Blackview DM550 Review, Octa Core Perspective

Blackview DM550 Review, Octa Core Perspective

INTRODUCTION:

Blackview is one of the new comers in the local mobile industry, it is a brand name owned by JEKO Communication Co. LTD, a company from Hong Kong that designs and manufactures their own products.

Meanwhile, in the Philippines, this brand is carried by the Centrophone Electronic Corporation, the same company that distributes the Telego Mobile devices in the country.

CPU-Z

Last October, they officially entered the market and one of their initial offerings is the Blackview DM550. It sports a massive 5.5-inch IPS HD display powered by 1.7GHz octa core processor coupled with 1GB of RAM.


UNBOXING:

Retail Package

The retail package includes the unit, the battery, charger, USB cable and user manual. Apart from the screen protector that is pre-installed in the unit, you can also find another one in the box along with other freebies, namely smart case and OTG cable.


HARDWARE:

Front

The front is mainly occupied by the phone's display, the left and right bezels are quite thin while the top and bottom bezels are put into good use. Above the screen you have the secondary camera, earpiece grill and hidden sensors while the bezel below the display holds the capacitive keys and one of its unique features is that the home button doubles as the notification light.

Back

The back cover texture is a mixed of leather and rubbery feel making it resistant to dirt and smudges. At the upper portion you will find the main camera accompanied by an LED flash directly below it. The Blackview logo is located at the lower part while the loudspeaker grill is positioned directly below it.

Back without cover

The back cover is removable, once you removed, it will reveal the 2600mAh battery, the micro SIM slot, the regular SIM slot and the micro SD card.

Left

Right

The left and right sides have metallic frames, the former has the volume rocker while the latter has the power button.

Top

Bottom

The top holds the micro USB port as well as the 3.5mm audio. Meanwhile, the bottom has the primary microphone and another loudspeaker grill.

The BlackView DM550 has a premium build, every inch of it feels very sturdy and it has enough heft that makes it very solid. Design wise, it also looks quite nice and with the added FREE smart case makes it even better.


DISPLAY:

5-point touch

The phone has a 5.5-inch display with IPS and OGS technologies that make the image reproduction clearer and sharper not to mention having good viewing angles plus it supports up to five fingers. There is no scratch-resistant glass, but the pre-installed screen protector compensate for that.


SENSORS:

Sensors

The sensors in this phone include an accelerometer, proximity, light, orientation and magnetic, all of them are working properly during test and in actual use.


BENCHMARKS:

Antutu

Quadrant

Vellamo

NenaMark2

The benchmark results are on the same level when compared with other 1.7GHz octa core devices that we reviewed.


INTERFACE:

About Phone

Interface

The DM550 runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat, it is almost the same with the stock version except for the different looks of the apps and the implementation of the lockscreen.


BASIC FUNCTIONS:

Basic Functions

The basic phone functions, namely messaging, email, phonebook and telephony are all functioning well, no issue or problem encountered during the review period.


MULTIMEDIA:

Gallery:

Gallery

The gallery is the stock Android app, it compiles all the photos and videos in one place and can be viewed by albums, locations or times. It also has inbuilt photo editor and video trimming app.

Video Player, Music Player and FM Radio:

Video Player, Music Player and FM Radio

The video player, music player and FM radio have the same old Android interface, there is no tweak or facelift made. Watching videos on its huge display is really stunning and it can play all the common file types such as .avi, .3gp, .mp4 even .flv and .mkv up to 1080p resolution. Meanwhile, the music player supports album art, it will be displayed accordingly together with other audio information such as the artist name, song title and album. On the other hand, the FM radio requires a connected wired headset in order for it to work.

Camera and Video:

Camera and Video

The camera and video share the same interface, their shutter buttons are located side-by-side at the lower part of the UI. It has different capture modes such as HDR, Live Photo, Motion Track, Panorama and Multi Angle.

Sample Photos:

Day

100% Crop

Night without flash

Night with flash

Night HDR

The main camera can shoot up to 13MP photos, the images produced are good, but not the resolved details are not that great. If you take notice of the word EXIT, it is still readable, but not that clear. The LED flash is properly synced and very useful during night shots. Overall, it still has a decent main shooter.

Browser:

Browser

It uses a stock Android browser, it loads web pages fast, even those with lots of scripts and images. It supports multiple tabs, reading mode and desktop mode, what we missed though is the incognito mode.

Gaming:

Asphalt 7

Dungeon Hunter 4

Real Steel

Heroes of Order & Chaos

Storage and Install Location

Casual games and even those heavy in graphics are easily handled by the BlackView DM550, playing is generally smooth, although there are few instances that the phone struggle a bit, which I believed is due to its 1GB of RAM being depleted. In addition, you can install your games into your SD card.


CONNECTIVITY:

Connectivity

The DM550 has dual SIM slots, both of which are 3G capable that you can share via tethering or portable hotspot. If you do not want to pay extra for the data plan, you can always rely to its WiFi. It also supports wireless display and wireless printing. Other connectivity features include Bluetooth, 3.5mm audio jack and OTG-capable micro USB port.


PRODUCTIVITY:

Productivity

The camera, calendar, clock, file manager, sound recorder and to do are the productivity and organizing applications installed in this phone. There is no document viewer or editor, but you can simply download one for free from the Play Store.


GPS:

GPS

With A-GPS data pre-loaded, the phone able to get satellite lock in less than five seconds and has accuracy of about 13 feet. In addition, there is also a built-in digital compass app installed.


BATTERY STATS:

Battery Stats

Only 2% was consumed after more 10 hours of standby. On the other hand, we continuously played a video and the phone managed to last for almost 6 hours.


OTHERS:

QQ, Anti-Theft and Power Saving Management

The social communication app QQ is pre-installed, unless you can read and understand Chinese language, I believed you won't be using it, the good thing though is you can uninstall it at anytime you want. There is also anti-theft and power saving management features that can be found under the system settings.

Facebook, Twitter and WeChat

Other social media applications installed are Facebook, Twitter and WeChat.

Google Apps

Since this is an Android device, lots of Google applications are pre-installed.


CONCLUSION:

The BlackView DM550 has a premium look and solid build quality, not to mention having a good display. But it is not just the outside appearance that is stunning, under the hood is equally impressive, an octa CPU, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. This combination of specification makes this phone very potent in processing commands, instructions and queries. The camera rendering is also pretty decent and the battery performance is satisfactory.

PROS:

5.5-inch HD IPS OGS display
Octa core processor
Decent camera performance
OTG function
FREE smart case and screen protector

CONS:

No scratch-resistant glass
1GB RAM only (the Blackview Crown has 2GB for only Php100 difference)

BlackView DM550 Specifications:

• Quad band 2G, dual band 3G
• Dual SIM (regular+micro) dual standby, dual 3G
• 5.5-inch IPS OGS capacitive HD (1280x720) touchscreen display
• Dimensions: 153.85mm x 76mm x 8.3mm
• Android 4.4.2 KitKat
• 1.7GHz Octa Core Cortex-A7 CPU, Mali-450MP GPU, MediaTek MT6592 chipset
• 1GB of RAM
• 16GB internal storage, expandable up to 32GB
• 13MP auto focus main camera with LED flash, 1080p video recording
• 5MP secondary camera
• Multimedia player
• FM Radio
• 3.5mm audio jack
• GPS with A-GPS
• WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
• Micro USB 2.0 with OTG support
• Bluetooth v4.0
• Sensors: accelerometer, light, proximity, orientation, magnetic
• 2600mAh battery
• Price: Php9,899