SKK Mobile Viper Review: Venomous

SKK Mobile Viper Review: Venomous

INTRODUCTION:

Under 2,000 pesos phones were once the territory of basic or feature phones, however, local mobile brands managed to bring down the price of smartphone in that category, the SKK Mobile Viper is one of them.

CPU-Z Info

It sports a 4-inch display with WVGA resolution, dual SIM slots, dual core processor, 2GB of ROM, 256MB of RAM and a 2MP main camera, all for only Php1,999.


UNBOXING:

Unboxing Video

Retail package

The retail package consists of the unit, battery, charger, USB cable, wired headset, warranty card and user manual.


HARDWARE:

Front

The 4-inch display mainly occupied the device's front, at the upper portion of the screen you have the earpiece grill and the secondary camera while the usual capacitive keys are located below the display.

Back

The back is made of plastic with matte-finish, making it resistant to fingerprints and smudges. The loudspeaker grill is located at the lower part while the main camera is at the upper part followed by the LED flash.

Back without cover

The Viper has a removable cover, once it is off, it will reveal the 1500mAh battery, the micro SD slot, the regular plus micro SIM slots.

Left

Right

The left side has the power button while the right side has the volume rocker.

Top

Bottom

The 3.5mm audio jack and the micro USB port are both located at the top. At the bottom you only have the microphone pin hole.

There are silver linings all over the sides which gives the device a flashy accent. The Viper also has a well-built body, it does not feel hollow and you will not see empty gaps or space. Handling it is also comfortable, one hand is enough to do most of the task.


DISPLAY:

4-inch display

5-point touch

The SKK Mobile Viper comes with 4-inch touchscreen display with WVGA (800x480) resolution and supports up to 5-point touch. There is no special glass or technology used, which means that it has limited viewing angles and the color reproduction is less vibrant.


SENSOR:

Sensor

The only sensor on this device is the accelerometer, it works fine during test and in actual use.


BENCHMARKS:

Antutu - 9236

Quadrant - 2819

NenaMark2 - 36.1fps

In terms of benchmarks, it scored similar to its cousins like the Neo, Glimpse and Charm, however, the new version of Vellamo always crashed and unable to finish the test. Also, the CPU frequency is only 1GHz as opposed to the advertise 1.2GHz.


INTERFACE:

About phone

Interface

The Viper runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, like most SKK Mobile Android phones like the Centaur, it uses the stock user interface with little to no tweak at all.


BASIC FUNCTIONS:

Basic phone functions

All the basic phone functions are working OK, for telephony both ends can hear each other properly, phonebook supports groups and contacts which can be synced with online accounts and so on. The Viper has no Gmail app, but you can simply download one from the Play Store in case you need it.


MULTIMEDIA:

Gallery:

Gallery

The gallery displays all the photos and videos on your device, you can filter them by albums or times and can be viewed by grid or filmstrip. There is also photo editor for enhancing picture and trim function for cutting unwanted portion of any video.

Video Player, Music Player & FM Radio:

Video player, music player & FM radio

The Viper can also be your multimedia companion, it has a video player that can play videos with different containers even those encoded at 1080p resolution. There is also a music player for listening on your mp3 collections and an FM radio to tune-in for your favorite station.

Camera and Video:

Camera and video

The camera and video recorder share the same interface, there is a setting icon on the lower left if you need to select some option while there is a thumbnail on the lower right if you want to view the shots you have taken. There is no other shooting mode other than the normal mode, but it can do simultaneously capture photo and video.

Sample Shots:

Day

100% Crop

Afternoon

It has 2MP main camera with fixed focus sensor, but it supports touch focus. The pictures produced are a bit washed out and have less detail on them, still having one is better than none at all.

Sample Videos:

640x480

The Viper main camera can record videos up to VGA resolution at 15fps.

Browser:

Browsers

Web browsing is handled by either the stock browser or Opera Mini. The web pages load fair enough, even those with lots of images and heavy scripting for one up to two tabs. However, when you use 3 or more tabs, it starts to become slow.

Gaming:

Chess Genius

Temple Run 2

Storage

The Viper can handle low-end games such as Chess Genius and Pou smoothly. Games like Temple Run and Zombie Tsunami are playable, but you will encounter lags and hiccups every now and then. Also, the apps can only be moved to the phone storage and NOT to the memory card.


CONNECTIVITY:

Connectivity

From SKK Mobile FB page

We first wrote an article that the Viper has 3G connectivity, but we are very sorry to tell you that it only supports 2G. I guessed, the admin of SKK Mobile Facebook page mistakenly included 3G on his/her comment. If you also noticed, the comment also shows 3.5-inch where in fact, it has a 4-inch display. Aside from EDGE/2G, connectivity features include WiFi and Bluetooth which both working as they should be.


PRODUCTIVITY:

Productivity

The organizing and productivity tools include a calendar, calculator, clock, file manager and sound recorder, there is also torch app installed by default. If you need PDF viewer and document editor, you need to download them on Play Store.


GPS:

No GPS

The Viper has no built-in GPS, therefore application that needs location will only rely on its WiFi and mobile networks.


BATTERY:

Battery

I played a video continuously with volume and brightness set to the middle, surprisingly, it lasted almost 4.5 hours before the battery warning popped up. I used it as my back-up phone, with about 5-10 minutes of calls, few text messages and mostly on standby, it lasted for more almost three days.


CONCLUSION:

The SKK Mobile Viper is an entry level smartphone with a retail price tag of Php1,999. It is a pretty good phone on that category and price point, it has a sturdy build, 4-inch display, dual core processor and 2GB of ROM. It is a good starter phone which you can use for watching videos, listening to musics, light browsing and updating your social media accounts.

However, expect that there are several compromises, one of them is the 256MB of RAM that limits the apps and games that you can install as well as the level of multitasking. There is also no 3G connectivity, which means you need WiFi whenever you want to be online.

PROS:

4-inch display
Dual core processor
2GB ROM
Good build quality

CONS:

256MB RAM
No 3G
No GPS
Unable to transfer apps to SD


Specifications:

• Dual SIM (regular+micro) dual standby, NO 3G
• 4-inch capacitive WVGA (800x480) touchscreen display
• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• 1GHz Dual Core Cortex-A7 CPU, Mali-400 GPU, MediaTek MT6572 chipset
• 256MB of RAM
• 2GB internal, expandable up to 32GB via micro SD
• 2MP main camera with LED Flash,
• VGA secondary camera
• Multimedia Player
• FM Radio
• 3.5 Audio Jack
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Micro USB 2.0
• Bluetooth
• 1500mAh Li-Ion battery
• Price: Php1,999