O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!

Anjie lou delos Reyes
32
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.

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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.

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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.'

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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.

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Top
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Bottom

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

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Left
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Display
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Antutu 4 - 22170, Antutu 5 - 25578
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Quadrant - 8215
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Vellamo
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
About Phone
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Start-up
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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.

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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.

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Day
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
100% Crop
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Inside the mall
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
4x Digital Zoom
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Sunset
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Minion Rush and Temple Run 2
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Heroes of Order & Chaos
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Dungeon Hunter 4
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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.

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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:

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Google Apps

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

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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.

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
Facebook, Twitter and Instagram

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

O+ 8.17 Unboxing and Review, Six Pack!
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

Post a Comment

32Comments

  1. good to know that it last for 6 hours huh, mura pa!

    ReplyDelete
  2. great specs

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  3. wow like the specs

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  4. Kailan kayo ako mag kakaroon ng sarili kung smart phone ..

    ReplyDelete
  5. Aaron Roy PublìcoDecember 23, 2014 at 3:44 PM

    One of the feature I love with this phone is the camera. Super high quality, perfect feature for me.

    ReplyDelete
  6. hope I can get one!

    ReplyDelete
  7. like the specs

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  8. I don't know what is Antutu.

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  9. love it! superb phone

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  10. o+ plus is the great one.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Aeilyn Ross EspineliJanuary 20, 2015 at 3:51 PM

    Hoping to win this cool phone!!!

    ReplyDelete
  12. hope to win bday gift posana sken pls,,,,,

    ReplyDelete
  13. Nice review! Great!

    ReplyDelete
  14. nice review

    ReplyDelete
  15. sana manalonman poako haha

    ReplyDelete
  16. Luv O+ hope to win

    ReplyDelete
  17. Elmer Lansangan TurlaJanuary 31, 2015 at 3:43 PM

    oplus releases androids with powerful specs

    ReplyDelete
  18. so nice hope to win :)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Christian Wyn DoradoMarch 10, 2015 at 11:44 PM

    Nice phone.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Keith Russel RamirezMarch 11, 2015 at 6:38 AM

    nice rev

    ReplyDelete
  21. Thumbs up for the review!

    ReplyDelete
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