The selfie-centric smartphones will never stop popping out in the market as Filipinos are fond of taking photos of themselves and sharing it to their social media channels.
Beautification, choices of filters, photo editing apps, sharp and true-color images, are the few features that we look forward to in every smartphone we’d like to own.
So, is Cherry Mobile Flare Selfie worth buying?
Will you spend P7,999 for this 5-inch smartphone with 3GM of RAM, 16G of storage and a MediaTek MT6753 1.3Ghz 64-bit octa-core processor?
Table of contents:
CM Flare Selfie build and construction
The 5-inch CM Flare Selfie is Cherry Mobile’s most gorgeous smartphone that I was able to review. The unibody design is so neat specially that they had it on white color. The back cover is glossy and the edges match the gold metal found in the iPhone 5.
The speakers are located at the bottom alongside with the micro-USB port and a pinhole mic. On the right side, they had the power button and the volume rockers.On top are the audio jack and another pinhole mic. On the left side is the dual-SIM tray. Although it has dual-SIM, the other slot doubles as a micro-SD slot.
Cherry Mobile Flare Selfie features
Aside from the 16MP cameras both at the rear and on the front, which is the main selling point of the Flare Selfie, it has a generous 3GB of RAM. The price range mentioned above speaks for a midrange Octa-core processor with 1.3Ghz 64-bit speed.
This year will be the year where fingerprint scanners will become an additional feature for smartphones. CM Flare Selfie is the first local brand to integrate this security feature.
The 5-inch HD display will not consume too much battery, that if you know how to tweak it, the 3,000mAh non-removable battery might last you more than twelve (12) hours of usage.
Cherry Mobile Flare Selfie Specs
See also: Cherry Mobile Flare Selfie unboxing
Related: Flare Selfie vs Asus Zenfone Selfie, Cherry Mobile Flare selfie vs CM Selfie
CM Flare Selfie UI
The Flare Selfie has a pre-installed five themes activated by a one-touch icon. Much like the iPhone UI, the Flare Selfie has no app drawer, therefore, it is your extra duty to arrange the apps according to your taste. Only the Google apps are put into one folder.
There are three browsers too — the stock Android browser, Chrome by Google, and Opera Mini.
CM Flare Selfie camera app(s)
This is where we got confused with Cherry Mobile. They pre-installed three camera apps which could lead into assuming that the they were actually not sure if this model is going to be the best “selfie” smartphone. So to give the buyers options, they had three camera apps on board.
The stock camera takes good photos. When I say good photos, you should be able to compose it properly, wait for the focus to lock before hitting the shutter.
The beauty camera app is a dedicated camera app for taking a selfie. It comes with different filters, but it does not perform so well.
To make it more confusing, the UCamera app is also there. But we did not like the results of the photos taken with the UCamera app. The good news is you can uninstall this app, while the Beauty Camera app can’t be removed.
You are better off with the stock camera. Just have the patience to compose your subject, lock the focus before hitting the shutter.
We have a Youtube video about the camera sample shots, you can take a look at it here:
For your reference, the Flare Selfie saves the video file with .3GP file extension.
Here are few of the rear-camera and front-camera samples.
Photo above is taken by the front-camera.
Photo above is taken with the rear-camera.
Both the front and rear camera takes good photos, but not as impressive as what would 16MP could deliver. There are inconsistencies in the color rendition. If you already bought this phone and experiencing the same, our tip is to a hard reset. That’s what we did with our unit, and after that we already got the images that we want from the stock camera app.
Fingerprint scanner
For added security, Cherry Mobile added a fingerprint scanner that can save up to five (5) profiles. The fingerprint scanner can also secure apps, so that when you activate it, it requires your fingerprint to open it. This could be used for apps like SMS, Messenger, Facebook, and other apps that you want
There are still room for improvement for the first fingerprint scanner in the Flare Selfie. There are times that you’d like it disabled rather than activate it and always return failed authentication of your recorded fingerprint.
Performance, benchmark
The 3G RAM paired with the 64-bit 1.3Ghz octa-core CPU performs well. We did not experience lags. Moving from one app to another is smooth, even taking photos is fast too.
Antutu V6 gave Cherry Mobile Flare Selfie a score of 37,585. CM Flare Selfie has 5-point multi-touch.
The 3,00mAH battery gave an average performance. The most battery hungry apps is Facebook.
Conclusion
Should you buy the Cherry Mobile Flare Selfie? Why not if the price is right. We think that the price point should be around P5,500 to P6,000. The hybrid SIM slot that doubles as micro-SD slot also defeats the purpose of having dual-SIM. If the camera produced high-quality photos, I would not mind spending P7,999.
