phone I have ever seen.

            Pixelations are obvious with a slight zoom but the pictures look good on their normal look on the phone’s gallery.

3.5 Need for Speed (8.5 out of 10)

RAM and Clockspeed Review

                Many of you might wonder, what is RAM and the clockspeed for? Should I go for higher RAM, less clock or vice versa? The answer depends on how you use the phone. Random Acess Memory (RAM) is used to determine how many apps your unit can run simultaneously. So bigger RAM means you can multi-task much more applications without worrying about lagging on the system.

                Clockspeed is used to determine how fast your system will run a certain application. Simply put, higher clockspeed means faster phone. THIS IS THE GENERAL IDEA ON RAM AND CLOCKSPEED. Factors on speed are also determined by the chipset architecture, GPU, etc.

                A 1.2Ghz Dual Core Snapdragon S4 MSM8225 for a 4k phone is definitely a big yahoo. This chip can also be found on the recent HTC Desire X. This phone runs really fast compared especially if compared to my Xperia Mini Pro (Yes, I know it’s a single core.). When put side by side to my S2, it shows its weakness, but would you really care about a few milli or microsecond of a difference?

            The 4Gb internal is a good addition too, about 570Mb is for your apps and about 2GB is user accessible, its actually not bad seeing as phones of last year  does not even have the same amount of space for apps. I’m looking at you Sony Ericsson Xperia lineup.

            The 512 RAM is standard for its price, and generally not bad unless you multitask a lot. Playing music and games has shown no problems.

^^^^UPDATE: I noticed a slight lag on one of my Flares when apps were installed, not really that big though

3.6 User-Friendliness (9 out of 10)

               Cherry Mobile Flare comes with Android Ice Cream sandwich. Android is arguably the most expandable Operating System to date. With the thousand of beautify your phone applications coupled with almost anything you could possibly need, you will never run out of things to do. Tired of a game? Go to the Playstore, Download another! Need new themes? Go to the Playstore, Download another! Need a recipe? Need to go somewhere? You can find almost everything on the Playstore.

            Of course, since it is flexible and open source, official android developers continuously finds ways to give us a much enjoyable experience. Other developers continuously make ways to further improve and customize our phone, sadly, I highly doubt Flare will get Custom Roms. Lets just hope for the best for this phone and its future developers(if there will be any).

3.7 Battery (7 out of 10)

                This is Android and Cherry’s worst nightmare, fortunately for the Titan, Cherry slowly finds its way out of bad reputation especially concerning with battery life. I am yet to stress test the machines’ battery but from what I have seen for the last six hours, it is still at half mark after all the test I did, installation, music playing, video playing, playing games etc. In theory, my Samsung S2 4G LTE uses 1650maH for its 4.55 inch screen and it lasts a day with moderate to heavy usage, the 1500maH of the Flare sounds promising.

^^^^UPDATE: The battery is not as powerful as I expected but it still doesn't disappoint. I full charged it today with moderate usage. I have mixed emotions about its 47% 8pm Battery (100% at 9am). Lastly, from about 30% battery at about 12am, I continously played music until I felt asleep up until I woke up at 7am. Glad to see battery of 14% :)

CONCLUSION

TWO IS BETTER THAN ONE (8.15 out of 10) 

* Performance is 70%, Package and Looks are both 15% for the total of 100% YEHEY I KNOW MATH :))

Cherry Mobile Gave Cherry Maxx Candies ISWYDT

                Having waited for almost a month for this phone, I am glad I had the opportunity to be one of the first guy to own this. Actually I am roughly the 200^th, the man in red got the first commercial unit of Flare and he was given a round of applause from almost everyone. Today was such a rush, and I was lucky enough to get THREE CHERRY MOBILE FLARES. I reserved one, and stood in line with my cousin so I got three units. None of them seemed defective.

            Back to the Conclusion, this is arguably, THE BEST VALUE for a brandnew phone this year. Period. You get a snappy, vibrant 4 inch phone with dual sim prowess. The cheapest I have found for such units are P7000, Lenovo P700. But I would rather spend that kind of money on a smartphone with a good brand reputation. The lines, the wait, the continuous visit at North Edsa everyday was worth it. Too bad I did not get an Android Doll freebie.

            If you are looking for a budget phone with the specs of a higher end phone, this is definitely a good pick and a great buy! It’s not the perfect phone but I am sure it is the King for its price range. As far as I know, P4000 phones have 256K colors ehem Galaxy Mini 2, little screens, unresponsive touch and others, I hope everyone who got this does not have any problem. For now I salute Cherry Mobile for making this phone, I give it a two thumbs up! I hope Torque, Myphone and Starmobile could also drop their prices, as Cherry killed the three of them, at least in customer number. I hope more good things for all of Philippines’ rebranders! Cheers! 

For Full-Day Test See Here

WOW THIS PHONE ALSO HAS ITS OWN TV COMMERCIAL