Falling into our hands, the Cherry Mobile Sonic 2.0 packs a 4-inch display with a quad-core CPU and more for a very affordable price tag, but is it worth your money? Read on our quick review to find out.
Starting off with the design, the Sonic 2.0 doesn’t stand out as much. You get a black slate design with elements of glass, gloss and matte, and we think it’s a little uninspiring. The back of the device is nice to hold and doesn’t feel cheap, however the rest is a mile below that. The sides, while not made out of cheap material, feels weird and awkward. In addition, all the buttons around are quite stiff and hard to maneuver. If there’s one thing that will make up for those, it’s that the Sonic 2.0 is solidly built even as an affordable smartphone.
Turn on the 4-inch WVGA display and you’re in for a view – but not a pleasant one for that matter. Look at the device straight on and there’s a blueish tint covering the screen. Slight movement in top, left and bottom angles will make it all a lot worse while looking at it from the right feels just about right – they made this phone begging to be looked at with an angle. If you’re out in the sun, it helps too as the blueish tint is quite fought off by the warmth and the display has really good sunlight legibility.
Look at the display. Try closing your left eye, then open it and try closing the other one. Both look entirely different. It’s like looking at 3D without the glasses.
The camera works well for the most part too – but taking the photo is the big problem and it’s due to that horrible display. It’s like having a viewfinder with false colors to represent your picture. Multimedia playback will also be a pain because of this.
Here I’m glad that they didn’t have much bloatware and ugly skinning with the software. It’s pretty much looking as stock Android all around and that’s a good thing as I don’t see any lag, stutter or performance issues.
The phone is run by a quad-core Broadcom CPU paired with 1GB RAM and for a phone of this price, it really performs well so kudos to that. Here are the benchmark scores:
- Antutu – 13,673
- Quadrant – 3,609
- Nenamark 2 – 49.1
Speaking of benchmarking, when we tested the phone, the device heated up when running the said apps. Standby time was also quite a problem for us as not using the device for a few days would make it lose a significant amount of the battery. We don’t have an exact number of hours for real life usage, but from that standpoint, it’s far from impressive.
Cherry Mobile Sonic 2.0 Specs
4-inch 480×800 LCD display, 233ppi
1.2GHz quad-core Broadcom BCM23550 processor
1GB RAM
4GB internal storage with microSD
5 megapixel rear facing camera with LED flash
VGA front-facing camera
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth
GPS
Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
1400mAh battery
For the price of Php3,999, the Cherry Mobile Sonic 2.0 is a hard buy. I may have just been spoiled by other mobile displays, but I really had a hard time looking at the display during this review. The design felt uninspiring and the fast heating of the device caught my attention in a bad way. However, for the performance that it delivers along with the software and this price, it’s good. If those aren’t the only things that you’re looking for, then may we suggest saving up more.
What we liked about it:
- Fast performance
- Solid build quality
- Affordable price tag
- Clean and smooth software
What we didn’t like about it:
- Eyesore display
- Stiff and hard-to-press buttons
- Uninspiring design
- Heats up easily
Cherry Mobile has been consuming money from buyers without giving back quality durable products. 7days warranty does not suffice the fact that investments like cellphones should not get damaged after 7 days, 7 months, not even 7 years…. Eventually Cherry Mobile units never fail to dissatisfy customers…
CM? No way I’m gonna buy their products. Cheap nga pero tadtad naman ng problema. Madami naman mas mahusay na flagship phones, wag lang CM. They’re even famous for having the WORST service centers. Nakatipid ka nga, sakit naman sa ulo ang aabutin mo in the long run.Kung may budget naman kayo, go with branded phones instead. Problema pa sa CM, parang adik lang magrelease ng new phones, so market value ng phone na nabili mo mabilis din sumadsad sa lupa! Imagine kakabili mo pa lang, after a few months meron na namang bago! Poor device quality, service and marketing strategy is something that I wont be able to tolerate. So choose and spend wisely coz money don’t grow on trees.
is this better than cm life?
i like the matte, no smudgeees… compare to my cmlife.
considering 3k lang naman si life.
Guys trust me, you don’t wanna know the story behind their After sales dept. Always remember, you get what you pay for. Take this from a guy who worked there as a corp sales guy.
Bkt naman? Lahat ba tlga ganun nangyayari? Nagbabalak ako bumili e.
taman si rock..bibili ka into? kaw din mag sisi sa huli.. hanggang pangako lng na specs ang cm.. kaw bahala..buy at your own risk..wlang kwenta brand na to..
nakakatakot lang talaga bumili ng CM. And this one: NO.
At least for what it is, it is a hundred times better than NOKIA X
hundred times *ang pila sa service center
tindi ng typo mo t@nga.
di na ata mapakali si abuzalzal, padating na kasi ang nokiax series at malamang apektado ang cherry mobile, sa bezel pa lang laglag na ang cm
lol… pinagmamayabang nyo ang nokia x? no comment…
I’m pretty much underwhelmed by this smartphone. Why do they even try if it doesn’t stand out in any single way? I think it won’t need a full detailed review you guys.
Taray..
kahit na walang kakawenta-kwentang gadget basta may pampadulas, cguradong full detailed review yan.
@Rowan Gonzalez – we wanted to make sure that when we say this phone is not a good buy, we did carefully reviewed it before making the statement.
I still consider the CM Flare S the best buy for re-branded smartphones under 5K.