Cherry Mobile had recently released the Cubix Cube Play HD, which is now exclusively available in Lazada.com. It’s a 5.0-inch smartphone with specs that caters for the budget conscious who are looking for a basic or a backup phone.
Cubix Cube Play HD specs:
- Android 7.0 Nougat
- Dual SIM
- 5-inch HD display, 1280 x 720 resolution, ~294ppi
- 1.3GHz MediaTek quad-core processor
- 1GB RAM
- 8GB internal storage, expandable via microSD up to 32GB
- 5-megapixel front camera
- 8-megapixel rear camera
- 3G HSPA, 2G, GPRS
- WiFi
- Bluetooth
- microUSB
- Dimensions: 142.3 x 71 x 7.9
- Weight: 185g
- 2000mAh battery
Design & Build Quality
The phone has a seemingly brushed aluminum style finish with its back cover, but its actually plastic. The front panel has your usual phone receiver and 5-megapixel camera on the top and three capacitive buttons on the bottom. Despite not being an actual metal, its plastic body gives the advantage of being lightweight.
The power/lock button and the volume rocker are located on the usual right side of the phone.
The left side has no button since the inside of the back panel has a dedicated microSD card slot and two microSIM card slots.
On the top is a 3.5mm audio jack and a micro-USB port.
On the bottom you have a tiny hole for the microphone.
On the back you have the 8-megapixel rear camera and an LED flash right beside it. And a loudspeaker is situated at the bottom of the panel. Thankfully, the back cover will also be protected by an included clear casing included in the box.
Display
The display is a 5-inch HD TFT panel at 16:9 aspect ratio. This resolution allows more battery life to the user since its not powering a lot of pixels on the display. The display has a decent wide viewing angle and good color reproduction. In addition, included in the box is a screen protector for the display, which is quite neat.
Its rear speaker produces a great amount of volume with minimal distortion. You don’t have to worry about your notification getting muffled by the position of the speaker because the volume does escape and is significantly loud enough to be heard.
Apps and User Interface
The phone is running on Android 7.0 Nougat. The Cubix Cube Play HD keeps things clean by having no skin on top. You can easily customize the look with the help of launchers available in Google Play Store.
A few Cherry Mobile apps are present including Cherry Fun Club, CPlay, and Movie Club. Cherry Prepaid’s Bonus Load and prepaid account app are also present. There are still some third-party apps that are pre-installed that you can remove anytime.
Camera Performance
The 8-megapixel main camera captures acceptable still images but there are many situations where the images are a bit washed out and blurry. This is mostly caused by the camera’s sensor struggling to find some light in the scene. The 2-megapizel selfie-camera, on the other hand, seems to have the same issue as the front camera but much pronounced. Added to that is the slightly cold white balance in most of the shots. As for the 720p video capability, the quality isn’t much of a difference from the stills. It has a framerate of 30fps and is only available in .3gp format. In the end, the photos and videos are average at best if you consider other alternatives you get at this price point.
Here are some sample photos:
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Performance and Benchmarks
The Cubix Cube Play HD has a MediaTek MT6580 chipset and it’s clocked at 1.3GHz with a quad-core architecture. It also has the Mali-400 for the GPU and 1GB RAM for your multitasking needs.
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Running multiple apps is a bit snappy, but the phone does start to lag when it is running heavy apps for long periods of time. Generally, if you are a light user, then the 1GB RAM is enough for your everyday needs.
Gaming performance is average at best. You can run casual games but there are certain titles that struggles with frame rates such as Mobile Legends and NBA 2k17. However, if you only play games that are not graphics intensive, then you’re perfectly fine.
Here are some benchmark scores:
- AnTuTu Benchmark v6.2.7 : 24791
- Geekbench 4 : 419 (Single-Core), 1216 (Multi-Core)
Connectivity and Call Quality
Phone calls are relatively fine except for the occasional low volume quality of some calls. For connectivity, it has your standard Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G capabilities.
Battery Life
Using the PCMark (Work 2.0) battery test, it was able to last for 5 hours and 20 minutes with 14% battery left. You might last a day with a full charge if you are a light user, which is underwhelming. However, charging the battery to 100% could last around 2hrs, which is fairly quick thankfully.
Conclusion: Worth a buy if you can accept its weaknesses
With so many phones on the market competing each other for the budget consumers, the Cubix Cube Play HD might just be what you need for its Android Nougat update and acceptable performance.
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For the price of Php 1,999, you might be able to see the true value of what you’re getting for. For some, it could very well be their next handset. For others, it might not cut it and would want something new and exciting. In the end, the Cubix Cube Play HD’s offerings are what you might expect in this price bracket.
Pros: Android Nougat, acceptable multitasking performance
Cons: Average camera quality, underwhelming battery life
Just like all Cubix devices, the Cubix Cube Play HD is only available in Lazada for Php1,999.
