Decent performance at a tempting price
Cherry Mobile’s Flare S6 Selfie was launched today, and it comes with an interesting spec sheet for its price: At a hair under 8K, the Flare S6 Selfie has 3GB of RAM, a fingerprint scanner, and Samsung ISOCELL units for its front and rear cameras. While it is geared as a selfie-centric device, we thought of comparing it with the OPPO A71, which was released last month.
While it is more expensive than the Flare S6 Selfie, the OPPO A71 has near-identical specs. But which is the better budget performance phone? Let’s take a quick look at their specs:
Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Selfie specs
- MediaTek MT6750T octa-core processor
- Mali T860 MP2 GPU
- 3GB of RAM
- 5.2-inch Full HD IPS display, 1920 x 1080 resolution
- 16GB of expandable storage up to 128GB
- 16-megapixel rear camera, Samsung ISOCELL S5K3P3 sensor, LED flash
- 16-megapixel front camera, Samsung ISOCELL S5K3P3 sensor, LED flash
- Dual SIM
- 3G, LTE
- WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, Fingerprint scanner, USB Type-C
- 2600mAh battery
- Android 7.0 Nougat, Cherry OS
- Price: Php 7999
Read: Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Selfie Hands-on, Quick Review: Affordable Selfie Shooter
OPPO A71 Specs
- 1.5GHz MediaTek MT6750 octa-core processor
- Mali-T820 MP2 GPU
- 3GB of RAM
- 16GB of expandable storage (up to 256GB via microSD)
- 5.2-inch HD IPS display, 1280 x 720 resolution
- 13-megapixel rear camera, f/2.2 aperture, PDAF, LED flash
- 5-megapixel front camera, f/2.4 aperture
- 4G, LTE
- Dual SIM
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
- GPS, A-GPS
- Android 7.1 Nougat with Color OS 3.1
- 3000mAh battery
- Price: Php 8990
Read: OPPO A71 Review: Speedy Phone for the Budget-Conscious
Internals: Nearly even, except…
Nothing really to talk about internals: Both the Flare S6 Selfie and the A71 have the same MediaTek 6750 processor, same 3GB RAM, and same 16GB internal storage. The slight difference would be with the GPU: The A71 uses an older Mali T820, while the Flare S6 Selfie uses a newer Mali T860. So when we are going to talk about performance, the A71 and Flare S6 Selfie will roughly have the same performance, but we have to do a rigorous test with the Flare S6 Selfie once we get our hands on a review unit.
Display: Full HD over HD any day
While they may have the same display size at 5.2 inches, the Flare S6 Selfie wins by a hair in this department as it is using a Full HD panel compared to the A71’s HD panel.
Camera: Great Samsung Cameras
As we stated in our review, the A71 is underwhelming when it comes to the camera department. That being said, the Flare S6 Selfie wins as it uses a 16-megapixel Samsung ISOCELL unit for both the front and the back cameras. While it may look impressive on paper, we need to do several tests before we can say that the Flare S6 Selfie’s cameras are really good.
Battery: OPPO has the edge
With the Flare S6 Selfie being better with its display and camera setup, it concedes to the A71 when it comes to the battery department. With the A71 you get a 3000mAh battery, which is 400mAh bigger than the one used in the Flare S6 Selfie. In our review, the A71 has a great battery life performance. While the Flare S6 Selfie uses a more power-hungry Full HD display, we will need to put it to the test to see if its smaller battery can sustain a day of average use.
Verdict: Pinoy Pride for Cherry Mobile
For Php 1k cheaper, the Flare S6 Selfie offers a better set of features compared to the A71. Aside from having a fingerprint scanner and a USB type C port, the Flare S6 also sports a Full HD display and a newer GPU chip. Like the Flare S6 Plus, the Flare S6 Selfie is a statement phone from Cherry Mobile. It is their way of proving that even local brands can come up with phones that can compete against a saturated market full of foreign brands.
