Cherry Mobile Zoom Unboxing, First Impressions

Cherry Mobile has a new line of smartphone that features big battery with support for fast charging. Dubbed as the Zoom, Cherry wishes to address the woes of road warrior consumers when it comes to their phone’s juice. Here’s our quick unboxing and initial impressions for the Cherry Mobile Zoom.

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To start off, the Zoom comes in a neat-looking box with contrasting black and orange hue. The picture printed on the box shows off of a good-looking handset that seems to be crafted from metal but that handset itself is not, we’ll get to that later.

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The Zoom shows itself upon opening

The retail package includes the operating manual, earphones, a micro-USB cable, and a large fast-charging brick.

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What’s in the box: user manual, 5V/2A charger, micro-USB cable, earphones

The device sports a standard 5-inch HD IPS display but its screen-to-body ratio is rather undesirable. As mentioned earlier, the printed image on the box is misleading.  The display is surrounded by a thick black bezel and more on the top and bottom. Upon the first encounter, we mistakenly press the black bottom bezel thinking it’s where the navigation buttons are.

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The Zoom with its thick bezels

There’s an 8-megapixel front camera at the top together with the earpiece and a couple of necessary sensors.

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Just the power button on the right

On the right is the power button, and that’s just it. The volume rocker is separately located on the left-hand side.

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The volume rocker is on the left

Up top is the 3.5mm headphone jack while the bottom houses the micro-USB port for charging and connectivity plus the microphone pinhole.

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3.5mm jack on top

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Mic pinhole and micro-USB port at the bottom

On its back is the main 13-megapixel camera with a single LED flash and the speaker grill down below. The rear panel is removable and has a brushed metal look despite being made with plastic. Despite of having an accessible battery, the cell is screwed on and not user-replaceable. The dual-SIM slot and dedicated microSD card slot for expansion here as well.

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The back of the Zoom

The device is powered by a MediaTek MT6735P quad-core chipset running at just 1.0GHz. While the processing is on the low side, the RAM is generous at 3GB with spacious 16GB of expandable storage.

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Sorry, the battery is sealed

The battery has a rated capacity of 4000mAh which could translate to days of power, depending on usage. It’s also the culprit in giving the handset a thick profile. Cherry claims that it supports fast charging using the included 5V/2A charger in the box.

Cherry Mobile Zoom specs:
5-inch IPS LCD @ 1280 x 720 pixels
1.0GHz MediaTek MT6735P quad-core processor
Mali-T720 GPU
3GB RAM
16GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD
13MP rear camera w/ LED flash
8MP front camera
Dual-SIM
4G LTE
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, dual-band
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS w/ A-GPS
4000mAh non-removable battery
Android 5.1 Lollipop

The Zoom is your average smartphone brick from Cherry but with big battery on its back for Php 4,999. We’ll test how long it charges from 0 to 100 in our review within the week. Stay tuned!

The post Cherry Mobile Zoom Unboxing, First Impressions appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

Cherry Mobile has their own VR headset w/ remote

Cherry Mobile’s line of products has been pretty diverse now, and in response to the current trend of virtual reality, they have released their very own VR headset complete with wireless remote.

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This is not your yet-another Google Cardboard ripoff, in fact, it’s more a copy of the Samsung Gear VR based on the image above paired with a Nintendo Wii joystick. Labeled as the Cherry VR, this VR bundle comes really cheap.

Specs-wise, the VR headset supports 360-degree panoramic video, images, and games. It’s equipped with a 42mm aspheric optical resins lens that can magnify the phone’s display up to 4 times. It’s suitable for 4.5″ to 6.5″ mobile devices with resolutions of HD up to 2K. Every purchase includes headbands, cleaning cloth, and the Bluetooth remote control that’s compatible with Android and iOS.

There’s no direct announcement from Cherry Mobile itself but the headset is listed for sale through their official accessory store on Facebook for just Php 1,250. Check out the listing here.

Thanks, Kevin Handog Tresuelo for the tip!

The post Cherry Mobile has their own VR headset w/ remote appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

Cherry Mobile has their own VR headset w/ remote

Cherry Mobile’s line of products has been pretty diverse now, and in response to the current trend of virtual reality, they have released their very own VR headset complete with wireless remote.

cherry-mobile-vr

This is not your yet-another Google Cardboard ripoff, in fact, it’s more a copy of the Samsung Gear VR based on the image above paired with a Nintendo Wii joystick. Labeled as the Cherry VR, this VR bundle comes really cheap.

Specs-wise, the VR headset supports 360-degree panoramic video, images, and games. It’s equipped with a 42mm aspheric optical resins lens that can magnify the phone’s display up to 4 times. It’s suitable for 4.5″ to 6.5″ mobile devices with resolutions of HD up to 2K. Every purchase includes headbands, cleaning cloth, and the Bluetooth remote control that’s compatible with Android and iOS.

There’s no direct announcement from Cherry Mobile itself but the headset is listed for sale through their official accessory store on Facebook for just Php 1,250. Check out the listing here.

Thanks, Kevin Handog Tresuelo for the tip!

The post Cherry Mobile has their own VR headset w/ remote appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

Cherry Mobile Fit Activity Tracker Review

Targeted towards individuals who want or have been planning to keep track of their daily activities, Cherry Mobile launches the Fit which is a Bluetooth-enabled activity tracker. After a week of wearing it, we’re now ready to share with you our thoughts on the device.

Design and Construction

Having an outstretched display, it spans nearly 1-inch across and recognizes simple touch and swipe gestures. There’s a single button on the side for selection and waking up the display of the device.

cherry-fit-1

It wasn’t mentioned but the screen type used looks to be a black and white memory LCD which is known for its high contrast but low power consumption. This makes it possible to achieve good legibility even under sunlight and prolong its life compared to gadgets that utilize full-color displays.

cherry-fit-7

Meanwhile, the strap used is rather questionable — well at least with the unit provided to us. Its faux-leather material is not exactly the appropriate look for a fitness band but it should do well for everyday casual use. Additionally, the bands don’t seem to be swappable either.

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The device also doubles as a headset. Simply detach it from the wristband and voila, you can now slip it in your ear like your usual Bluetooth headset.

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When removed from the band, the Fit reveals its earpiece which has an extra earbud included and a micro-USB port for charging. We can’t help but see an incarnation of the Huawei TalkBand B2 since these two devices have so much in common.

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As listed by Cherry, the Fit is dust and splash proofed, although there’s no certification. So, it’s not exactly a thing you should keep wearing when in the shower or swimming pool.

Overall, the watch is comfortable to wear and is a nice fit (pun intended). We would just prefer if the band used was a bit more sporty-looking but then again, that’s just us. We usually don’t trust faux leather since overtime, it cracks and chips away. On a positive note, using this type of material makes it possible to still wear the Fit even when you’re all suited up for a formal event.  It’s fairly sleek and visually modest thanks to its all-black hue.

Cherry Fit App

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Interestingly, Cherry has its own app for the wearable that you can download from the Play Store. The Cherry Fit app, when paired to a phone, compiles all the data recorded on the wearable — it counts your steps, time your jogs/run, and show the amount of calories burned doing the said activities.

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Here you can keep an eye on your performance and also set a goal. Tweaking the main settings of the Fit is also done through the app including software updates, alarm setup, and notification settings. You can also adjust the brightness, set alarms, and even enable the display to wake up every time you flip your wrist to check the time.

What we noticed, though, regarding this feature, was that you really need to whip your wrist in a 180-degree turn for its G-sensor to realize the movement. Once the display is lit, flipping the wrist in the same way scrolls to the next page — like a hands-free equivalent of swiping down on its display.

The app is pretty easy and straightforward to use. Pairing it with the Fit is also a breeze and we didn’t experience any problems. The UI offers a clean and uniformed look which makes it less confusing compared to the other interface of similar gadgets.

Performance

The Fit shows five-fold windows of data that it has recorded.  The first and main page being the clock face, next is the steps taken, then the mode if you want to time your jog/run, calories burned, and finally the Bluetooth and battery level indicator. Additionally, the main page where time is shown also lets you know of the current temperature, and weather.

cof

In terms of how accurate its pedometer is in tracking footsteps and footsteps alone, we noticed that it’s not as sensitive like other activity trackers that we’ve tried before. This is not necessarily a bad thing since the meter doesn’t count hand gestures which happened with the other devices similar to Fit. Because of this, we feel like we’re a step closer to getting a more accurate reading on the things we do.

Legibility under the sun proved to be satisfactory — it wasn’t super clear but was decent enough to understand the data written. This was under 75% brightness to conserve a bit of battery but you could always max it out to 100% for easier viewing.

We also used it for answering a call and the voice quality of the person was clear and feels like you’re just using a regular Bluetooth device. In addition, our voice was also reportedly understandable on the other end.

While everything was going smooth during our time with it, there was one instance where the Fit froze after checking the time. We couldn’t reset it or do anything about it but to wait it out until the battery dies. It just happened once during the entire one week of using it. It may be just a software bug but we thought it’s something that we should share to you, our readers.

Battery Life

As for the battery life, its 100mAh built-in battery proved to be able to last for a long time on a single charge.From 100%, we were able to use it everyday for 5 full days before we needed to charge it again. Thanks to its low-power display, this puts the CM Fit along with the ASUS Vivowatch in terms of battery life.

Conclusion

mde

Cherry Mobile’s Fit is a pretty straightforward activity tracker that’s equipped enough to be a reliable partner day in and day out. It has a subtle design wildly reminiscent of the Huawei Talkband B2 but with a slightly bigger display. Touch sensitivity is on point, we had no problems with the screen’s legibility, and it doesn’t look cheap.

Although one thing that we really liked about it was the fairly lengthy battery life that it provides its users. This way, you can concentrate more on the things you need to do and accomplish rather than worry if your watch needs to be charged soon.

We came across a hiccup along the way with the device freezing but apart from that, it did what it was supposed to do.

With a retail price of Php 3,499, the Cherry Mobile Fit is probably one of the most affordable activity trackers out in the market right now and is a good option if you’re on the lookout for a new wearable.

Cherry Mobile Fit specifications:
0.96-inch PMOLED display @ 64 x 128 pixels
G-sensor
Bluetooth 4.1
100mAh battery
46.6 x 20 x 10.5 mm
25 g

What we liked about it:

  • Pretty accurate tracking
  • Long battery life
  • Straightforward app

What we didn’t like:

  • Slight software bugs
  • Faux leather band

 

The post Cherry Mobile Fit Activity Tracker Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

Cherry Mobile Fit Activity Tracker Review

Targeted towards individuals who want or have been planning to keep track of their daily activities, Cherry Mobile launches the Fit which is a Bluetooth-enabled activity tracker. After a week of wearing it, we’re now ready to share with you our thoughts on the device.

Design and Construction

Having an outstretched display, it spans nearly 1-inch across and recognizes simple touch and swipe gestures. There’s a single button on the side for selection and waking up the display of the device.

cherry-fit-1

It wasn’t mentioned but the screen type used looks to be a black and white memory LCD which is known for its high contrast but low power consumption. This makes it possible to achieve good legibility even under sunlight and prolong its life compared to gadgets that utilize full-color displays.

cherry-fit-7

Meanwhile, the strap used is rather questionable — well at least with the unit provided to us. Its faux-leather material is not exactly the appropriate look for a fitness band but it should do well for everyday casual use. Additionally, the bands don’t seem to be swappable either.

cherry-fit-4

The device also doubles as a headset. Simply detach it from the wristband and voila, you can now slip it in your ear like your usual Bluetooth headset.

cherry-fit-5

When removed from the band, the Fit reveals its earpiece which has an extra earbud included and a micro-USB port for charging. We can’t help but see an incarnation of the Huawei TalkBand B2 since these two devices have so much in common.

cherry-fit-6

As listed by Cherry, the Fit is dust and splash proofed, although there’s no certification. So, it’s not exactly a thing you should keep wearing when in the shower or swimming pool.

Overall, the watch is comfortable to wear and is a nice fit (pun intended). We would just prefer if the band used was a bit more sporty-looking but then again, that’s just us. We usually don’t trust faux leather since overtime, it cracks and chips away. On a positive note, using this type of material makes it possible to still wear the Fit even when you’re all suited up for a formal event.  It’s fairly sleek and visually modest thanks to its all-black hue.

Cherry Fit App

cherry-fit-8

Interestingly, Cherry has its own app for the wearable that you can download from the Play Store. The Cherry Fit app, when paired to a phone, compiles all the data recorded on the wearable — it counts your steps, time your jogs/run, and show the amount of calories burned doing the said activities.

cherry-fit-review-philippines-app-1

Here you can keep an eye on your performance and also set a goal. Tweaking the main settings of the Fit is also done through the app including software updates, alarm setup, and notification settings. You can also adjust the brightness, set alarms, and even enable the display to wake up every time you flip your wrist to check the time.

What we noticed, though, regarding this feature, was that you really need to whip your wrist in a 180-degree turn for its G-sensor to realize the movement. Once the display is lit, flipping the wrist in the same way scrolls to the next page — like a hands-free equivalent of swiping down on its display.

The app is pretty easy and straightforward to use. Pairing it with the Fit is also a breeze and we didn’t experience any problems. The UI offers a clean and uniformed look which makes it less confusing compared to the other interface of similar gadgets.

Performance

The Fit shows five-fold windows of data that it has recorded.  The first and main page being the clock face, next is the steps taken, then the mode if you want to time your jog/run, calories burned, and finally the Bluetooth and battery level indicator. Additionally, the main page where time is shown also lets you know of the current temperature, and weather.

cof

In terms of how accurate its pedometer is in tracking footsteps and footsteps alone, we noticed that it’s not as sensitive like other activity trackers that we’ve tried before. This is not necessarily a bad thing since the meter doesn’t count hand gestures which happened with the other devices similar to Fit. Because of this, we feel like we’re a step closer to getting a more accurate reading on the things we do.

Legibility under the sun proved to be satisfactory — it wasn’t super clear but was decent enough to understand the data written. This was under 75% brightness to conserve a bit of battery but you could always max it out to 100% for easier viewing.

We also used it for answering a call and the voice quality of the person was clear and feels like you’re just using a regular Bluetooth device. In addition, our voice was also reportedly understandable on the other end.

While everything was going smooth during our time with it, there was one instance where the Fit froze after checking the time. We couldn’t reset it or do anything about it but to wait it out until the battery dies. It just happened once during the entire one week of using it. It may be just a software bug but we thought it’s something that we should share to you, our readers.

Battery Life

As for the battery life, its 100mAh built-in battery proved to be able to last for a long time on a single charge.From 100%, we were able to use it everyday for 5 full days before we needed to charge it again. Thanks to its low-power display, this puts the CM Fit along with the ASUS Vivowatch in terms of battery life.

Conclusion

mde

Cherry Mobile’s Fit is a pretty straightforward activity tracker that’s equipped enough to be a reliable partner day in and day out. It has a subtle design wildly reminiscent of the Huawei Talkband B2 but with a slightly bigger display. Touch sensitivity is on point, we had no problems with the screen’s legibility, and it doesn’t look cheap.

Although one thing that we really liked about it was the fairly lengthy battery life that it provides its users. This way, you can concentrate more on the things you need to do and accomplish rather than worry if your watch needs to be charged soon.

We came across a hiccup along the way with the device freezing but apart from that, it did what it was supposed to do.

With a retail price of Php 3,499, the Cherry Mobile Fit is probably one of the most affordable activity trackers out in the market right now and is a good option if you’re on the lookout for a new wearable.

Cherry Mobile Fit specifications:
0.96-inch PMOLED display @ 64 x 128 pixels
G-sensor
Bluetooth 4.1
100mAh battery
46.6 x 20 x 10.5 mm
25 g

What we liked about it:

  • Pretty accurate tracking
  • Long battery life
  • Straightforward app

What we didn’t like:

  • Slight software bugs
  • Faux leather band

 

The post Cherry Mobile Fit Activity Tracker Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.