We unbox the Knight X!

Starmobile took the wraps off of their latest flagship device late last year, but it’s only now that they’re sending out devices to their stores to be bought by the general public. We got the retail version of Starmobile’s latest and greatest a few days ago, and now we’ll be unboxing the Knight X to see if the company’s managed to improve the software of the device since we last saw it, and see what’s in the box. Let’s begin, shall we?

Starmobile Knight X specs

• MediaTek MT6595M octa-core processor with big.LITTLE technology (2.0GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A17, 1.7GHz quad-core ARM Cortex-A7)
• PowerVR IMG Rogue G6200 GPU
• 3GB of RAM
• 5.5-inch full HD IPS display panel, scratch resistant glass, 1920 x 1080 resolution
• 32GB of storage
• 13-megapixel rear Sony Exmor RS IMX135 camera, AF, F2.2 aperture
• 5-megapixel fixed focus front camera
• Dual SIM (micro and nano SIM),
• 3G, Dual LTE switching
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, NFC, USB OTG, IR Blaster
• Android 4.4 KitKat
• 3350mAh battery
• 152 x 77.7 x 8.9mm

Packaging and contents

We assumed that Starmobile would ship the Knight X in their standard smartphone packaging that they’ve been using for quite a while, swapping it out for a nicer, flatter box that reminds us a bit of the packaging for the Lumia series of smartphones.

Anyway, once you take out the phone, you’ll see the containers for the USB cable, charger and headphones, as well as the included quick-start guide and SIM pin (to take out the SIM tray on the side). Starmobile also threw in plenty of freebies as well: two screen protectors, a USB OTG cable and a very swanky flip case to protect the Knight X.

The packaging of the Knight X isn’t the typical one that you see on devices of local brands – the presentation of the device and its packaging add to the overall premium feel of the device.

Initial impressions: Still fast, still beastly

Before we begin you may want to read up on our initial impressions here that we did when the Knight X was launched. The short version is that the Knight X feels very much like a premium smartphone, and considering the product’s positioning, we’re not really surprised. The retail unit that we got felt really solid in the hands, and felt better than the pre-production device we handled a few months ago.

 

The Knight X is one of the few smartphones currently out in the market that support dual LTE, which is handy if you want full LTE coverage anywhere you go in the metro (and beyond) by putting LTE SIMs of both telcos in your phone and just switching from one telco to another if your preferred LTE SIM isn’t getting enough bandwidth.

Since the Knight X that was sent to us was already a retail unit, we ran both AnTuTu and Geekbench to check the overall numbers as far as synthetic benchmarks were concerned. As expected the Knight X delivered really high benchmark scores for both apps, but only a full review will tell if the smartphone is capable on delivering on the promise of high performance that the benchmarks hint at. We’ve also tested the Knight X’s dual-LTE capabilty over the weekend, and we’re happy to report that both SIM slots does support LTE with good speeds. Unless the Knight X exhibits some fatal, crippling flaw during the next few days, we’re expecting the smartphone to give positive results during the review.

That’s it for this unboxing. Watch out for the full review later this week.