O+ USA AIR Review: Unconfined Space

O+ USA AIR Review: Unconfined Space

The O+ USA AIR is the first ever octa core smartphone from the company, it is also their first device to run on Android 4.4 KitKat out of the box. Not only that, it is also their first phone to have Dual Crystal Luminescent Film technology, an O+ innovation, which they claim is more energy efficient that regular display.

It sports a 5-inch touchscreen display powered by MediaTek MT6592 processors with eight CPU cores clocked at 1.7GHz each coupled with 1GB of RAM.

There is 8GB of internal storage wherein 6.14GB of it is available to the user, if this seems to be small, you can always expand it by inserting a micro SD card (32GB max), by the way, there is a FREE 8GB in the retail package.

About phone

The O+ Air is also very slim and lightweight - 6.8mm and 120 grams respectively, which makes it one of the sexiest phablet available in the country. For unboxing, benchmarks, hardware and more, please kindly visit the link below.

>>>O+ USA AIR Unboxing, Preview And Initial Impression<<<


INTERFACE:

OOBE

Upon first boot, the phone will guide you to a series of instructions to set-up your device, from changing the date and time, managing your SIM, connecting to your WiFi network up to syncing it with your Google and email accounts.

Lockscreen

Lockscreen appearance

The default lockscreen is slide type, but you can always change it to either Face, Voice, Patter, PIN, Password or Question by going to Settings>Security. You can also change its appearance to Video Orb, wherein you can see the videos stored on your device moving every now and then in the lockscreen.

Homescreen

The homescreen has five pages by default, there are five shortcuts docked at the bottom of the screen, the middle always opens the app drawer while the remaining four can be customized.

Default apps

Default widgets

There are 36 pre-installed applications arranged in five rows by four columns, there is no means to re-arrange them and no option to uninstall without root access. On the other hand, there are 35 widgets arranged in 2x3 layout

One hand

There is also a so-called One Hand mode, when you press the semi transparent square while you are in the homescreen or app drawer it bring up a group of nine shortcuts similar in the about screenshot. You can enable/disable it by going to Settings>Accessibility.

Notification panel and Quick toggle settings

The notification panel is accessible by swiping one finger from the top of the screen (you can do it at anytime, no matter what is in on your screen, whether watching videos or playing games) while the quick toggle settings will appear if you will use two fingers. The former is the home for all types of notifications and the options you can do with them while the latter is where you can change the status of some of the most commonly used settings like turning on/off the WiFi and Bluetooth.


DUAL SIM FUNCTIONALITY:

SIM management

You will first encounter the SIM management options during the setup stage of your phone, you can change the settings at that instance or you can do it later by going to Settings>SIM Management.


TELEPHONY:

Telephony

The telephony displays your favorite contacts as well as the person you call most often, you can re-arrange/organize them anyway you want. The dial pad has a smart dialing feature, it can recognize matching contacts whether you key-in name or numbers.

If you have an incoming call, there are four options to respond - answer by swiping to the right, reject by swiping to the left, reject with a message by swiping upward or answer by shaking your phone. While on a call, you can activate the My Notes app to jot down some important note/s during the call.

Overall, the call quality is superb, both ends can hear each other loud and clear even in a noisy environment, thanks to the secondary microphone for noise cancellation.

Call Log

The call log houses all the calls happened on your phone, you can display everything on the screen or filter by the type of calls or SIM card used.


PHONEBOOK:

Contacts

Groups

The phonebook consists of both contacts and groups, they can seamlessly sync to any online accounts such as Google and Facebook. The contacts contain tons of information like name, number, email, etc. while the groups are set of contacts that belongs to similar category.


MESSAGING:

Messaging

The messages are displayed based on the latest time of arrival, those with unread texts will have a number appear beside them (corresponds to the total number of unread messages). In a specific conversation, the message you sent appears on the right with blue background on it while the one you received is on the left with yellow background. The SMS and MMS share the same editor, it will remain SMS until you attach something on the message.


EMAIL:

Email

The O+ Air has both generic email and Gmail apps, they are relatively easy to set-up, just enter your username then your password and you are good. They are also simple to use, covers most of the basics and can contain multiple accounts.


MULTIMEDIA:

Gallery:

Gallery

The gallery displays all the photos and videos on your device, you can filter them by albums locations or times. Viewing them can be either grid (multiple images) or filmstrip (one by one).

Photo editor and Video trim

Movie studio

Any item under the gallery can be shared via Bluetooth, email or through social accounts. There is also a photo editor to enhance any picture and a print option for wireless printing. For video, there is a 'trim' function for clipping your desired portion, but if you want a more comprehensive video editing tool you can use the Movie Studio.

Video Player:

Video Player

The player will list all available videos on your device, showing their thumbnail, title, length and file size. The interface is very simple, there is a time scroll located at the bottom of the screen and above it is the movie/video itself. There is also a video floating option, just press the icon at the lower right corner to activate it.

Music Player:

Music player

I first saw this eye-candy music player in the O+ Fab GO, there are six square of different colors that corresponds to songs, album, artist, folders, favorites and playlists. If a song has an album art, it will be displayed accordingly. It will continue to play your musics even if you minimize the player and once you do there will be the basic controls located at the notification panel.

FM Radio:

FM Radio

The FM radio needs a wired headset connected to the audio port for it to work. The channels can be set manually or you can do an automatic search. You can play the broadcast through the headset or via loudspeaker, there is also an option to record.

Camera and Video:

Camera and Video

The camera and video share the same interface, their buttons are located side by side at the bottom of the screen. There are lots of ways to capture a picture - by pressing the shutter key, via air-shuffle, hand gesture, voice or by simply smiling.

Shooting modes

Aside from the usual normal and panorama shooting modes, there is also QR Code scanner and the Live Photo. The former can scan bar codes and check their records online while the latter is a few seconds of video showing the picture you snap and the things that are happening before you took the shot.

Camera and video settings

The camera and video settings enable you to tweak some of the options available like exposure, color effect, image resolution and video quality.

Sample Shots:

13MP, Mall shot

13MP, Mall shot

13MP, Day shot

13MP 100% crop

8MP, Day shot

8MP, 100% crop

Panorama

Night, without flash

Night, with flash

Close-up

Live photo

The O+ Air has 13MP auto focus main camera, it produces good quality images with natural colors and rich details when there is a good lighting conditions. Close-up photography is also possible, it can focus on a very near subject at about 6-inch. However, noise starts to kick in during night shots or when there is poor lighting conditions, the LED flash is a bit weak and can only help a little to improve the output.

Sample Videos:

144p

VGA

720p

1080p

Browser:

Browser

It uses the stock browser, which packs the usual features like find on page, save for offline reading and more, one thing I missed though is the incognito mode. The browsing experience is smooth, it load pages quite fast, even those full of images or lots of scripts.

Gaming:

Temple Run 2

Asphalt 7

I installed my usual sets of games to test the capability of the O+ Air and I am happy to say that games like Temple Run 2, Zombie Tsunami, Dead Trigger and Asphalt 7 all worked smoothly. You also do not need to worry about getting low storage because you can use your micro SD card as the default installation location.


CONNECTIVITY:

WiFi

The main connectivity feature is the WiFi, it can detect multiple signals from different channels, the reception is also good, no sudden drop of signals while in use.

Hotspot, BT and OTG

The phone also supports HSPA+ connection, however, only SIM 1 has that feature (SIM 2 is only 2G/EDGE). You can share this connection via WiFi hotspot, USB or Bluetooth tethering. The OTG function works fine with an external flash drive and a wireless mouse. The 3.5mm audio jack completes the list, it is CTIA compliant which means modern headset will work fine.


PRODUCTIVITY:

Calculator

Calendar

Clock

File manager

To Do

Sound recorder

My notes

The productivity and organizing tools include Calculator, Clock, Calendar, File Manager, Sound Recorder, To Do and My Notes. There is no document viewer/editor, but you can always grab one in the Play Store for free.


GPS:

GPS

The GPS has A-GPS support and I got a satellite lock in almost an instant, 2 or 3 seconds that is.


BATTERY:

Battery stats

For 1 day and 10 hours of standby, the O+ Air only consumed 4% of its battery. I used the phone for the usual call, texts and a few minutes of browsing and it managed to last for about 3 days with still 30% left on the battery. The Lumi Display seems to be power efficient on normal phone usage, however, it tells a different story when playing HD games as it only records 2 hours and 22 minutes of continuous Asphalt 7 game time before the 15% battery warning popped up.


OTHERS:

O+ Share and O+ Hub

The O+ Air Share is a social storage application that allows users to store and share files, it needs to connect with your Facebook and Gmail account to do so. It displays all files on your Google drive and the option to download and share them as well as backup or upload existing files on your device. Sharing can be done with friends with O+ Air Share app and O+ phones.

The O+ USA hub is a place where you can access everything about the company, their social accounts, website and their customer service information.

Anti-theft

There is also a built-in anti-theft feature located under Settings>Security. It can send information to the emergency contact you set as well as remotely phone lock or wipe out the data.


CONCLUSION:

The O+ USA Air is reasonably one of the slimmest and sexiest octa core phone available in the country, not to mention that it is quite lightweight at only 120 grams. The combination of MediaTek MT6592 processor and 1GB of RAM with Android KitKat on board does a fine job, the interface transitions are seamless and playing games are very smooth.

PROS:

Slim and lightweight
Octa-core chipset
KitKat OS
8GB internal storage
OTG support

CONS:

Camera struggles on poor lighting conditions
Only SIM 1 is 3G capable

Specifications:

• Dual SIM (Regular+Micro), Dual Standby
• Quad Band 2G/3G
• 5-inch HD (1280x720) Dual Crystal Luminescent Film touchscreen display, 10-point touch
• Android 4.4.2 KitKat
• 1.7GHz Octa Core CPU, 700MHz Mali-450MP GPU, MediaTek MT6592 chipset
• 1GB of RAM
• 8GB internal storage, expandable up to32GB via micro SD
• 13MP auto focus main camera with LED Flash, 1080p Video Recording @ 25fps
• 5MP secondary camera
• GPS with A-GPS
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct, WiFi Hotspot, Wireless Display
• 3.5 Audio Jack
• Stereo FM Radio
• Multimedia Player
• Micro USB 2.0 with OTG support
• Bluetooth v4.0
• Sensors: Accelerometer, Light, Proximity, Sound, Magnetic, Orientation
• Special Functions: Flip to silent, Call and Type, Shake to Answer, Air Shuffle
• 2000mAh Battery
• Promo Price: Php13,995
• Regular Price: Php15,995