We review the Flare S6 Plus!

With the advent of both mid-range and entry-level 18:9 phones in the market, companies now have to find other ways to make their devices stand out against the waves of competition that they face. For local brand Cherry Mobile, the solution is simple: stuff more cameras in the phone to put their offering on par with more expensive brands.

The result is the Flare S6 Plus, a phone that not only has a 5.7-inch 18:9 display, but also has four cameras spread throughout its body. The new phone, retailing at Php 9,999 will be going up against stiff competition from both international and local brands in its price band. Is it worth your consideration? Let’s dive right in:

Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Plus

• 1.5GHz MediaTek 6750T octa-core processor
• Mali T860 MP2
• 4GB of RAM
• 5.7-inch HD+ TrueView IPS display, 720 x 1440 resolution
• 64GB of expandable storage up to 128GB
• 16-megapixel Samsung ISCOCELL S5K3P3 rear camera, 5-megapixel secondary depth camera, dual LED flash
• 16-megapixel Samsung ISCOCELL S5K3P3 front camera, 5-megapixel secondary depth camera
• Dual SIM
• 3G, LTE
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, Fingerprint Scanner, USB Type-C
• 3000mAh battery
• Android Nougat 7.0, Cherry OS

Feels hefty and solid for a Cherry Mobile phone

Cherry Mobile’s mid-range (at least compared to the rest of their lineup) phones have always had solid construction and overall build quality, and the Flare S6 Plus is no exception to that rule. The phone sports a unibody design that gives it a pretty solid feel despite it retailing for less than 10K in the market.

The phone has a curved back with rounded corners, making it visually in line with the other offerings in the Flare S6 lineup. The rear of the phone holds the dual-camera module with the fingerprint scanner located right below it. There’s two antenna bands on the top and bottom of the metal body that adds to the visual flair.

The power button is on the right, along with the volume rocker. The top of the phone sits the 3.5mm jack, while the USB Type-C port and speaker grille is on the bottom.

On the front, above the display sits the two front-facing cameras to the left of the earpiece. We’ll go into detail about the cameras in a bit.

Display is not bad for a HD+ IPS panel, though it’s not really border-less

Much like most phones nowadays, the Flare S6 Plus sports an 18:9 aspect ratio display that has an overall size of 5.7-inches. Because of the reduced side bezels on the phone, it has a footprint of a regular 16:9 5.5-inch phone. The phone isn’t bezel-less though, since there’s still pretty defined bezels on the sides of the device.

Aside from that, the display is actually pretty nice. The display is just HD+ though, but despite that it has good viewing angles, good color reproduction and is a decent display all around. It does get washed out a little bit though in direct sunlight.

Oh MediaTek 6750T, we meet again

MediaTek’s octa-core 6750T processor is fast becoming the chipset of choice for budget phones, and it makes another appearance on the Flare S6 Plus. The 6750T is good enough for daily use, and it can be a moderately good chipset for gaming if you keep the graphics settings down. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

The 6750T managed to give respectable numbers via GameBench in Asphalt 8 and Age Of Valor but only if you keep the graphics settings down to a minimum. It’s not too bad overall but obviously it’s not really a chip designed for gaming.

Cherry OS takes a little getting used to

The Flare S6 Plus also comes with Cherry OS, the company’s own UI overlay put on top of Android 7.0. The overlay adds quite a few additional features on Android that stock Nougat doesn’t give you, including a new privacy system that gives you better control of files in your phone.

It does take a little getting used to when you used it, especially when you open the app drawer since the apps are all arranged alphabetically by default, by you do get used to it after a while. You can read more about Cherry OS in the article below:

Cherry Mobile Flare S6 Selfie Hands-on, Quick Review: Affordable Selfie Shooter

Quad-cameras are a bit of a gimmick, though image quality is good, with caveats

Does the quad-camera system of the Flare S6 Plus add to the shooting experience? Not really. The rear camera has two shooting modes that use the secondary camera – artificial bokeh and enhanced zoom, and both really don’t work too well. The enhanced zoom mode is entirely digital, and produces not so desirable photos. Bokeh mode for the camera is typical of what you’d expect from budget phones, with bokeh applied outside of a defined spherical boundary on the subject. You’d actually get better results without bokeh mode on, as the phone’s primary 16-megapixel camera (a Samsung ISOCELL S5K3P3) is paired with an f/2.0 lens creates decent enough shots with bokeh. 

Photos taken with the rear camera is surprisingly decent for its price, but it’s clear that the rear camera requires OIS or some kind of stabilization tech to take photos clearly in low light.

It’s pretty much the same story for the dual-front cameras. Images taken with the regular shooting mode is ok, but the bokeh mode is more miss than hit, as the software has problems looking for our face’s outlines to properly apply the bokeh effect. We kept it off for the duration of the review.

Battery life falls a little short

With a 3000mAh battery, we expected the Flare S6 Plus to last us at least a day with heavy use, but unfortunately PCMark battery benchmark puts its overall run time at just 6 hours and 6 minutes. Actual use was around 8 hours with managed use (data on, WiFi on, light gaming plus Facebook and browsing) so you might want to keep that in mind before you pick one up.

Verdict: A solid budget 18:9 phone, though it faces tough competition

When Cherry Mobile gave us a sneak peek of the Flare S6 Plus a few months ago, it looked like a really solid budget phone at the time. An 18:9 aspect ratio display, quad-cameras and budget price point made it a compelling choice at the time, especially for people looking for a budget phone.

But the mobile landscape has changed drastically since October, and 18:9 smartphones are a lot more common now than a few months ago. Cherry Mobile’s Flare S6 Plus will be doing battle against both international and local challengers in its price range, and the budget quad-camera phone is in for a very tough fight.