MyPhone Agua Vortex Unboxing and Initial Review: Stunning Aluminum Frame Design

It's the MyPhone Vortex! — It’s the MyPhone Vortex!

MyPhone Vortex Unboxed!

The new MyPhone Agua Vortex addresses a lot of the feedback given for the successful MyPhone Agua Iceberg. They made it smaller and more compact at 5.0-inches. They retained the 16GB internal storage BUT they added a micro SD card slot for expandability (WIN). The back plate changed to plastic though but the good news is that the frame and the sides are made from aluminum so it still feels a whole lot more premium that other devices in the same price category.

We’ve managed to get a unit and we’re currently in the process of testing for the full review article. To kick things off we’d like to share with you guys our unboxing as well as our initial impressions.

For starters here’s a quick look again on the specifications of the MyPhone Agua Vortex.

MyPhone Agua Vortex Spec Sheet

1.2GHz quad-core CPU, MediaTek MT6589
PowerVR SGX544 GPU
1GB RAM
16GB internal storage, microSD card slot (up to 32GB)
5.0-inch 720p display, Corning Gorilla Glass 2
13.0-megapixels primary camera with LED flash
5.0-megapixels secondary camera
Dual SIM, Dual Standby
2,000mAh battery
Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1
SRP: Php12,388

The price tag is a bit of a concern though since you can get a lot of devices that offer LTE already or crazy battery life by adding anywhere from Php1,000-Php2,000. We’re also a bit concerned about the 2,000mAh battery. Hopefully it will be enough to power through a full day of moderate-heavy usage.

Anyway, let’s jump into the unboxing!

Packaging and Unboxing

If there’s one thing we’ve noticed to the recent products of MyPhone is that they exert a lot of effort into delivering a complete a high quality package with their Agua series. The MyPhone Agua Vortex, for example, comes in a hard plastic box that’s kinda similar to how Apple packages their iPod Touches and more recently, the iPhone 5C. There’s a strip of gray paper printed with Vortex on it holding the two pieces of the box together. The good thing about this kind of packaging is that MyPhone is able to highlight the aluminum frame. The phone looks absolutely gorgeous from the outside and it will definitely grab your attention if you see it together with other local brands in a display row.

Aba aba... lume-level! — Aba aba… lume-level!

To unbox we removed the strip of paper and then peeled off the tape at the sides. We pulled the top lid off and we were immediately greeted by the stunning 5.0-inch MyPhone Agua Vortex. The moment our hand closed around it and picked it up we knew that the chassis was made with quality materials. More importantly we knew that those who were polarized on the “I don’t like phablets” side of the MyPhone Agua Iceberg will absolutely love the Agua Vortex.

MyPhone also put the same amount of effort into making sure that the accessories and peripherals looked and felt great. Both the micro USB to USB cable and the earphones have flat wires. This kind of design helps in making sure that they don’t tangle easily. As an added bonus, MyPhone also threw in an 8GB microSD card.

Compared to a lot of other smartphones offered by local brands, the MyPhone Agua Vortex offers an unforgettable and fun unboxing experience. The different style and material of packaging makes it stand out and the quality of the accessories and peripherals is a delightful surprise for those who have been used to low-quality cables and wires.

Hardware Initial Impressions

What the back looks like: MyPhone Agua Vortex

The MyPhone Agua Vortex has a plastic removable back plate. The texture and the pattern on the plate reminds us a lot of the one originally used by the Lenovo P770 (not bad looking at all). Fortunately MyPhone was able to resist their urge of slapping the Philippine map on the back plate, hehe. Don’t get us wrong folks, we’re all for Nationalism but it just doesn’t look good on a phone. Sure on a shirt it looks nice but on a smartphone it just looks a little too tacky for us.

Looks like a smiling face hehe. Two SIM Card slots are eyes and the heart on the battery is the smile

Removing the back plate reveals the slots for the 2,000mAh battery, two SIM card slots (not micro) and the micro SD card.

The main highlight of the hardware and design of the Vortex is the aluminum frame. The feel, design, and quality is very similar to the frame of the iPhone 4/4S. It feels cool to the touch and very solid.

Over-all when it comes to the hardware side the MyPhone Agua Vortex delivers in spades. The plastic back plate might be a turn off for some but it’s okay since you get the expandable storage and removable battery (so you can easily swap with fully charged ones).

Software Initial Impressions

Android Jelly Bean on the MyPhone Agua Vortex

The MyPhone Agua Vortex runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1. The specs (quad-core and 1GB RAM) ensure your usual smooth and fluid Android experience. Transitions, animations, and basic core functions all worked well during our tests. We also didn’t feel any major lags when using the camera.

We’ll run our usual battery of tests on the MyPhone Agua Vortex for the full review but for now we can say that it can handle pretty much whatever you throw at it. We would have preferred they used a turbo MediaTek processor though. At this price Php12,000+ that’s the kind of performance we should be getting already.

Accessories

MyPhone is also offering two kinds of covers for the Agua Vortex. There’s the usual silicone back cover which comes in a variety of colors (on the left in the photo above) and a rather thick leather flip case. The silicone cases go for Php150 while the flip cover sells for Php450.

Full Review Coming Soon

The MyPhone Vortex is in our que of units up for review. We’ll probably get to this next week so for now we hope you guys enjoyed and found this unboxing post useful. We’ll definitely feature this phone more extensively during the podcast on Monday so be sure to tune in 7:30PM at The New Media Factory. 🙂