If we have to name one mobile brand that produces attractive smartphones at affordable price tags, then, it would be Cherry Mobile. And this year, one of the most impressive phones that the company has launched is the new Flare X3.
 |
| Cherry Mobile Flare X3 Review: Hot or Not? |
Tapped as our main driver every now and then, did the Flare X3 give us enough reasons to name it as this year’s king of budget smartphones? Let’s find out!
PHYSICAL:
To be honest, we didn’t expect that the Flare X3 could easily capture our attention with its design. As it is dressed with a glass body and metal frame, the phone looks more premium than its actual price. The only thing we didn’t like about its physique is its thick notch, which is really out of place in this age of all-screen display and tiny notch.
 |
| Twilight Purple |
Speaking of display, its front is dominated by a 6.18-inch TrueView screen. And although it has thick notch and bezels, we can still say that it’s understandable considering its price tag. We just hope that Cherry Mobile will do better next time.
 |
| Right Side |
Moving on, its volume keys, power button, and fingerprint scanner are located on its right side. The latter is situated somewhere we could easily reach it, hence, we never had a problem unlocking the phone. Meanwhile, its card tray is placed on the left side of the device.
 |
| Bottom |
The top portion of the handset houses its 3.5mm audio jack, while the bottom port accommodates its speakers and USB-C port.
As mentioned awhile ago, its back features a glass body and comes with gradient design, making the device more good looking and premium. There’s also an S-like effect whenever light strikes on its body, reminding us of OPPO and Realme devices.
DISPLAY:
 |
| Display |
In terms of its display, Cherry Mobile equipped the Flare X3 with a 6.18-inch TrueView screen with an FHD+ 2246 x 1080 resolution and 19:9 aspect ratio. Although it comes with a dated design, we’re still impressed with its display quality. Watching videos and playing games are pleasant to our experience, as it sports accurate colors with good sharpness and details.
Aside from having good viewing angles, the Flare X3 also has decent brightness levels both indoors and outdoors – or even when under direct sunlight.
SOFTWARE:
 |
| Software |
The Flare X3 is running on Android 9 Pie operating system. Its icons and interface look the same as other Cherry Mobiles, too. The apps are housed in its drawer, which is alphabetically arranged. It is easy to navigate, considering that it’s also clean and very user-friendly.
It comes with numbers of pre-installed apps, including Google native apps, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. These will eat more than 10GB of your 64GB storage, so, it’s a good thing that you can expand its storage for up to 256GB via microSD card.
PERFORMANCE:
The Flare X3 is powered by Helio P60 processor, Mali-G72 MP3 GPU, and 6GB RAM. We ran it on our preferred benchmark apps to know exactly what to expect with its performance. Here are the results:
 |
| Benchmark Scores |
- AnTuTu - 127,917
- Geekbench - 275 (single core)
- Geekbench - 1,102 (multi core)
- 3DMark - 1,345 (Sling Shot)
- PCMark Work 2.0 - 7,641
The Flare X3 can perform great as a main driver. It can multitask and offer smooth experience even if we’re heavily using it. For instance, switching from one app to another is fast, although it slightly slowed down when several apps were running in the background.
For gaming, the phone was able to give us an outstanding performance at first. It can handle games with heavy graphics such as PUBG, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Asphalt 9, and Mortal Kombat with just minimal frame drops. However, as time goes by, we started to notice some lags and it also becomes warm when we’re playing intensively. It’s still manageable, though. Just avoid using the device at its low battery percentage.
CAMERA:
Cherry Mobile loaded the Flare X3 with 12MP + 5MP + 2MP triple rear cameras, and 20MP + 2MP selfie snappers. Banked with impressive camera specs, we could say that the brand has improved a lot, if we’re going to compare the Flare X3 with some of its predecessors.
Sample Photos:
 |
| Outdoor |
 |
| Night |
 |
| Portrait |
 |
| Selfie |
However, taking photos at low-light settings has exposed its weaknesses. Images become too soft, and noises are too visible during night shots.
See Also: Cherry Mobile Flare J1 Lite Now Only Php2,299
CONNECTIVITY:
Just like other smartphones, the Flare X3 sports basic connectivity features, including WiFi, LTE, Bluetooth, and GPS. All worked well during our tests, and we never had a problem dealing with our signal reception.
Other connectivity features include its USB-C port and 3.5mm audio jack.
BATTERY:
The Flare X3 boasts a large 4,000mAh stamina. However, compared to other handsets with the same battery capacity, we noticed that it has the shortest battery life.
 |
| PCMark Battery Life Score |
Our actual usage suggests that it can run up to 11 hours, but its PCMark Battery Life result showed that it will last for only 8 hours and 3 minutes. Our mobile activities include basic communications, active social media browsing, and casual gaming.
Meanwhile, charging the phone from 20% to 100% took us over 2 hours, which is quite unimpressive.
VERDICT:
 |
| Cherry Mobile Flare X3 |
The Cherry Mobile Flare X3 is a decent budget smartphone. But for the price, there are other devices that can offer more things than it. There are also affordable handsets that can perform as good as the Flare X3.
Nevertheless, it is still a great device at its price point. In fact, the Flare X3 can still satisfy one’s mobile needs. We just hope that it has more consistent performance, because to be honest, it is one of the best Cherry Mobile smartphones that we're able to play around with yet, until it started showing some of its flaws.
The Cherry Mobile Flare X3 is available in the market for the price of Php9,999.
So, is it a yay or nay? Let us know what you think in the comment section below!
Cherry Mobile Flare X3 Specs:
- Dual SIM, dual standby, supports 4G/LTE connectivity
- 6.19-inch Trueview FHD+ (2246x1080) capacitive touchscreen, 19.9 aspect ratio
- Android 9.0 Pie
- 64-bit octa-core (4x2.0GHz Cortex-A73 CPU + 4x2.0GHz Cortex-A53 CPU), Mali-G72MP3 GPU, MediaTek Helio P60 chipset
- 6GB RAM
- 64GB internal storage, expandable up to 256GB via MicroSD card, uses SIM 2 slot
- 12MP + 5MP + 2MP triple main cameras with AI and LED flash
- 20MP + 2MP dual front cameras with AI
- Multimedia Player
- 3.5mm audio jack
- FM Radio
- WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
- Bluetooth
- GPS with A-GPS, BDS
- USB Type-C with OTG support
- Sensors: fingerprint (side-mounted), accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope
- Face Unlock
- Battery: 4000mAh
- Color: Twilight Purple
- Price:Php9,999