The Cherry Mobile Cosmos X is the most affordable among the company’s Cosmos line of smartphones, but, does it have what it takes to be a must-buy, or are you better off saving a little bit for more? Read our full review to find out.
Before anything else, you should see our unboxing video, which showcases the included flip cover and the extra red back casing:
Design and Construction
At first glance & touch, the Cosmos X reminds us of the Samsung Galaxy S2 – from the rounded corners, its size & its plastic construction; not to mention it also packs a Super AMOLED display.
While it is indeed made out of plastic, it does feel solid. However, the premium feel is lacking here, and the protruding camera on the back isn’t helping at all.
On the top side you can find the 3.5mm audio jack & the power button. On the left is the micro USB port. Over to the right are the volume controls and the single stage camera button. The bottom is clean with only the microphone to be found.
We immediately changed the back casing of the phone when we got it, since it added more contrast and a unique look. Nevertheless, expect it to be prone to smudges and some creaking, as to be expected from a plastic phone of this build.
Display
The Cosmos X flaunts a 720p HD Super AMOLED display at 4.7-inches. It is very responsive and sharp, colors are saturated but not overdone, and the deep blacks are unmatchable. Viewing angles are very great too.
In fact, in our use, we needed reminding that this is a 4.7-inch display as we felt that it is a very compact handset. While we prefer the IPS LCD one on the Cherry Mobile Cosmos S, this one works amazingly well too.
OS, Apps and UI
The phone runs on Android 4.2.1 Jellybean and is layered with a skin of icons, customization and CM’s apps. To put it frankly, we’re not a fan of the said icons as we already saw CM go almost stock on phones such as the Cosmos S. While their skin is still quite inconsistent across devices, the company is getting better at it at every release nonetheless.
Like we’ve said, included here are CM’s usual apps and a 3rd-party keyboard. For some reason, CM wants this phone to be somewhat full of colorful & ‘cute’ design elements. Whether that looks appealing or not is up to you.
To add, the on-screen buttons are confusing too as the back and multitasking buttons are switched. You’ll just have to get used to that.
Multimedia & Camera
The speakers are found at the lower left part of the phone. It is fine for the most part; it’s not remarkably loud or clear but it’s definitely workable.
Video playback on the other hand is great, especially with the 4.7-inch Super AMOLED display. The experience won’t disappoint on this one.
Now, let’s take a look at that 18 megapixel BSI camera that protrudes at the top left corner of the back. Like we’ve said on our other reviews, we won’t let the megapixel count speak for the camera; let the images do that for themselves.
We have to say that based on the quality of the images, the camera tends to wash out its colors. It’s also not as sharp as we want it to be. While it does succeed in making dark environments light up by a bit, we aren’t that impressed with the overall product.
The same can’t be said about the video capture’s elements, and it’s slightly more inconsistent. It’s great in normal lighting – sharp & detailed yet washed out – but it drops a lot of frames in below-average lighting. See for yourself below:
Performance & Benchmarks
The CM Cosmos X is fairly fast in our use, though there are little hiccups here and there at times. It runs on a 1.2GHz quad-core CPU & 1GB RAM, just like its other Cosmos siblings, so don’t expect this to run faster or slower in real life use such as playing games, browsing the net or just breezing through the interface (benchmarks are slightly lower).
The phone scored 13,777 on Antutu, 3,987 on Quadrant & 47.1 on Nenamark 2.
Connectivity & Battery Life
With the Cosmos X, we didn’t encounter any problems with connecting to networks. It worked and handled everything just fine in our experience.
In our battery test, looping video at 50% brightness & audio, the phone managed to deplete a full 100% in 4 hours, which is significantly lower than most phones we’ve tested.
Conclusion
I’m going to make this as easy as possible; we’d rather have you save a little more for CM’s other Cosmos phones. While the phone features dual-SIM capabilities, a good Super AMOLED display and a few freebies in the box, the design, UI, camera & battery is enough to make you look elsewhere.
However, if you’re really sticking to a budget of Php9,999, then there you have it. If you do happen to take this phone over the others, you’re getting a wonderful (but dirt-attracting) flipcover and a red rear casing included too. Overall, this is an ‘okay’ phone with an ‘okay’ price.
Cherry Mobile Cosmos X specs:
4.7-inch Super AMOLED HD display
1.2GHz quad-core processor
1GB RAM
4GB internal storage
micro SD up to 32GB
18MP BSI camera with LED flash
8MP BSI front-facing
WiFi b/g/n
3G HSPA+
Bluetooth
GPS
Dual SIM
Android 4.2 Jellybean
1,800mAh battery
Php9,999
What we liked about it:
- Great Super AMOLED display
- Freebies!
What we didn’t like about it:
- Inconsistent CM skin
- Sub-par battery life
- Washed-out camera
- Dull & plastic design
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