Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite Review: More Juice Please!

Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite Review: More Juice Please!

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The Cherry Mobile Flare X was released more than a year ago and was still flying off the shelves early this year. A few weeks back, leaks started making the rounds that a smaller version of the Flare X would soon be available, the Cherry Flare X Lite. The Flare X Lite is a 5-Inch smartphone from the local brand that sports a full HD display, 3GB of RAM, and MediaTek’s MT6753 octa-core processor and was officially released a few days go. But, is it worth its asking price of Php 4,999? Let’s find out.

Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite Specs:

  • 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6753 Octa-Core Processor
  • Mali-T720 GPU
  • 3GB of RAM
  • 5-Inch Full HD Display; Resolution 1080×1920
  • 16GB of Expandable Storage
  • 16-Megapixel Rear Camera
  • 8-Megapixel Front Camera
  • 3G, LTE
  • Dual SIM
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS
  • 2000mAh Non-Removable Battery
  • Android 6.0 Marshmallow
  • Php 4,999.00

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Functionally Vanilla

If you’ve read our unboxing and initial review for the Flare X Lite, you may already know what we think about the phone’s design, which hasn’t grown on us within the week we’ve been using it as our daily driver. It’s not horrible looking, but it is just rather plain looking. It’s vanilla looks further accentuated by the white review unit that made its way to Unbox HQ for review.

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The phone is primarily made out of polycarbonate plastic that is broken up by chrome accents at its seams; making it rather light to take around and its form factor easily pocketable compared to the usual unit we bring around. Despite being a lightweight, the Flare X Lite is well put together with no issues surfacing with our time with the device.

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The front is, of course, dominated by its 5-Inch Full HD Display; giving the Flare X Lite a screen-to-body ratio of 72.8%. The screen is sandwiched by its capacity keys on the bottom and the earpiece, sensors, and 8MP camera above it.

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The right side of the Flare X Lite houses the volume rocker and power button, and up on top you’ll find the 3.5mm jack and its Micro USB port. The rest of the sides of the device are bare aside form the tiny perforation for the microphone on the bottom.

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Flip the device over and you have the 16MP camera and its LED flash on the upper left hand side and the speaker grille on the lower left hand side of the Flare X Lite’s removable back cover, which houses the SIM card, Micro SD slot, and the non-removable battery underneath it. We have to note that the back cover gives a wonderfully, satisfying snap when putting back on.

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Great Display for a Budget Device

It’s not common to see a Full HD display on a device with the Flare X Lite’s price tag and it was definitely a treat to see this display at work. Images were clear and crisp with the display’s 441 pixels per inch. It does has its flaws with color temps a tad warmer than what we would have liked , but that’s just cause we’re nitpicking. The multimedia experience would also be a lot better if you wear headphones since the lone speaker behind the device is a tad lackluster to say the least and because of its placement of the speaker grille, you’re going to more often than not, have to adjust as to not muffle its sound.

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Solid Processing Package with a Few Kinks in its Software

The Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite has a pretty good looking spec sheet for its price tag. With MediaTek’s MT6753 processor running the show paired with a respectable amount of RAM at 3GB. It runs on pretty much on stock Android 6.0 Marshmallow with only a few pre-installed apps from the local brand. This gives you a little more wiggle room to play with given its 16GB of internal storage. The phone handles day-to-day task easily and it hardly even bats an eyelash when we have to multitask in between apps.

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Despite getting a pretty decent score on AnTuTu, at 37241, gaming on the Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite should also be kept to a less graphically intensive games. We’ve had to settle for putting Asphalt 8 on Low Settings to get rid of noticeable frame rate drops, but it performed smoothly on Trials Frontier by Ubisoft. You can play with Pokemon GO with AR enabled, but you may want to stray away from that given the Flare X Lite’s 2000mAh battery; more on that later.

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We did experience a few hiccups that may be solved with an OTA update, as the capacitive keys would often go haywire; The back button active would act like the home button and the home button would act like the menu key. Another bug we experienced is that the display wouldn’t completely turn off after receiving a notification. The screen would be blank, but it’s definitely on and raising the temperature of the phone.

Keep to Well Lit Areas for Photos

As expected from phones at this price point, it does well enough given the right light with pretty decent color reproduction. Image output isn’t the sharpest, but should be good enough for your social media feeds. Low light photography should be kept to a minimum as well, because shots at the supposed “magic hour” were already riddled with noise. Selfie addicts will be pleased to hear that the front 8-megapixel camera does a pretty surprising job, but again — you’ll most likely want to have the right amount of light to get really good photos out of it.

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That 2000mAh Battery Though

The 2000mAh battery on the Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite is definitely a drag. Battery Tests on the PC Mark Benchmark app gave us a result of 4 hours and 18 minutes. In real world tests, it pretty much had us fishing out our power bank before lunch time. We definitely appreciate the Full HD display on  this device, but pushing that many pixels takes a toll on a battery life; especially one with such a small capacity.

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The Verdict: Bring a Power Bank. A Big One.

The Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite has a pretty decent processing package and we loved watching YouTube videos on its Full HD Display. Our time with the device was mostly pleasant. However, we do have to recognize its weaknesses. For one, you may want to get confirmation that the local brand has pushed an OTA update to deal with the glitches we’ve experienced during our time with the device. Secondly, we cannot ignore the fact that it only has a 2000mAh battery that didn’t even get to lunch before needing a top up. If and when the local brand pushes an update to fix problem number one, one has to ask if they’re willing to be tethered to a power bank to make sure they maximize all the pros that come along with the Cherry Mobile Flare X Lite.

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