Cherry Mobile Flare S Unboxing and Initial Review

Cherry Mobile Flare S Up for Unboxing!

Cherry Mobile has been relentless with their product launches. In the last few months they’ve expanded and improved Flare line-up of smartphones. One of their most recent models is the Cherry Mobile Flare S. Priced very affordably at just Php4,499, the Flare S offers mid-range specifications at an entry-level price point. Not only does it run on a quad-core processor, it also has 1GB of RAM. The additional RAM, as we all know by now, spells the difference between a good or terrible Android experience.

We were finally able to get our hands on an actual unit of the Cherry Mobile Flare S. We’ll be giving this the full treatment for our review but to kick things off allow us to share with you guys our unboxing and initial impressions.

Before anything let’s quickly take a look once again at the specifications.

Cherry Mobile Flare S Spec Sheet

1.3GHz Quad-core MTK 6582 Processor
1GB RAM
4GB Internal Storage, expandable via MicroSD Card
4.0-inch IPS Display
8.0-megapixels primary camera
VGA secondary camera
WiFi, WiFi Hotspot, 3G, Bluetooth
Dual SIM, Dual Standby
Android Jelly Bean 4.2
1,400mAh Battery
Comes with Free Case and Screen Protector
SRP: Php4,499

As you can see the only notable downer in the spec sheet is the 1,400mAh battery. We have a strong feeling that this device won’t last half a day given heavy usage, hehe. We’ll verify this ourselves when we do our battery life tests for the full review.

Cherry Mobile Flare S Unboxing Video

For you guys to get a better idea of the look and feel of the Flare S we took this short unboxing video.

Cherry Mobile Flare S Initial Impressions

Based on our initial assessment, the Cherry Mobile Flare S delivers on performance, design, and build. Our first few snaps with the camera were actually decent also. The biggest drawback we’ve encountered so far though is the battery life. The 1,400mAh just dissipates like crazy, especially if you have 3G on, 50% brightness, and Sync. With this set-up we barely got 5-6 hours out of it. However if you can manage your use (turn off 3G when not in use, turn off Sync, keep brightness low), you can probably get through the day. Of course the solution for this is to just get a mobile battery charger but bringing around an extra gadget to power up another gadget can be cumbersome.

Another minor criticism we have for it is the display quality. The resolution is okay, but the pixelation is noticeable. We can’t really complain though since this just sells for less than Php5,000. But we can’t help but compare it to the display quality of the upcoming Flare HD. Night and day difference (obviously in favor of the Flare HD, hehe). We don’t know the price yet of the Flare HD though and rumors are it will be more expensive than the Flare S.

Over-all though the Flare S looks to be a good budget-friendly and entry-level smartphone. Just make sure you keep in mind that the battery life can potentially be terrible especially if you have brightness up as well as 3G/Sync.