It is time for Cherry Mobile to take the spotlight!

Cherry Mobile has been uncharacteristically silent in the past few quarters. The company’s previously hectic release schedule hasn’t been the same for a few months now, and aside from Android Go-powered smartphones released earlier this year, the local brand hasn’t released anything that matches the hype of their ground-breaking Flare series of yesteryears.

The encroachment of international brands in their traditional sub-10K and sub 15K stomping grounds has certainly made things difficult for the brand, but Cherry Mobile is looking to make waves with their newest Android offering, the Flare S7 Plus. It’s the best value phone that they’ve released in recent memory, and has all the hallmarks of a bang-for-the-buck phone in 2018: a notched display, metal and glass build, and AI tricks.

What is it?

The Flare S7 Plus is Cherry Mobile’s most premium offering to date. A successor to last year’s Flare S6 Plus, the Flare S7 Plus is a major leap in all aspects—from build quality to internals.

What, that is actually a Cherry Mobile phone?

Yup. Truth be told, you’d probably won’t associate the S7 Plus with the local brand if we didn’t tell you. The overall design is a huge departure from the stuff that Cherry Mobile usually offers, sporting a premium glass design with a metal frame along with a notched display.

There’s no Cherry Mobile branding on the back, with only the rear-mounted fingerprint scanner and a vertically-arranged dual camera module gracing the lovely glass rear.  The camera hump is nearly imperceptible, so much so that the phone lies almost flat when laid down camera-first.

The Flare S7 Plus is hefty and is a little top heavy. Gorilla Glass 3 protects the 6.18-inch Full HD+ display. While it comes with a notch, you have the option to switch between 18:9 or 19:9 with a swipe from the left corner.

You have the usual port arrangement: SIM card tray on the left, volume and power controls on the right, and speaker, microphone, and USB-C at the bottom. One unwelcome design cue here is the removal of the 3.5mm audio jack, though Cherry Mobile bundles a 3.5mm adapter so you can still use your wired cans with it.

How fast is it?

As we have mentioned in a previous article, the Flare S7 Plus is arguably the fastest Cherry Mobile phone to date thanks to its Helio P60 processor. Paired with 4GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage, the Flare S7 Plus feels zippy and smooth without any trace of lag.

For the Flare S7 Plus, Cherry Mobile ditched its CherryOS skin for a new overlay. Cherry Mobile also put in a lot of features that you usually see on more expensive devices, including 5W wireless charging capability, 10W wired fast charging as well as IR-based face unlock tech.

And the cameras?

The Flare S7 Plus gets major upgrades in this department as well: aside from the 16-megapixel f/2.0 and 5-megapixel f/2.4 rear cameras, the Flare S7 Plus comes with AI tech built-in, which helps in tweaking photos depending on the scene. Check out some of the photos we took using the Flare S7 Plus:

Another new feature on the Flare S7 Plus is Flaremoji: Cherry Mobile’s own take on animated emojis. Here’s a sample:

How much will it cost?

Unfortunately, Cherry Mobile has yet revealed the official pricing for the Flare S7 Plus. Based on our interview with Cherry Mobile’s officials, expect the Flare S7 Plus to be competitively priced and go head-to-head against brands like vivo, Huawei, and OPPO.

Cherry Mobile Flare S7 Plus Specs

• 2.0GHz MediaTek Helio P60 octa-core processor
• Mali-G72 MP3
• 4GB RAM
• 6.18-inch Ful HD+ TrueView IPS display, 19:9 aspect ratio, Gorilla Glass 3
• 64GB internal storage, expandable via MicroSD up to 256GB
• 16-megapixel f/2.0 and 5-megapixel 5-megapixel f/2.4 rear cameras with PDAF, AI Scene Detection, dual LED flash
• 16-megapixel f/2.0 front camera
• Dual SIM
• 3G, LTE
• WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
• Fingerprint Scanner, USB Type-C, IR face unlock
• 3000mAh battery with 10W quick charging and 5W wireless charging
• Android Oreo 8.1