Cherry Mobile has a good habit of surprises and changing the game. In an event yesterday, we thought that the Flare X is already the main highlight, but we're wrong. CM and Lazada just announced a new online only brand to disrupt the budget smartphone wars under PHP 5K called the Cubix.
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| Meet Cubix Cube |
Not so long ago, we're impressed already with devices that has a 5 Inch HD screen powered by an octa core processor, 1 GB RAM and 8 GB ROM. Then Cherry Mobile suddenly released Cubix Cube a smartphone with that configuration except that it doubles the RAM and ROM at 2 GB and 16 GB respectively.
Yesterday, we got a chance to unbox and do a hands-on of this handset, special thanks to RonNotTheDJ for letting us explore his unit. Let's begin!
Unboxing / Accessories
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| Cubix Cube's packaging |
I lost my photo of the accessories, but it comes in a standard package. You get a 1 A wall charger USB adapter, micro USB cables, the manual and warranty papers, an in ear monitors w/ mic and you'll get 2 FREE screen protectors. That's awesome as you don't have to pay anymore to get a screen protector to prevent scratching your screen.
Build Quality and Design
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| Cubix Cube back showing the slightly protruded rear camera and speaker grills A finger print magnet too! |
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| The buttons on the right side (Sorry for the crappy photo, I cannot focus properly) |
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| At the top, the micro USB port and 3.5 mm jack is present |
Display
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| Side view of the display |
The Cube utilizes a 5 inches HD IPS On Cell display w/ 1280 x 720 resolution. As expected, that type of setup was able to give us pleasing visual experience. It's not the best out there and it don't have any glass protection, but it was able to deliver decent viewing angles, sharp details and good colors.
Sample Shots
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| Rear camera sample! |
We managed to take photos using this phone and we had a good time with it. The shots using the rear camera was impressive, has good details and looks decent with good shutter speed and focus. I took this shot on HDR mode that made it a bit grainy, but brighter. As of the moment I have no idea yet if the rear camera is interpolated or not, but it doesn't matter that much as long as it can deliver.
The front camera was also quite good as it was able to let more light in than the usual selfie cams out there. However, it doesn't have focus so it may be a bit difficult not to get blurry photos.
Performance / UI
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| An almost bloatware-free UI |
From my first try and it was a very smooth experience, there's virtually no lag when we're exploring the phone. The UI is almost stock android like with very little bloatware as you'll just find the lazada and the other app I forgot. Fortunately, the Lazada Mobile App is something I always use so it won't bother me at all. The UI has that flat and material design combination that makes it visually appealing to my eyes. The OTG also works upon our test as we used it to copy the Antutu benchmark apk to the cube.
It's spectacular!
It's spectacular!
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| 32206 baby! |
Then the Antutu scores was the revelation here! Normally, smartphones with this setup of 1.4 GHz octa core processors only scores 26-29K, but to our surprise this was able to score 32,206 verified score. That's even more than smartphones that has a 1.7 GHz MT6592 chip! With those scores, I'm quite confident that this phone will definitely deliver.
Update: Ron discovered that this smartphone uses a 1.7 GHz processor instead of a 1.4 GHz
Update 2: It's possible that only the unit of Ron has that 1.7 GHz processor
Update: Ron discovered that this smartphone uses a 1.7 GHz processor instead of a 1.4 GHz
Update 2: It's possible that only the unit of Ron has that 1.7 GHz processor
Now the other questions I have here is how will the 2000 mAh battery fare in the real life situation, but with that very clean OS I'm sure that this can last for quite a while. I'm guesstimating that it may have the same battery life of the SKK Lynx.
Cubix Cube Specs
- Display: 5 inches HD IPS On Cell
- Processor: 1.4 GHz MT6592 octa core (1.7 in Ron's unit)
- GPU: Mali 450
- RAM: 2 GB
- ROM: 16 GB expandable up to 64GB via microSD card
- Rear Camera: 13 MP w/ AF and LED flash
- Front Camera: 5 MP
- Battery: 2,000 mAh
- OS: Android 4.4 Kitkat
- Connectivity: 3G, HPSA+, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS w/ GPS, GLONASS, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Wireless Display, WiFi Hotspot
- Sensors: Accelerometer, Light, Proximity
- Others: dual SIM (Regular and Micro), dual standby
- Dimensions: 140 x 71.9 x 7.9 mm
- Weight: 135 g
- Price: PHP 4,490
As of the moment...
This is a potential killer of Cherry Mobile octa core devices under PHP 5K. This is by far one of the most impressive handset I've seen in this price bracket together with the SKK Lynx. It has that impressive modern looking almost bloatware free UI, great rear camera, decent selfie cam and that 2 GB of RAM that's missing with its competitors. The only thing missing here is the LTE connectivity, but for the price nobody is doing that yet in this type of setup. With no doubt, even with just my few hours with it, it's a very impressive budget phone!
Hopefully we'll get a chance to do a full review to cover all the parts of this review that we missed.
This will be exclusively available at Lazada Philippines this June 26, 2015 at exactly 12 nn for just PHP 4,490! If you want to buy it head-over to this link: Click Here!
This will be exclusively available at Lazada Philippines this June 26, 2015 at exactly 12 nn for just PHP 4,490! If you want to buy it head-over to this link: Click Here!
