Cherry Mobile Cosmos X Hands-on: Light, thin, and Sezzy Red

Cherry Mobile Cosmos X Hands-on

Last night during the podcast we were able to get some hands-on time with the Cherry Mobile Cosmos X of Alora and Monch. Actually, it’s the type of phone that will get attention the moment you take it out of your pocket or your bag since the back plate is in glossy red, hehe. Add to that the slim form factor and the vibrant 4.7-inch Super AMOLED HD display and you have a really sezzy smartphone. It doesn’t hurt too that the price tag is very affordable at just Php9,999.

Anyway, before we get to our initial review here’s a refresher on the specifications.

Cherry Mobile Cosmos X Spec Sheet

1.2GHz Quad-core Processor
4GB Internal Storage, expandable up to 32GB via microSD Card
1GB RAM
4.7-inch Super AMOLED HD Display
18.0-megapixels rear-facing camera with BSI and LED Flash
8.0-megapixels front-facing camera
Dual SIM, Dual Standby
3G, HSPA+, Bluetooth, WiFi, WiFi Hotspot, GPS/aGPS, FM Radio
1800mAh
Android Jelly Bean 4.2
SRP: Php9,999

Not bad right? We’d definitely love to spend more time with this so we can give a fuller review. I’m very keen on seeing the quality of the pictures you can get with the 18MP camera (it’s supposed to have BSI).

Initial Impressions

The Cherry Mobile Cosmos X joins the few smartphones in the market today that are quad-core and very slim. Like what we mentioned earlier, the model we were able to play around with had a red back plate that was very glossy and shiny. Other than the color, we noticed two peculiar things when we first saw the back. First was the branding. Instead of Cherry Mobile at the center, it read COSMOS. The Cherry Mobile logo was just a small note at the bottom of the back of the device. It looks like the trend for most local brands is to slowly make their branding a little more subtler. The techie in us says “yay” to that but from a corporate branding perspective that probably might not be a good step. Secondly, the rear-facing camera looked kinda big. We’d be very uncomfortable in having the phone with the back on a hard surface unless it had a case to protect the camera.

Up front we have the 4.7-inch display. Resolution is HD but what’s more important is the quality of the display used – Super AMOLED. Colors are vibrant and details are rich. Sometimes you’d think the app icons are popping out of the screen, hehe. Definitely great screen technology. Unfortunately we were in a dark place and we only have a phone camera with us when we took the photo below so it does not do justice at all to the quality of the display. We’ll take more photos once we get a unit for review.

Apologies for the bad quality of the photo

As for the performance, it’s pretty much what you can expect from a local brand quad-core smartphone. Most transitions and animations were smooth and app loading time snappy. We did notice a lag with the 18MP camera viewfinder though. We’ll verify this when we do the full review.

We’re going to try to secure a unit this week so that we can do a more comprehensive take on this. We’re really keen on testing the camera since that’s the main selling point of the Cosmos X.

If you can’t wait for the review, just head over to the nearest Cherry Mobile kiosk. They should be selling this for Php9,999. 🙂