Starmobile Knight Spectra Review

Performance and Benchmarks

Powering the Knight Spectra is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset with an Adreno 405 paired with 3GB of RAM. With that configuration, we should expect the device to perform pretty well in most tasks. In-app performance is good, also with graphic intensive games, but general performance is a bit slow. Even with 3GB of RAM, the Spectra can’t handle Facebook Messenger and text messaging at the time. Besides that, multitasking is relatively okay.

Benchmark numbers are at par with most midrange devices sporting the same specs with a 1080p display. Check out for yourself:

• Antutu Benchmark v5.7 — 36434
• Quadrant Standard — 21926
• Vellamo — 2242 (Chrome), 1781 (Browser), 1576 (Multicore), 1164 (Metal)
• Nenamark 2 — 59.2fps
• PCMark Work Performance — 3936

Performance-wise, it’s disappointing to see the Spectra under-perform when it comes to some basic tasks. Perhaps it is a software issue and a patch can sort this out in the future. We hope Starmobile will do its part in keeping their smartphones, especially their top-of-the-line Androids, in good shape.

Connectivity and Call Quality

For a smartphone that will cost you almost 15k bucks, you’d expect it have a complete suite of radios. Well, it has 4G LTE, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi 802.11. It’s missing NFC, yet the usage of NFC with smartphones in the country is somewhat limited at the moment.

We’ve notice occasional signal drops during our everyday usage. Reception can be a little tricky at time but the Spectra seems to be slacking off in keeping those signal bars.

Nevertheless, we get good speeds whenever we have a healthy LTE connection around Metro Manila. Call quality is good with clear voices on both ends but the earpiece is on the soft side in terms of volume.

Battery Life

With it’s generous 3500mAh battery, the Spectra can go the distance. Believe it or not, we were able to get almost 20 hours of video playback using a 1080p movie with 50% brightness, airplane mode and zero volume. That’s the AMOLED showing its efficiency. But with regular use, we were able to get a whole day of use with cellular data enabled. The PCMark battery test was able to squeeze out 7 hours and 37 mins.

Conclusion

With its polished build and vibrant display, it’s easy to appreciate the Starmobile Knight Spectra. Once you spend time with it, it begins to show a slowdown despite its capable internals. And, an asking price of Php14,990USD 255INR 21,655EUR 243CNY 1,860 is a bit steep among the local competition. If you’re in for the design of the Spectra, it’s still a good buy.

Starmobile Knight Spectra specifications:
5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED (1920 × 1080 pixels) display, 401ppi
1.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa-core 64-bit chipset
Adreno 405
3GB RAM
32GB internal storage
microSD card support
13MP + 2MP dual-lens rear camera w/ LED flash, f/2.0 aperture
8-megapixel front camera w/ flash
Dual SIM / Dual Stand-by
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
DTV Support
3,500mAh battery
Android 5.1 Lollipop

What we liked about:

• Good build
• Vibrant AMOLED display
• Great camera performance

What we didn’t:

• Performance issues
• Asking price is a bit steep
• Occasional signal drops