We go hands-on with the P1 Plus!
The dual camera craze has completely taken over the tech world, with multiple companies offering their own take at the new bandwagon technology. But while there’s been phones with two rear cameras and two front cameras (even a phone with four cameras total), most of the phones have pretty price tags attached to them that make owning them challenging if you’re the sort of person that pinches centavos.
We knew that it was only a matter of time until Cherry Mobile came out with their own affordable versions of the dual-camera, and today we’ll be taking a look at the Flare P1 Plus, a modestly priced phone with two cameras in the rear.
Cherry Mobile Flare P1 Plus specs
- 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6737T quad-core processor
- 2GB of RAM
- 5.5-inch full HD IPS display, 1920 x 1080
- 16GB of expandable storage
- 13-megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel secondary camera, LED flash, AF
- Dual SIM
- LTE, 700MHz ready
- 3G, HSPA+
- WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, fingerprint scanner
- 3000mAh battery
- Android Nougat
Initial impressions: Does all the things that you expect from a dual-camera phone
With a price tag of Php 5,990, we weren’t expecting much from the Flare P1 Plus in terms of design and construction. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that the P1 Plus used a metal body along with other premium trimmings, like 2.5D glass.
The phone doesn’t use a unibody metal construction though, as the top and bottom of the phone’s rear are made out of plastic. The phone’s corners and sides are curved for better ergonomics, though the phone feels quite slippery in the hand thanks to the matte coloration.
Taking a tour of the phone’s exterior, you’ll see the dual camera module on the upper left side of the rear of the phone, which doesn’t completely sit flush with the body. The dual LED flash sits immediately to the right of the camera, while the fingerprint scanner is where it usually sits, easily accessible by either finger.
The microSD/SIM slot is on the right, along with the power button, while the volume rocker is on the left. The 3.5mm jack is on the top while the USB port is on the bottom, flanked by speaker grilles.
The display is a 5.5-inch full HD IPS panel, with physical capacitive Android navigation keys right below it. As we mentioned previously, the phone has 2.5D glass layered on top of it.
The twin rear cameras are composed of a 13-megpixel main camera and a 5-megapixel secondary camera for depth information. As far as we can tell, the camera works much like the one in more affordable dual-camera systems in the market today, like the GR5 2017 – the secondary camera takes depth information that allows you to artificially apply bokeh to your shots. Unfortunately we weren’t able to pull the photos from the P1 Plus because of its engineering state.
As for the camera app, it looks too bare for our taste, and unlike Huawei’s offering you don’t get to re-focus your shots after it’s taken. Again, the phone is currently running beta software, so this will change before the phone hits the market.
Moving onto the other specs of the phone, the device carries a MT6737T quad-core processor, paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The P1 Plus isn’t a power house and that’s okay since it’s primarily marketed as a photography-focused phone anyway.
That’s it for our hands-on of the P1 Plus. Please note that the software in the phone shown to us was NOT final, so image quality of images taken with the camera will still improve, along with the functionality of the dual cam. Cherry Mobile has not given us a final date for release for the P1 Plus in the market, we’re assuming that’s because they’re looking to fix all the software bugs first.
(unbox.ph, https://goo.gl/v20T2u)
