Cherry Mobile Flare P1 Plus Unboxing, First Impressions

Cherry Mobile is trying to test out the market with its dual camera touting smartphones starting with the Flare P1 that we’ve reviewed earlier this month. As per tradition, there will always be a ‘Plus’ variant coming and here it is. Let’s take a look at the Cherry Mobile Flare P1 Plus.

We have here the retail package of the Flare P1 Plus. Everything here will also be available to any buyer including the following:

• In-ear headset with microphone
• Micro-USB cable
• Travel Charger (5V=1500mA)
• User Guide
• SIM ejector

The package is fairly simple but we’re surprised to see a relatively fast charger inside. Also, a screen protector is already applied to the display but it doesn’t cover all the way to the edge due to the 2.5D curved glass.

The Flare P1 Plus has a 5.5-inch display that has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels or simply Full HD. It’s a sharp display compared to other phones in its range. The phone appears pretty tall as well due to the slim bezel on the sides. Above the panel is the 8-megapixel selfie camera along with its own LED flash, the earpiece, and front sensors. Below are three capacitive keys for UI navigation and they don’t light up.

Going to the sides, we have the hybrid card tray and power/lock button on the right. You can put in two SIM cards (Nano + Micro) or trade the other for a microSD card to have more storage.

On the left, we have the volume rocker that’s somehow positioned lower that we’re accustomed to. It’s parallel to the power/lock button making both easy to reach during use.

Up top is the 3.5mm audio jack while down at the bottom end are the micro-USB port and the loudspeaker. The speaker fires at the left set of holes leaving the right holes to hide the microphone.

The back of the phone looks similar to its smaller sibling but the middle plate gets an upgrade to cold aluminum, giving it a sturdier and better feel on the hand, and has a fingerprint scanner in the middle.

The main feature of the handset is its two rear cameras – a 13-megapixel and 5-megapixel combo. As we’ve seen with its sibling, this setup allows the phone to add an artificial depth of field in pictures although, it’s not as impressive with other dual camera smartphones in the market. Here are a couple of samples we took during our unboxing.

As always with low-priced handsets, there’s not much to expect in specs but it’ll get the job done. We have a 1.5GHz MediaTek 6737T octa-core processor on board with Mali-T720 GPU. Memory is handled by a 2GB RAM while storage is pretty standard at 16GB. It runs Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box with the latest April security patch.

Cherry Mobile Flare P1 Plus specs:
5.5-inch IPS LCD @ 1920 x 1080 pixels, 401ppi
1.5GHz Mediatek MTK6737T quad-core CPU
Mali-T720 GPU
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD card, up to 64GB (uses SIM2)
13MP + 5MP Dual autofocus rear cameras w/ LED Flash
8MP front camera w/ LED flash
Dual SIM (Micro + Nano)
4G LTE (700MHz support)
Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.1
GPS w/ A-GPS
Fingerprint scanner
Android 7.0 Nougat
3000mAh non-removable battery

The Flare P1 Plus is priced at just Php5,999USD 102INR 8,666EUR 97CNY 744. We’ll be taking the handset for a full spin in the coming days. Check back soon for our review.