You are probably wondering why this smartphone is named Equinox Night. We, too, also do not know the reason. That’s something we’ll not cover on this review. But, there are tons of reasons why I find this device interesting. But there are also reasons why I think you should consider moving on and look for Cherry Mobile devices.
Let’s start our consumer review in 3…2…1…
Design
The Cherry Mobile Equinox Night has a 5-inch panel with IPS technology and sports a beautiful resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels. With 441 dpi, every pixels projected from this phone is truly unimaginable. For comparison sake, this device almost has the same screen quality compared to Alcatel Idol X+, but priced hell too low!
The phone’s screen is One Glass Solution (OGS). OGS is a touch panel technology that slices off the thickness of the glass display making the icons and pictures more realistic and crispier than ever and it is also easier to press and navigate. Apart from the OGS, the Equinox Night’s display is also protected by the scratch-proof technology from Dragontrail. With all the technologies combined, the viewing angles are still at its best.
Another beautiful feature of our review unit is its matte/powdery finish at the rear back of the smartphone. The buttons are placed on its right side, while its 3.5 mm headset jack is located atop the device and the microUSB port at its bottom side. A small blue notification light is perfectly located beside the earpiece, and its three capacitive buttons are located just below its screen. The design is nothing different compared to other Cherry mobile quad-core devices but the real deals about the Equinox Night are its powerful display and its 18-megapixel camera.
Performance
The Cherry Mobile Equinox Night is powered by a 1.5 Ghz quad-core Mediatek MT6589T (second T means Turbo). The PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU works great on gaming. There are times though that the phone lags when I play resource heavy games like Real Racing 3 and Modern Combat 4. Installed Android is still at Jellybean 4.2.1 and we haven’t heard any news regarding a KitKat update. A 2,300 mAh powers up the smartphone and it lasted for a day with a normal usage.
For more performance details, here are our official benchmark results.
Antutu Benchmark (15,601 points)
Quadrant Standard Edition (4,734 points)
NenaMark (34.4 fps)
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Camera
Its 18-megapixel rear and 3-megapixel front-facing camera put the Equinox Night under the radar of mobile photographers. Although the camera suffers a lot during low-light conditions, its dual-LED flash is helpful enough to reveal more details of the subject albeit a bit hazy.
The rear camera captures significantly better photos than the other smartphones of the same caliber which for me is definitely a plus factor. Of course, the 3-megapixel camera is just right for selfie photos or during live video calls.
Sample Photos
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Verdict
The Cherry Mobile Equinox Night’s strength is found in may facets – looks awesome, great display, powerful innards and relatively good camera. The device sometimes suffers from performance hiccups, but such is something that can easily be “forgiven”. It’s cool to be in your pocket to occasionally enliven boring parties and sleep afternoons. It has great battery life too!
There are things about EN that concern me though. For starters, its price of PhP9,999 may be a bit too steep especially when compared to the recently launched Flare 3.0. Also, while this device has significantly better chipset than Flare 3, the latter outperforms Equinox Night.
Should you buy this, or not? My honest opinion – move along. Buy 2 Flare 3s instead. But if you’re hot in getting a smartphone that has better camera and battery life, then by all means, buy this.
Cherry Mobile Equinox Night Official Specifications
- Dual SIM
- 1.5GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6589T chipset
- PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU
- 1GB RAM
- 4GB internal storage
- microSD card slot (up to 64GB)
- 18-megapixel rear camera with dual-LED flash
- 3-megapixel front camera
- 2,300mAh battery
- Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1
Gianfranco is the co-founder of gadgetpilipinas.net. He graduated from Far Eastern University. A Psychology student turned tech-savvy. He's currently the HR Supervisor of Blip Media and one of the content producers of Gadget Pilipinas. He enjoys playing competitive video games and binge-watch American TV series.
