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Nokia
BH-503 has been out on the market for almost five years now. During that time, I
was uninterested with this device as my phone, back then, was a mere Nokia 6630
which was incapable of playing the radio or even playing music, It could play
mp3s but I did not stress it so much as it could only carry 256MB card, it was
able to hold up to 1GB memory card but it became painstakingly slow.
A few days ago, my
classmate I saw my classmate using one and I was surprised with its loudness, I
tried it for myself and WOW! I used it on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2, and it was
just divine. Honestly I have never been fan of this kind of earphone as I found
them bulky, I always preferred in-ears, but this one changed that. After that fateful
day, I purchased one for myself.
This review is not
going to be as comprehensive as my review for cellphones, if they were even
close to that, this review will only cover observations and personal opinions
about this majestic headset, so read on and find out more!
1. THE PACKAGE AND LOOKS
The package is pretty standard;
you get your headset, with actually useful, for the first few times, manual. It
also comes with a small pin charger. For a headphone typish headset, this does
not look as bulky; it is also light and fits perfectly on most, if not all,
necks.
The right has all the
controls such as volume, call, previous and next buttons.
2. AUDIO QUALITY
Here’s where it gets interesting, being a Bluetooth headset, one may
argue that it will not deliver sound quality as good as those hardwired ones. I
am happy and proud to tell you it has an amazing sound output, it easily trumps
those CDR King Ear buds and it has better quality than that of Sennheiser MX170s
and A4Tech MK650. Its quality was almost identical to Note 2’s stock headset. If
you are a bass head, you would definitely love this.
Initially,
I thought making a call with this would be bad as the mic is placed far from
your mouth, to my surprise again, calls are loud and clear. I don’t know much
about Bluetooth headsets, but I’m sure that my assumption that finding a good
quality one is not easy to find.
3. CONNECTIVITY
Another major factor
for this Headset is its connectivity to virtually everything Bluetooth enabled.
If you have been a follower of my blog you know would know I have quite a
number of gadgets, I tested the headsets on numerous phones and laptops and BH
503 works well with EVERYTHING I tested it. I’m not exaggerating, EVERYTHING I could
possibly connect to it, it connects and delivers the same great ear party every
time. YES! ALL OF THE BUTTONS WORK. YES EVEN ON ANDROID PHONES. Here are the
list of devices I tested it with:
If that’s not many to
you I don’t know what is. (It is important to note that I don’t own
most of the device, they belong to my classmates <3).
For its range, I can
say it ranges to about 15 feet.
4. BATTERY
Being a Nokia product, I have high expectations for this one; all my
Nokia phones had great and amazing battery life, happy to say this one also has
that same astounding feature. I purchased this headphone January 16, 2013, and
up until now, January 21, 2013, I had only charged it once. The battery life is
just amazing! The box’s 75 Minute Music
Time on 20 Minute Charge is true.
CONCLUSION
This Nokia BH-503 is a
definitely money well spent. I only spent P600 (approx. $10-15) for this
original headset (yup this is actually a second hand unit). This costs about
P2000 for the original and P800 for the so-called OEM, I haven’t tested the
OEMs yet, I’ll update you if I get a hold of one. Overall, this is one impressive
piece of headset, hassle free music control, great sound quality, good range,
good call quality, and its amazing compatibility to virually everything bluetooth enabled, everything just seemed perfect. If you would ask me if I would
recommend this? I would non defiantly say YES. :D
Cry For Help: Hi Guys! Baka pwede manghingi donations para funds for review, para pati branded phones ma-tackle ko na din, Click donate sa side sa mga bukal sa loob magdonate, salamat ulit sa views guys! :)
After
the bombardment of highly affordable and functional phones by Cherry, other
rebranders seemed to have lost the battle at the eyes of most consumers. Since
time immemorial, Cherry, MyPhone and Torque were dubbed as ‘Filipino’ Brand
phones and have been continuously duking it out, today, Starmobile and
Cloudfone joined the ‘Filipino’ Brand cellphone war. There are also brands such
as Firefly but I am yet to see a blockbuster phone from them and other Rebranders.
Today, the Affordable War on Android phones with superb functionality wages on,
with Cherry presumably winning due to its Monopolic Cherry Mobile Flare and its
giant budget friendly brother Cherry Mobile Titan. After having reviewed and
tested both the units, I decided to give another brand a try, I am heavily
eyeing the Cloudfone Thrill 430x since I am having a hard time looking for one, my
attention is temporarily shifted to the current monster release of MyPhone
A919. Paired with a relatively higher tag price of P8000 (approximately $187),
P1500 more than the Titan, you get an 8Mp Camera, Same Processor, 854x480 IPS
Display. So for the extra P1500, do you get your money’s worth? Read on and
find out!
Fourth
time, the box and its package plays an important selling point on any product.
For the box itself, I am very much displeased too see a box with hardly much
effort put into it. In my opinion, I think the box could have been much better,
I am not being biased here but Cherry’s box looked exceptional after seeing the
box of the A919, instead of being excited I thought to myself, “Yuck, it looks
cheap”. The box is black and green with stickers not properly attached, another
minus one. The box is really disappointing. On the side of the box here is what
is written:
A919
Duo
Dual SIM Touch Android Phone
1GHz Dual-Core Processor
5” 854x480 pixels IPS FWVGA
Android 4.0.4
8Mp Autofocus Rear camera
VGA Camera
Dual LED Flash
Expandable Up to 32 GB
5Mp Rear, VGA Cam
POWERED BY MEDIATEK
*Mediatek is a semiconductor company
from Taiwan who actually provide good chips
1.2 What’s in the Box?
Unboxing time! This is when the fun starts to pick up;
MyPhone A919 comes with a Charger, USB Cable, Headset, Manuals, Quick Start
Guide Leaflet, Pinoy Guide leaflet and a CD. The USB Cable feels rugged unlike
the Titan’s and the stock charger actually has a MyPhone brand imprinted, I
don’t know why but that deserved a plus one as other brands did not put as much
effort as this on their package. Another plus factor for the package is the
headset, I have tried it on the phone itself and the Titan, I was impressed,
unfortunately it was unable to work on my Samsung S2. The package is another
plus to the saying don’t judge a book by its cover.
AMAZING FACTS: Using MyPhone A919 Headset on the
Titan, for some reason, delivers very loud and amazing sounds; try it out for
yourself :))
2. PHONE SUPERFICIALITY (7.9 out of 10)
I was able to buy a White unit so it is a definite
plus one! As with the Titan and Flare the phone looks and feels executive. The
top part with the front camera vaguely resembles that of a Samsung Galaxy S3,
the sides contain the volume rocker and the power button, the top part houses
the USB Port and the 3.5mm jack. The back cover looks amazing, maybe because of
the Philippine Icon and its protruded 8Mp Camera with Dual Led Flash. Had it
not been for its Fingerprint magnet back and partnered with the unattractive
capacitive buttons (yes I found the capacitive buttons unattractive), I would
have given this phone a 9.3.
3. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
3.1 Speakers (7.7 out of 10)
Time
and time again I have repeatedly stressed out that the loudspeaker is probably
any rebranding companies, strong point. As for the MyPhone A919, it has met my
expectation but it had not impressed me that well. When earplugs are inserted,
different units, different quality, don’t give me the crap of duh, obviously different unit different
quality, have you ever tried listening to the sounds of Galaxy Note 2 and
Galaxy S3? For the MyPhone A919 earphones attached, I can say it’s not bad but
not good enough, subpar, still below the Titan but definitely miles away from
the Flare. The reason I had funds for this phone is because I was so
disappointed with the Flare’s earplug audio quality I had to sell it, I can
safely say that this phone is a big jump compared to Flare. If you are to
compare this to mighty Flagships such as S2, S3, Arc S, or Note, then you will
be verily disappointed. If you want a better sound quality, just get better
earplugs. Let me bash the Flare one more time, I have used different earplugs,
I was still disappointed. I don’t hate the Flare; I just really really hated
its earplug output.
Yup a
solid 9.4 mark. Both A919 and Titan offers 5 Inch screen but the A919 wins the
competition with its IPS* 854x480 Screen. The colours are much more vibrant,
crisp and deeper than that of the Titan. I compared the screen of both phones,
the A919 made Titan anaemic by comparison. Plus one to the display is the
multi-touch. Yep, you are not restricted to just two fingers. Check the video
for the mutli touch prowess of the A919. Playing Videos is a delight because of
its 5 inch screen and colours. In addition to its display, the screen also has
a notification LED, take that Cherry.
3.3 Gaming (9.5 out of 10)
Gaming,
one of the most important aspects of gaming, having tried a bunch of Android
phones, perfection was achieved with my Motorola Photon 4G, to date, I am still
looking for its equal at a cheaper price. For the A919, playing Casual
Mainstream games is a delight, games played smoothly as with the Titan, but of
course, it display skyrockets the A919 beyond the Titan. As for playing HD
Games, if you had been a follower for a
time, you would know I don’t hardly play
any HD games on my phone, but for the sake of testing, I tried NBA 2k13. I am
proud to say that this, by far, has been the smoothest NBA 2k13 I have played.
The Flare’s two point touch is annoying at sometimes, I have a hard time
playing with it on my Titan, and my S2, though plays smoothly, has problems
with the graphics. A definite clincher to a 9.5. See the video for Gaming.
3.4 Camera (7 out of 10)
Macro Shot
Macro Shot
Macro Shot
HDR OFF
HDR ON
WITH FLASH
HDR ON
NO Flash
Ate Seller
These Images are from A919.
Coming from a huge shock over the
quality of the image of the Flare, I had new hopes for the cameras of rebranded
phones. From the images captured, I am yet to make final judgements as all of
them are shot at night. I believe that full potential of the camera will be
stressed tomorrow! Did I mention its camera has HDR Mode*? First impressions
are good so let me give it a flat 7. Stay tuned
*High dynamic range imaging (HDRI or
HDR) is a set of methods used in imaging and photography to allow a greater dynamic
range between the lightest and darkest areas of an image than current standard
digital imaging methods or photographic methods.
** HDR CAN ALSO BE FOUND ON IPHONE 4S ^^^UPDATE: Not as impressed as with the Flare's quality but gets the job done. the camera offers solid continous autofocus, shift the camera, it automatically autofocuses. Rating Stays at 7
3.5 Need for Speed (8.9 out of 10)
RAM and Clockspeed Review
Many
of you might wonder, what are RAM and the Clockspeed for? Should I go for
higher RAM, fewer clocks or vice versa? The answer depends on how you use the
phone. Random Access 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.
The
MyPhone A919 is pretty snappy, even with tons of apps installed I was able to
navigate the phone smoothly. It’s basically the same with the Titan mainly due
to its same Processor. The 512Mb RAM is out-dated but it still does its job
well. I was able to simultaneously switch between playing, texting and playing
music smoothly. The 4 GB Internal is spacious enough for initial installation
of games and apps.
3.6 User-Friendliness (10 out of 10)
Sporting
and Android system with ICS out of the box, much can already be done with this
phone, with the high number of applications out there, you will never run out
of options. Android OS is known for its customization prowess so if you are
indeed a phone geek your phone will definitely be one of a kind. Coming from a
different OS say from Symbian, changes will definitely puzzle you but you can
get the hang of it on about an hour or less, its actually fun to explore the
phone especially for first time Android users. Importing stuffs from your old phones is possible with third party apps. A definite clincher to a 10/10 is THIS PHONE HAS CUSTOM ROMS. A big hooray for Rooters and Flashers like me!
3.7 Battery (6 out of 10)
This
is Android and any rebranded phones weakness. The Cherry Mobile Titan and Flare
succumb to the daily overnight charge routine for Android phones. I am yet to
stress test the battery of the A919 as I have just bought it. Let us look in
theory instead; The Titan and A919 Both carry a 5 Inch display, the former
having a 2350maH Lithium Ion while the later sports a 2000maH Lithium Polymer battery.
Lithium Ion has much better battery density and is much cheaper to manufacture.
Lithium polymer on the other hand are much safer and lighter but cost more to
manufacture and it has worse battery density than the Lithium Ion. In addition,
MOST branded Flagships carry Lithium Ion. So, in theory, judging by the subpar
performance of the Titan’s battery, let us expect the worst for the A919’s
battery but let’s hope for the best.
^^^UPDATE: Battery heats up quickly when playing games especially on loudspeaker.
CONCLUSION
MY PRECIOUS (8.185 out of 10)
* Performance is 70%, Package and Looks are both
15% for the total of 100% YEHEY I KNOW MATH :))
After
a short while with the A919 I can say I’m greatly impressed, this is basically
an amalgamation of the Titan and the Flare. The rich colours, the initially
impressive camera, the big screen, smooth gaming, it’s a top notch for its
price. Sulit siya. You get your money’s worth. If it was me, what would I rather
have, as of now, I would still prefer the Titan only because it is cheaper. Should
Myphone’s Camera actually be as good as Flare or even better I would pick
Myphone anyday. If I were to be asked, was the additional P1500 worth it? I would
say yes, the display is much better, the IPS display gives you much better
viewing angles and snappier response,
the 5 point multi touch is simply much better than 2-point touch and the
8Mp Camera is well worth the money. Still to each is his own. Thanks for
reading my blog guys, I wouldn’t have reached 7.5k views without you. Next Up, Cloudfone 430x.
