Cherry Mobile has launched its latest selfie-centric smartphone line, which includes the Flare S6 Plus, Flare S6 Selfie, and Flare S6 – an entry-level in the 6th generation Flare series.
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| Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Review; King of the Entry-Level Smartphones? |
Compared to its two brothers, the Cherry Mobile Flare S6 has a more affordable price tag. We enjoyed our time with the Flare S6 Selfie, as it left us with an impressive performance. Shifting our attention to the Flare S6, we knew that the local smartphone manufacturer will compromise a number of specs considering its price. Now, let’s see what it can still offer to consumers. Here’s our full review!
PHYSICAL:
The Flare S6 is dressed with a polycarbonate shell. With its body, one can easily deny its price. Holding the device for the first time, our initial impression was its weight – really, it’s a bit heavier than other phones. It flaunts two colors, however, its red unibody shell dominates the overall look, which gives the device a chic appearance. The handset could comfortably sit on our hands, too. Users can grip it easily, and you can confidently use it with just one-hand. Moreover, all buttons are thoughtfully located in places where users can easily reach it.
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| Front |
Appeared in black, its front is dominated by the 5.2-inch screen covered with 2.5D glass. Placed above the screen are the 8-megapixel front shooter, earpiece, and LED flash. The device also sports LED notification that signals blue light when you received notifications or when you charge the handset.
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| Physical Buttons |
Its capacitive buttons – which don’t emit light – are located below the display. The device’s volume rockers and power/lock button are situated on the right side, while the brand decided to leave its left side unoccupied by any button.
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| Top |
On the top, the 3.5mm audio port is situated, while the USB Type-C port and loudspeaker are located at the bottom.
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| Back |
Flip the device to reveal the 13-megapixel rear camera, its LED flash below directly it, followed by the fingerprint scanner, and the Cherry Mobile logo. All of these were complemented by the removable red shell that hides the non-removable battery, and two micro SIM card slots and a dedicated microSD card slot.
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| 5-point Touch |
Moving on to its display, it has 5.2-inch capacitive IPS touchscreen that has 1280 x 720 resolution, translating to a 282 pixel per inch density. It has good brightness, offering a decent viewing capability when used under direct sunlight. It has a good display output, which allows us to enjoy watching videos and playing games. Just like the Flare S6 Selfie, the Flare S6 scored only 5 in multi-touch test.
See Also: Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Power; Quad Core with 5000mAh Battery for only Php3,799
SOFTWARE:
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| Software |
The Cherry Mobile Flare S6 shares the same software with the Flare S6 Selfie. It runs on the brand’s latest Cherry OS based on Android 7.0 Nougat. Having multiple home screens that accommodate apps, it still features an app drawer that shows your app in alphabetical order. Again, we’re not impressed with this feature, as it appears organized in a wrong way.
It comes with pre-installed apps, including Cherry Fun Club, CPlay, MovieClub+, Info Center, 360 Security, Uber, Google apps, and more – leaving less than 8GB of available storage.
PERFORMANCE:
As an entry-level smartphone, the Flare S6 settled for a lower-end MT6737 chipset that has 4 CPU cores clocked at 1.3GHz, paired with ARM Mali-T720 graphics. It is packed with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage.
To know its raw processing compute ability, we ran it on our preferred benchmark apps. Here are the results:
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| Benchmark Scores |
- AnTuTu – 28940
- Geekbench (Single Core) – 527
- Geekbench (Multi Core) – 1489
- 3DMark (Ice Storm Unlimited) – 3707
- 3DMark (Ice Storm Extreme) – 2442
- 3DMark (Sling Shot) – 165
- 3DMark (Sling Shot Extreme) – 100
- PCMark (Work 2.0) – 2559
For a light-smartphone user, the Flare S6 won’t give you a problem. It can handle simple tasks, including basic communications, emails, browsing social media accounts, and casual gaming and multimedia. However, the device lagged several times when we actively and heavily used it. It crashes when we left a number of apps opened and running, too.
Nevertheless, it still has a decent overall performance all throughout our tests.
Also Read: Cherry Mobile Outs Limited Edition Flare S6 Premium; Deca Core, 4GB RAM, Dual 13MP Sony Main Cam
CAMERA:
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| Camera UI |
The Flare S6 is equipped with 13-megapixel Sony-made rear camera, and 13-megapixel OmniVision front shooter. Cameras feature numbers of modes, including FaceCute, portrait mode, expert mode, and time-lapse effect.
Main camera sample photos:
Front camera sample photos:
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| Without Beautification |
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| With Beautification |
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| Portrait Mode |
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| Night Shot |
Both main and front cameras produced decent photos when good lighting was provided. However, we felt like it’s performance has no match with the Flare S6 Selfie. Its front camera can capture good self-photos, but we prefer to not use its beautification feature.
Also Read: Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Selfie Review; Budget Perfect Selfie Expert?!
CONNECTIVITY:
The Flare S6 is a dual SIM device that supports LTE connectivity. It has basic connectivity features, including WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. All of these worked well during our tests. It sports 3.5mm audio jack, as well, for multimedia purposes. The device has USB Type-C, too, for a faster data transfers.
BATTERY:
In terms of stamina, the Flare S6 is equipped with 2600mAh non-removable battery. While it appears small on paper, our actual usage suggests that it could last for more than a day. However, when we heavily used the device, it only lasted for almost 13 hours.
We did a video loop test to better test its battery life. During the process, we opened our WiFi connection and put its brightness and volume at its maximum level, surprisingly, the device still lasted for 11 hours and 43 minutes.
Meanwhile, we ran the Flare S6 on PCMark Battery test. Unfortunately, it crashes multiple times during the test. We'll update our review as soon as we get a result!
CONCLUSION:
In order to give consumers a good and decent entry-level smartphone, we understood that Cherry Mobile has to compromise some of the Flare S6’s specs. Having some low-end pieces, the Flare S6 still manages to offer an almost mid-ranger-like performance.
Priced at PhP3,999, the Cherry Mobile Flare S6 is definitely a good smartphone choice for consumers who are not heavy users. It packs good features, as well. Unlike other entry-level smartphones, the Flare S6 gives notable features to users. Aside from having a long battery life, it has good cameras that perform great for its price.
Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Specs:
- Dual SIM, dual standby, supports LTE connectivity
- 5.2-inch capacitive IPS HD (1280x720) touchscreen display
- Dimensions: 148mm x 72.8mm x 8.8
- Weight: 108 grams
- Android 7.0 Nougat
- 64-bit 1.3GHz quad core Cortex-A53 CPU, Mali-T720MP2 GPU, MediaTek MT6737 chipset
- 2GB RAM
- 16GB internal storage, expandable up to 64GB via micro SD card
- 13MP f/2.0 Sony IMX135 auto focus main camera with LED flash
- 13MP f/2.0 OmniVision OV12830 secondary camera with LED flash
- Multimedia player
- 3.5mm audio jack
- FM Radio
- GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS
- WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
- Bluetooth v4.1
- USB Type-C
- Sensors: fingerprint, accelerometer, light, proximity
- Battery: 3000mAh
- Colors: black, gold, silver
- Price: PhP3,999