Starmobile Knight Spectra Review

Launched last month, Starmobile Knight Spectra is one of the local brand’s flagship device in the market today. It poses itself a mid-range smartphone with its Snapdragon 615 chipset, 3GB of RAM, and 1080p AMOLED display. It also has two rear cameras working together to produce the best possible snapshot. With a price of almost Php 15k, it will be a tough sell but is it worth it? Find out in our review.

What’s in the Box?

Unboxing the Spectra is quite overwhelming. There are a lot included accessories namely, a screen protector, cleaning cloth, hard case (not in photo), DTV cable antenna, adhesive flexible stand, SIM eject tool, micro-USB cable, charger, and earphones with mic.

starmobile-knight-spectra-13

We tried on the nifty adhesive stand to place the device on a side table to act as a clock, although the adhesive is not that strong to keep in place but little adjustments of the position will do the trick.

starmobile-knight-spectra-14

As for the earphones, the design is similar to an EarPod but build is on the cheap side. What’s not cheap is the audio quality with pretty good levels and bass for casual listening but lacks comfort. You’ll probably use your own pair of earphones, it’s no big deal.

Design and Construction

At first glance, the Knight Spectra looks well designed. With its sandwiched glass build, it resembles the likes of an Xperia or the late iPhone 4. It may lack originality but a user would be pleased to have a beautiful device. Although, the frame is polycarbonate with a coating that mimics the look of a chamfered steel frame.

starmobile-knight-spectra-6

Checking out the device, the front has the large 5.5-inch AMOLED display along with the front-facing camera with LED flash, earpiece, and multiple sensors on top. All beneath a slab of a smooth protective glass.

The power/lock button and the volume rocker are on the right side while the combo card tray is located on the left.

starmobile-knight-spectra-17

On top is the 3.5mm headphone jack and a microphone pinhole. The bottom houses the speaker grille and the micro-USB port.

starmobile-knight-spectra-10

Going to the back will reveal the dual-camera setup, a 2-megapixel and another 13-megapixel, with a single LED flash in between. Aside from the Starmobile branding and some important numbers imprinted, it’s an all glass back panel. Thanks to the glass panel, the Spectra feels really solid on hand. Keep in mind, that glass tends to crack when dropped but it should hold pretty well as long it is handled with care. An aluminum frame would have been nice though. We just miss the cold touch especially during night time.

Display

It sports a punchy 5.5-inch AMOLED display touting a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels or simply Full HD. With those numbers, we get a crisp 401ppi which is enough to hide those little pixel to the naked eye. Since it is an AMOLED display, contrast is second to none. You’ll enjoy deep blacks and vibrant colors on it. Over saturation might be an issue for some and the black clipping issue among AMOLEDs with dark grays appearing pitch black is present on this panel but it’s not something critical with everyday usage and most media content.

starmobile-knight-spectra-9

If you value all the shades of the colors, especially gray, the Spectra doesn’t offer options to tinker with unlike Samsung S-AMOLED devices. But for those looking for a rich and bold display that will definitely satisfy your retinas, this is something you’d like. Viewing angle are fine, unless you’d view it in extremes. We’ve noticed it produce a rainbow glare under direct sunlight. Speaking of sunlight, outdoor visibility is just average at best.

Next Page: OS, Apps, and UI | Camera and Multimedia

The post Starmobile Knight Spectra Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

Starmobile Knight Spectra Review

Launched last month, Starmobile Knight Spectra is one of the local brand’s flagship device in the market today. It poses itself a mid-range smartphone with its Snapdragon 615 chipset, 3GB of RAM, and 1080p AMOLED display. It also has two rear cameras working together to produce the best possible snapshot. With a price of almost Php 15k, it will be a tough sell but is it worth it? Find out in our review.

What’s in the Box?

Unboxing the Spectra is quite overwhelming. There are a lot included accessories namely, a screen protector, cleaning cloth, hard case (not in photo), DTV cable antenna, adhesive flexible stand, SIM eject tool, micro-USB cable, charger, and earphones with mic.

starmobile-knight-spectra-13

We tried on the nifty adhesive stand to place the device on a side table to act as a clock, although the adhesive is not that strong to keep in place but little adjustments of the position will do the trick.

starmobile-knight-spectra-14

As for the earphones, the design is similar to an EarPod but build is on the cheap side. What’s not cheap is the audio quality with pretty good levels and bass for casual listening but lacks comfort. You’ll probably use your own pair of earphones, it’s no big deal.

Design and Construction

At first glance, the Knight Spectra looks well designed. With its sandwiched glass build, it resembles the likes of an Xperia or the late iPhone 4. It may lack originality but a user would be pleased to have a beautiful device. Although, the frame is polycarbonate with a coating that mimics the look of a chamfered steel frame.

starmobile-knight-spectra-6

Checking out the device, the front has the large 5.5-inch AMOLED display along with the front-facing camera with LED flash, earpiece, and multiple sensors on top. All beneath a slab of a smooth protective glass.

The power/lock button and the volume rocker are on the right side while the combo card tray is located on the left.

starmobile-knight-spectra-17

On top is the 3.5mm headphone jack and a microphone pinhole. The bottom houses the speaker grille and the micro-USB port.

starmobile-knight-spectra-10

Going to the back will reveal the dual-camera setup, a 2-megapixel and another 13-megapixel, with a single LED flash in between. Aside from the Starmobile branding and some important numbers imprinted, it’s an all glass back panel. Thanks to the glass panel, the Spectra feels really solid on hand. Keep in mind, that glass tends to crack when dropped but it should hold pretty well as long it is handled with care. An aluminum frame would have been nice though. We just miss the cold touch especially during night time.

Display

It sports a punchy 5.5-inch AMOLED display touting a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels or simply Full HD. With those numbers, we get a crisp 401ppi which is enough to hide those little pixel to the naked eye. Since it is an AMOLED display, contrast is second to none. You’ll enjoy deep blacks and vibrant colors on it. Over saturation might be an issue for some and the black clipping issue among AMOLEDs with dark grays appearing pitch black is present on this panel but it’s not something critical with everyday usage and most media content.

starmobile-knight-spectra-9

If you value all the shades of the colors, especially gray, the Spectra doesn’t offer options to tinker with unlike Samsung S-AMOLED devices. But for those looking for a rich and bold display that will definitely satisfy your retinas, this is something you’d like. Viewing angle are fine, unless you’d view it in extremes. We’ve noticed it produce a rainbow glare under direct sunlight. Speaking of sunlight, outdoor visibility is just average at best.

Next Page: OS, Apps, and UI | Camera and Multimedia

The post Starmobile Knight Spectra Review appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

LG V10 benchmarks, first impressions

After being able to get a unit of our own, here’s a follow-up article to last night’s launch of the LG V10. Here are our initial thoughts on the device after using it for one whole day as a primary device.

lg-v10-review-philippines-2

As we’ve mentioned previously, the device is a combination of stainless steel for its frame and silicone for the back panel. The silicone-based back cover gives an additional cushion when the device is dropped. The company calls it DuraSkin which is highly resistant to nicks and scratches.

lg-v10-review-philippines-10

It sports a 5.7-inch IPS Quantum display at 2560 x 1440 resolution as the main screen, and has a secondary 2.1-inch display with 1040 x 160 resolution in the same panel.

This second display shows whenever you have notifications and also as an easy access tray that keeps your recently-used apps so you could switch back and forth with ease. We found it highly useful and didn’t feel like a gimick feature.

lg-v10-review-philippines

Rest assured that scratching the screen would be kept to a minimum thanks to its Gorilla Glass 4 protection.

lg-v10-review-philippines-8

At the back we have the 16-megapixel camera with OIS and Laser Autofocus, just like the LG G4. Below it is the lock button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor. After registering our fingerprint on the device, it proved to be highly accurate and we were able to unlock the screen 9/10 times we tried.

Also seen here is the handset’s volume rocker flanking the lock button.

lg-v10-review-philippines-14

Up front is where it gets more interesting, as the camera here has a dual lens setup that captures either a standard 80-degree shot or a 120-degree wide-angle photo so you could fit more people in — eliminating the need for a selfie stick.

lg-v10-review-philippines-15

Prying open the back cover reveals the removable 3000mAh battery. What we noticed in this aspect was that the device easily runs out of juice in a day’s time. We started using the V10 at around 7AM from a full charge and brought it around as our main device. With constant Wi-Fi connection (no data) on social media sites, Spotify, and other casual tasks, it lasted about 12 hours of usage.

On the other hand, the device supports fast charging so it was able to fill up the battery from 0-73% in exactly one hour under Airplane Mode. Pretty impressive, although we noticed the entire back panel getting warm during the process.

Do keep in mind that this is just an initial test on the battery and we’ll see how it would fare against other devices after we’ve conducted our proper battery test in the full review.

lg-v10-review-philippines-screenshot

As for the internals, its Snapdragon 808 processor partnered by 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM carried out tasks without breaking a sweat. The UI was also snappy, and jumping from app to app seemed like a menial thing for the device to accomplish.

We still have yet to test it on resource-heavy software, but as for now here are the benchmark scores that we ran on the V10 in case you want to compare it on other handsets of its calibre:

  • AnTuTu: 41,269
  • Quadrant Standard: 26,340
  • Vellamo: 2,125 (Multicore), 2,187 (Metal), 3,673 (Chrome Browser)
  • 3DMark: 511

The LG V10 is locally-priced at Php37,990 and some of its key features include NFC, Hi-Fi audio, LTE, and Android 5.1.1. It will be available in Space Black, Luxe White, Modern Beige, Ocean Blue, and Opal Blue.

LG V10 specifications:
5.7-inch QHD IPS Quantum Display (2560 x 1440 / 513ppi)
2.1-inch IPS Quantum Display (160 x 1040 / 513ppi)
Corning Gorilla Glass 4
1.82GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 Processor
Adreno 418 GPU
4GB LPDDR3 RAM
64GB eMMC expandable via microSD (up to 2TB)
16MP rear camera w/ OIS, Laser AF
5MP front camera w/ Dual Lens (80-deg Standard Angle / 120-deg Wide Angle)
LTE-A Cat. 6
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 4.1, A2DP, LE, apt-X
NFC
microUSB 2.0
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
Hi-Fi audio
Fingerprint scanner
3,000mAh Li-Ion
Android 5.1.1 Lollipop
159.6 x 79.3 x 8.6 mm
192 g
Price: 37,990

The post LG V10 benchmarks, first impressions appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

LG V10 benchmarks, first impressions

After being able to get a unit of our own, here’s a follow-up article to last night’s launch of the LG V10. Here are our initial thoughts on the device after using it for one whole day as a primary device.

lg-v10-review-philippines-2

As we’ve mentioned previously, the device is a combination of stainless steel for its frame and silicone for the back panel. The silicone-based back cover gives an additional cushion when the device is dropped. The company calls it DuraSkin which is highly resistant to nicks and scratches.

lg-v10-review-philippines-10

It sports a 5.7-inch IPS Quantum display at 2560 x 1440 resolution as the main screen, and has a secondary 2.1-inch display with 1040 x 160 resolution in the same panel.

This second display shows whenever you have notifications and also as an easy access tray that keeps your recently-used apps so you could switch back and forth with ease. We found it highly useful and didn’t feel like a gimick feature.

lg-v10-review-philippines

Rest assured that scratching the screen would be kept to a minimum thanks to its Gorilla Glass 4 protection.

lg-v10-review-philippines-8

At the back we have the 16-megapixel camera with OIS and Laser Autofocus, just like the LG G4. Below it is the lock button that doubles as a fingerprint sensor. After registering our fingerprint on the device, it proved to be highly accurate and we were able to unlock the screen 9/10 times we tried.

Also seen here is the handset’s volume rocker flanking the lock button.

lg-v10-review-philippines-14

Up front is where it gets more interesting, as the camera here has a dual lens setup that captures either a standard 80-degree shot or a 120-degree wide-angle photo so you could fit more people in — eliminating the need for a selfie stick.

lg-v10-review-philippines-15

Prying open the back cover reveals the removable 3000mAh battery. What we noticed in this aspect was that the device easily runs out of juice in a day’s time. We started using the V10 at around 7AM from a full charge and brought it around as our main device. With constant Wi-Fi connection (no data) on social media sites, Spotify, and other casual tasks, it lasted about 12 hours of usage.

On the other hand, the device supports fast charging so it was able to fill up the battery from 0-73% in exactly one hour under Airplane Mode. Pretty impressive, although we noticed the entire back panel getting warm during the process.

Do keep in mind that this is just an initial test on the battery and we’ll see how it would fare against other devices after we’ve conducted our proper battery test in the full review.

lg-v10-review-philippines-screenshot

As for the internals, its Snapdragon 808 processor partnered by 4GB of LPDDR3 RAM carried out tasks without breaking a sweat. The UI was also snappy, and jumping from app to app seemed like a menial thing for the device to accomplish.

We still have yet to test it on resource-heavy software, but as for now here are the benchmark scores that we ran on the V10 in case you want to compare it on other handsets of its calibre:

  • AnTuTu: 41,269
  • Quadrant Standard: 26,340
  • Vellamo: 2,125 (Multicore), 2,187 (Metal), 3,673 (Chrome Browser)
  • 3DMark: 511

The LG V10 is locally-priced at Php37,990 and some of its key features include NFC, Hi-Fi audio, LTE, and Android 5.1.1. It will be available in Space Black, Luxe White, Modern Beige, Ocean Blue, and Opal Blue.

LG V10 specifications:
5.7-inch QHD IPS Quantum Display (2560 x 1440 / 513ppi)
2.1-inch IPS Quantum Display (160 x 1040 / 513ppi)
Corning Gorilla Glass 4
1.82GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 Processor
Adreno 418 GPU
4GB LPDDR3 RAM
64GB eMMC expandable via microSD (up to 2TB)
16MP rear camera w/ OIS, Laser AF
5MP front camera w/ Dual Lens (80-deg Standard Angle / 120-deg Wide Angle)
LTE-A Cat. 6
Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 4.1, A2DP, LE, apt-X
NFC
microUSB 2.0
GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS
Hi-Fi audio
Fingerprint scanner
3,000mAh Li-Ion
Android 5.1.1 Lollipop
159.6 x 79.3 x 8.6 mm
192 g
Price: 37,990

The post LG V10 benchmarks, first impressions appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines News & Tech Reviews.

iPhone 6S to have dual-lens camera, 3D pressure sensor?

Sources from a supply chain are claiming that the next iPhone (either 6S or 7) will be coming this year with new features like a dual-lens camera and 3D pressure sensor. What do they do? Find out after the break.

It’s pretty much safe to say that Apple is going to launch a new iPhone model this year since this has been the norm for smartphone manufacturers (even more for some). As for Apple, the new iPhone could have the following fresh functionalities:

  • Dual lens camera – this will make it possible for the phone to use optical image stabilization instead of just digital image stabilization, resulting to better image quality since more light is received by the sensor.
  • 3D pressure sensor – similar to Apple Watch’s Force Touch technology that senses how hard you press the screen, making it possible to add more functions in navigation.
  • 32GB minimum storage – If the leak proves true, Apple will be bringing back the 32GB storage and will become the lowest available in the market.

In addition, the company will allegedly stick with the current offering for its display sizes of 4.7- and 5.5-inch options.

These improvements seem promising enough to look forward to, especially the pressure sensor. If there are things that you’d wish would make it to the next iPhone, what would they be?

{Source} {Via}

The post iPhone 6S to have dual-lens camera, 3D pressure sensor? appeared first on YugaTech | Philippines, Tech News & Reviews.