O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!

INTRODUCTION:

O+ USA is still in 'cloud nine' with the success of their first ever octa core device, the O+ Air. Now they are up to a more affordable smartphone yet still packs enough power - the O+ 8.17.

CPU-Z Info

The O+ 8.17 is the company's first dip in the hexa core category, a 5-inch HD phablet powered by MediaTek MT6591 processor with six CPU cores clocked at 1.5GHz each.  Multitasking wise, a 1GB of RAM will handle multiple applications at the same time.


UNBOXING:

Unboxing Video

Retail Package

The box is the usual white carton with the O+ logo and the picture of the phone covering most of the front while the specs and key features are what you can see at the back. Like most, if not all mid to high-end units of O+, it comes with a Sennheiser headset and a FREE 8gb micro SD card. Apart from those two, you have the 8.17 unit, 2000mAh battery, charger with detachable USB cable and user's manual.


HARDWARE:

Front

The front is fully laminated with glossy glass, which is prone to smudges and fingerprints. Above the display you have the earpiece grill centered near the edge while the secondary camera and the hidden sensors are positioned to the right. Below the screen, you will find the usual capacitive keys, only the home button lit up and it serves as the notification light of the 8.17.

Back

The back is made of plastic and has glossy finish too and like the front, it is also fingerprint nightmare. At the upper part, you will find the primary camera followed by the LED flash and towards to its right is the secondary microphone. Meanwhile, the loudspeaker grill is placed near at the bottom just below the words 'Designed for O+ in the USA.'

Back without cover

The back cover is removable, by doing so it will reveal the regular SIM, micro SIM and micro SD slots as well as the 2000mAh battery.

Top

Bottom

The top houses the 3.5mm audio jack while the bottom has the micro USB port.

Left

Right

The volume rocker can be found at the left side while the power button is located at the right side.

The O+ 8.17 has similar design and looks with its older sibling, the O+ 8.15. Although it is almost completely made of plastic, there is no question that the build quality is good, there is no squeaking sound when using it. However, you need to wipe your phone every now and then due to the fact that the glossy front and back are both fingerprints and smudge magnet.


DISPLAY:

Display

5-point touch

The display has an IPS technology, which gives it a great viewing angles on almost all sides. The brightness can be set manually or automatically with the help of the light sensor and it also supports 5-point touch.


SENSORS:

Sensors

On top of the usual accelerometer, proximity and light sensors, the 8.17 has also gyroscope and magnetic sensors. All of them are functional during test and in real world usage.


BENCHMARKS:

Antutu 4 - 22170, Antutu 5 - 25578

Quadrant - 8215

Vellamo

NenaMark2 - 54.5fps

The Vellamo and NenaMark2 results are comparable with octa core devices such as the O+ Air. Meanwhile, the Antutu and Quadrant scores are higher than MT6582-powered devices, but lower when compared to those using MT6592.


INTERFACE:

About Phone

Start-up

Interface

The O+ 8.17 runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat with little customization applied by O Plus. Upon first boot, it will provide step-by-step procedures to set-up your phone.

Rainbow

O+ also implemented a nice software trick in this latest phablet, there is a semi-circle located at the right of the device. When you touch it, a group of shortcuts will appear in the lower right portion of the screen. It displays three sections of icons for tool, media as well as your favorite apps. This is a neat implementation wherein you can access apps and settings from almost any part of the UI.

Accessibility

The 'rainbow' or one-hand operation is enabled by default, if you want to turn it off you can do so by going to settings>accessibility. Here, you can also enable/disable Air Shuffle as well as the device cover lock.


BASIC FUNCTIONS:

Basic Functions

The telephony, messaging and other basic phone functions are all working properly, no issue encountered when I used it as my secondary phone for about a week.


MULTIMEDIA:

Gallery:

Gallery

The gallery lists all the photos and videos on your device and you can view them by albums, locations or times. It also has a built-in photo and video editing tool plus an additional one more function to the former, the 'memo.' It allows you to put a memo or commonly known as note to any picture.

Video Player, Music Player and FM Radio:

Video Player, Music Player & FM Radio

The video player is the usual stock Android app, but with an added feature - the floating video box. It can play almost any file I threw at it up to 1080p resolution. Watching on its 5-inch screen is pleasant not to mention the audio quality is good too.

Meanwhile, the music player has the same looks with other O+ devices like the O+ Fab Go. On the other hand, the FM radio has a new look, but it still requires a connected headset to work.

Camera and Video:

Camera and Video

The camera and video share the same interface, its functions and layout are similar to the O+ Air. Aside from touching the shutter to take a shot, it can also capture photo by gesture, voice and smile.

Sample Shots:

Day

100% Crop

Inside the mall

4x Digital Zoom

Sunset

Panorama

The main camera can capture photos up to 8MP resolution, the quality is a mixed bag. The camera is very sensitive to lighting condition, most of the time the resulting images are good, but sometimes during broad daylight (first sample photo above, day) it tends to overexpose the subject or makes the shot darker. In terms of resolved details, it is on the average side.

Sample Videos:

Sample Video - 1080p

Sample Video - 720p

The O+ 8.17 can record videos up to 1080p resolution at 30fps with stereo audio, quality wise, it is good, no skipped frames encountered.

Browser:

Browser

The only browser on this device is the stock Android app, loading of web pages is fast, even those with heavy scripting and lots of images. If you need another browser, you can simply download one in the Play Store.

Gaming:

Minion Rush and Temple Run 2

Heroes of Order & Chaos

Dungeon Hunter 4

Dead Trigger 2

I installed Temple Run 2, Dungeon Hunter 4, Heroes of Order & Chaos, and Dead Trigger 2, all of them are smooth with little to no lag at all. I also installed Despicable Me, it is generally OK, although there are few times I encountered hiccups.

Preferred install location and move to SD

In terms of storage space, the internal one has 1.97GB, the good thing is that you can set the memory card as your default storage as well as move the apps to it as well.


CONNECTIVITY:

Connectivity

The O+ 8.17 has two SIM slots, each can be set to have 3G connectivity which you can share via portable hotspot or via USB or Bluetooth tethering. If you have no data plan, you can always rely to its WiFi connection, based on experience the signal reception is good and there is no sudden lost/drop of signal. Other connectivity includes Bluetooth, Wireless Display, Wireless Printing, OTG Support and CTIA compliant 3.5mm Audio Jack.


PRODUCTIVITY:

Productivity

Aside from the usual clock, calendar, calculator, to do, file manager and sound recorder, there are also My Note and O+ Share. The former is the a note taking app while the latter is O+ own cloud storage solution and they are giving away FREE 15GB for every purchase of O+ device.


GPS:

GPS

This smartphone has GPS with A-GPS, with data pre-loaded I was able to get satellite lock in almost in an instant, the accuracy is quite good too.


BATTERY STATS:

Battery Stats

During standby mode - two SIM cards are active plus Gmail is auto sync in the background, it only consumed about 5% of its battery capacity to have more than 18 hours of uptime. Meanwhile, playing video continuously lasted for almost 6 hours before the 15% battery warning came out. These results can be regarded as above average battery life.


OTHERS:

Google Apps

Plenty of Google applications are installed by default and they cannot be uninstalled unless you root your device.

I Want Stars and I Want TV

I do not know if O+ has entered a partnership with ABS-CBN, but the I Want Stars and I Want TV apps are both present, but if you do not like them you can simply go to settings and uninstall them.

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

Three of the world's most popular social media apps are installed by default, namely Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Anti-Theft, Visitor Mode & O+ App

Under the system settings you can find two very useful things, the Anti-Theft and Visitor Mode. The former is self-explanatory while the latter allows you to share your phone with others without the risk that they might look into your contacts and messages. Meanwhile, the O+ app is an application where you can access lots of information about the company.


CONCLUSION:

The O+ 8.17 is definitely an upgrade to its predecessor, it has a more powerful hexa  core processor that gives this phablet a smooth and seamless UI navigation and snappy overall performance.

PROS:

5-inch HD IPS display
1.5GHz hexa core processor
Smooth overall performance

CONS:

Camera is a mixed bag
Fingerprint and smudge magnet


Specifications:

• Quad band 2G, dual band 3G
• Dual SIM (regular+micro) dual standby
• 5-inch capacitive IPS HD (1280x720) touchscreen display, 5-point touch
• Dimensions: 147.7mm x 72.7mm x 8.7mm
• Weight: 146 grams
• Android 4.4.2 KitKat
• 1.5GHz hexa core CPU, Mali-450MP GPU MediaTek, MT6591 chipset
• 1GB of RAM
• 8GB internal storage, expandable up to 32GB via micro SD
• 8MP auto focus main camera with LED Flash
• 2MP secondary camera
• GPS with A-GPS and EPO assistance
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct, WiFi Hotspot
• 3.5 Audio Jack
• Stereo FM Radio
• Multimedia Player
• Micro USB 2.0 with OTG function
• Bluetooth v4.0
• Sensors: accelerometer, light, proximity, gyroscope, magnetic
• 2000mAh removable battery
• Price: Php10,995