Our initial review of the MyPhone Agua Hail!

MyPhone’s newest product, the MyPhone Agua Hail has a very simple premise: you get to have a decently specced-out 5-inch smartphone for only Php 4,598. There is a catch though – you’re stuck with excruciatingly slow 2G, which means you’re utterly dependent on free or paid WiFi connections if you want to browse Facebook, check Twitter or post your photos in Instagram.

Let’s take a look at the specs:

• 1.3GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6572 chipset
• Mali-400MP1 GPU
• 512MB RAM
• 4GB internal storage, expandable via microSD (up to 32G)
• 5-inch display (TN panel), 480 x 854 resolution
• 5-megapixel rear camera with LED flash
• VGA front camera
• 2,000mAh battery
• Android Jelly Bean 4.2

Rounded, curvy design

The MyPhone Agua Hail uses a rounded, curvy design. We’re not totally impressed with the materials used for the Agua Hail, especially the shiny, plastic back as it makes the unit feel plasticky and cheap. Fortunately for the Agua Hail, it has some heft to it, which made it feel less than a toy.

While it has a 5-inch display, its rounded sides allow you to get a nice grip on it. The display is a 5-inch display (480 x 854 resolution) deal with a TN (Twisted Nematic) panel. What this means that colors look off when you’re not looking at the Agua Hail dead on – the higher the angle that you view the screen, the worse it looks. But that’s to be expected – to get the price of the MyPhone Agua Hail down to what it is, sacrifices had to be made, which included the display (and something more important, which we’ll get to in later).

The MyPhone Agua Hail’s 1.3GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6572 managed to keep everything running fluidly relatively speaking, although we did encounter some rare instances of lag while we were multitasking. On Antutu, the MyPhone Agua Hail managed to score 10658 points, which was decent enough considering its specs. It’s not at all an Android gaming powerhouse though, so it’s important to manage your expectations from the get-go, hehe.

Officially missing 3G

What really hit home during our brief time with the MyPhone Agua Hail is how dependent we were on fast, mobile internet, even on 3G or HSPA. We really felt the omission of the 3G radio when we tried to check our Facebook with only 2G. It was painfully slow, and after five minutes of waiting for our Facebook page to load, we gave up and connected it to portable WiFi hotspot.

That’s it for our initial review, check back later in the week to see how the MyPhone Agua Hail does during our review!