Starmobile UP Selfie Hands-On, First Impressions

Before 2017 ended, Starmobile has announced their newest addition to the UP series called the UP Selfie. Here’s our hands-on and first impressions on the brand’s selfie-centric smartphone.

Starmobile has changed its course for the better in terms of design and construction compared to the UP Prime. At first glance, the device has an impression of a somewhat premium design which makes it appealing to the eyes despite the thick bezels. This can be attributed to the unibody design and dark-colored front panel which is covered with glass.

At the front, the dual 13MP front cameras, call speaker, LED notification light, and front LED flash are located. It has a 5.2-inch IPS LCD display with 1280×720-pixel screen resolution. The entire front panel is mounted with a 2.5D curved glass except for the call speaker. The display is vibrant, has decent color accuracy and viewing angles.

We noticed that the capacitive buttons have different designs than usual which gives a fresher look. However, the back and menu button may be confusing for users who are not used with Starmobile’s navigation layout.

Placed on the right are the dedicated microSD card, volume keys, and power button.

The lone dual-SIM card (micro) slots can be found on the left side of the device. The SIM and microSD trays can be removed using a SIM ejector tool which is already provided in the box package.

The 3.5mm audio port is found at the top end of the device.

At the bottom end are the microphone, microUSB port, and loudspeaker. We noticed that the design is somewhat similar to the Huawei’s Y5 2017.

The back side has a polycarbonate back panel where the 13MP rear camera, LED flash, and fingerprint scanner are located.

The image quality from the rear camera is decent, clear, and have good color accuracy. Autofocus is relatively quick but it’s having a hard time detecting the right area to adjust its brightness. The images taken are not good under low-light conditions due to visible grainy quality.

The dual front-facing camera works 2 ways — the left 13MP lens is for portrait mode while the right 13MP lens is meant for wide-angle (groufie) shots.

The image qualities are average, but not impressive. It is enough to capture the details on the user’s face. There is no beautification mode in the front camera which is surprising since the brand dubs the device as a selfie smartphone. Under low-light conditions, the front camera is having a hard time adjusting its brightness which results to the images being washed-out and grainy while the color accuracy is below average. We also noticed that the image brightness of the low-light shots is significantly decreased when transferred to another device.

Thanks to its unibody design which makes the battery non-removable, the device feels very light and slim, easy to hold and feels good on the hand. The front panel is a smudge-magnet though.

The box package includes a jelly case, earphones, USB charging cable, charger, and a tempered glass. We will provide more details with our review of the device in the coming days. The Starmobile UP Selfie is priced at Php6,990.

Starmobile UP Selfie key specs:
5.2-inch IPS LCD HD display @ 1280 x 720px
MediaTek MT6737 1.3GHz quad-core processor
Mali-T720 GPU @650MHz
3GB RAM
16GB internal storage
Expandable up to 32GB via microSD
13MP BSI rear camera w/ LED flash
13MP + 13MP BSI dual front camera w/ LED flash
Dual-SIM (micro)
Dedicated MicroSD card slot
Dual 4G Switching
700mHZ 4G LTE
WiFi
GPS, A-GPS
USB OTG
FM Radio
Fingerprint scanner
2900mAh Li-Ion battery
Android 7.0 Nougat
148.4 x 72.9 x 8.5 mm
139g