Cherry Mobile Flash Hands-on, First Impressions

Cherry Mobile has quite a lot of new handsets in their arsenal under different series. They have introduced a new one dubbed as Flash. What’s special about it and what does it offer for less the Php6k? Here’s our hands-on to know more.

To start off, the Cherry Mobile Flash has a 5.5-inch Full HD IPS display. That’s a 1920 x 1080 pixels panel or about 401ppi pixel density. It’s a pretty good display packing in a lot of pixels. As always, the earpiece is situated on top along with a couple of sensors and the 8MP selfie camera. Beneath the display is a trio of capacitive keys for menu, home, and back.

To the right side are the volume rocker and the power/lock button while the left houses the SIM and microSD card tray.

Up top is just the 3.5mm headphone jack and nothing else.

The bottom is where the micro-USB port sits and beside it is a microphone pinhole.

Flip it over and you’ll see the woven textured back panel which adds a bit of character to the handset. The main 16-megapixel camera with an LED flash is located at the upper left corner, while another mic for noise cancellation is positioned beside them. There’s also a round and sunken fingerprint scanner for quick unlocking and added security. Lastly, the loudspeaker sits at the lower end. It’s worth noting that the panel is non-removable, so there’s no access to the battery.

What’s special about the Flash is its higher-than-usual megapixel count for the main camera. As mentioned, it’s a 16MP shooter, and smartphones of this class usually sport 13MP or lower. Here are some sample indoor shots to give you glimpse on the quality:

Other additional features of the flash is the fingerprint scanner which is pretty simple to setup and accurate when unlocking. The rear placement is also a plus as it is easily accessible using your index finger.

Powering the Flash is an octa-core MediaTek MT6753 clocked at 1.3GHz. It’s paired with Mali-T720 GPU and an ample 2GB of RAM. Storage is at 16GB with only 10.75GB available to the end user. Everything is handled by Android 6.0 Marshmallow and juiced up by a non-removable 2800mAh battery.

The spec setup of the Flash is also great for above average performance including moderate gaming. Our initial AnTuTu Benchmark v6.1.5 test gave it a score of 37,866 which is not bad at all. Perhaps the only bottleneck is the 2GB of RAM.

Cherry Mobile Flash specs:
5.5-inch Full HD IPS display @ 1920 x 1080px, 401ppi
1.3GHz MediaTek MT6753 octa-core processor
2GB RAM
16GB internal storage
Expandable up to 32GB via microSD (uses SIM 2)
16MP autofocus rear camera w/ LED flash
8MP front-facing camera
Dual SIM, Dual Standby
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS w/ A-GPS
Android 6.0 Marshmallow
2800mAh battery

The Cherry Mobile Flash is yet another handset from the well-known local brand but a few specials in its sleeve. Also, its Php 5,999 price is pretty attractive for those looking for above average features but not going over the Php6k barrier. We’ll be taking the Flash for a full spin to see how it really fares, so stay tuned.