We’ve recently given you our full review of OPPO‘s newest selfie-centric smartphone and if you’d like to see more of the F1s in action, check out our video review of it showing more of the handset and its camera.
It also includes a sample photo using its 16MP front camera in a dimly-lit environment and we compared it to a photo shot by a different, but widely popular phone. How far is the difference? Watch the video and find out.
OPPO F1s specs:
5.5-inch HD IPS display @ 1280 x 720 resolution
1.5GHz MediaTek MT6750 octa-core CPU
Mali-T860 MP2 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB internal storage
microSD up to 128GB
13MP rear camera, f/2.2 aperture
16MP front camera, f/2.0 aperture, Beautify 4.0
Dual-SIM (nano)
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
USB OTG
Fingerprint scanner
ColorOS 3.0 (Android 5.1 Lollipop)
3,075mAh battery (non-removable)
154.5 x 76 x 7.38mm
160g
Gold, Rose Gold
We’ve recently given you our full review of OPPO‘s newest selfie-centric smartphone and if you’d like to see more of the F1s in action, check out our video review of it showing more of the handset and its camera.
It also includes a sample photo using its 16MP front camera in a dimly-lit environment and we compared it to a photo shot by a different, but widely popular phone. How far is the difference? Watch the video and find out.
OPPO F1s specs:
5.5-inch HD IPS display @ 1280 x 720 resolution
1.5GHz MediaTek MT6750 octa-core CPU
Mali-T860 MP2 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB internal storage
microSD up to 128GB
13MP rear camera, f/2.2 aperture
16MP front camera, f/2.0 aperture, Beautify 4.0
Dual-SIM (nano)
4G LTE
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
USB OTG
Fingerprint scanner
ColorOS 3.0 (Android 5.1 Lollipop)
3,075mAh battery (non-removable)
154.5 x 76 x 7.38mm
160g
Gold, Rose Gold
We’ve brought you our hands-on and first impressions of the Lenovo VIBE K5 Note during its official launch, and after some quality time with it, we’re now ready to share our thoughts on the company’s smartphone aimed to those big in multimedia consumption.
Design and Construction
As a smartphone leaning towards media usage, Lenovo implemented a decent 5.5-inch display on the K5 Note. Just like the previous K4 Note, it features pretty thin bezels and imposes a capacitive type setup for navigation. Here we have the Recent Apps, Home, and Back buttons which give off a faint backlighting for operation in the dark.
Also seen up front are the usual selfie camera with an 8-megapixel sensor and the speaker for calls. Tucked under the display on the upper left is a solo LED light for notifications.
While it’s all glass up front, the back and the rest of the device is made of metal which gives off that sturdy, premium feel in addition to a classy look. The rear is also segmented into three parts, which is a design implementation found in other smartphones in its class. It has an all-metallic hue with no variation in color.
From this angle, we see the rear camera, flash, fingerprint sensor, and speaker grille but we’ll get to those in a little bit.
The right side features the volume rocker and power/lock button which are positioned to be easily reached with the right thumb.
The main shooter is placed right in the upper middle area right below the pinhole for microphone and above the dual-tone LED flash. It sports a 13-megapixel sensor and comes equipped with Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) to aid in producing sharper images.
The rear camera itself is somewhat protruding but is protected by a shiny trimming surrounding it. Right above it is the 3.5mm audio jack for connecting your personal headphones. Like most handsets aiming for an elegant look, the K5 Note has a running strip of chrome that goes around the entire device. Indeed, it adds highlight on an otherwise plain and straightforward design language.
This protrusion of the main camera makes the device rest solely on it when the phone is lying face up. This could possibly lead to unwanted scratches and wear during prolonged use.
Meanwhile, the microUSB port for charging and transferring files sits at the bottom and is accompanied by another pinhole for the microphone.
I have personally been a fan of Lenovo’s offerings that sport premium-like built although the device itself is only gunning for the mid-range category. It’s fairly light to hold, has decent ergonomics, and isn’t that hard to navigate using one hand.
Display and Multimedia
Since it wants to position itself as a multimedia device, it’s been fitted with Full HD resolution display with IPS technology for sharing content thanks to its wide viewing angles. Pixel density is around 401ppi which is decent for a screen this size.
Watching a couple of Stranger Things episodes, the K5 Note gave off good colors and contrast on most scenes. Details are discernible which is always a good thing and made us further appreciate what we were watching. Picture quality-wise, we couldn’t really find a glaring fault to point out on this phablet.
Lenovo veered away from the dual front-facing speaker setup that they used on the K4 Note and instead, went for a speaker grill at the lower end of the back panel. They then used Dolby’s Atmos technology on its 1.5W speakers but although a bit more powerful than ordinary speakers, they don’t really satisfy us while watching movies or TV series. We still would rather use a pair of good headphones or connect it to external speakers.
OS, UI, and Apps
The K5 Note runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box and is layered with the company’s VIBE UI. It is also upgradeable to Android 6.0 via an OTA update.
Storage-wise, it comes with 32GB of space and is expandable to 128GB using an additional microSD card. Out of the 32GB of available storage, around 8GB is used for software and other pre-installed apps like Evernote, LateRooms, McAfee, Shazam, and other bloatwares tucked in the app drawer.
Camera
Sample shot (cropped)
Using its 13-megapixel camera, the K5 Note produced detailed shots when ample lighting was available. The above photo is a cropped image and still it shows the details on the cat’s fur, eyes, and whiskers. Although at night, some of the images show digital noise and appear a bit smudgy when zoomed in. Take a look at the sample shots below:
In addition to those, using the K5 Note for video showed good quality on its Full HD (1080) clips and exposure compensation is on point. We also notice that autofocus for video isn’t as snappy as we’d like it to be and still requires the user to tap on to the subject in order to focus as seen in the samples below.
Performance and Benchmarks
Running on a Helio P10 processor with eight cores clocked at 1.8GHz, we didn’t experience any major lags or unwanted crashes while using the device as a daily driver for social media sites, playing NBA 2K11, and editing photos.
It still maintained its 3GB of RAM from its previous version and we could say that it proved enough for our demands.
As for security, its fingerprint sensor worked correctly 10 times out of 10 attempts meaning the recognition is spot on.
We also ran our standard benchmarking apps to give comparison against other devices. Check out the scores for each software:
We’ve mentioned in our early hands-on encounter at its launch that the package comes with a portable VR headset and remote which can be used for playing games and the like.
We first tried watching a movie on the K5 Note and used its feature to automatically convert all content and make it VR-compatible. The technology works as advertised but we experienced some comfort issues during prolonged use.
Using the remote, there were some confusion on the controls as pushing a button doesn’t really correspond to its supposed task and we had to adjust to get it to work properly.
Connectivity and Call Quality
Connectivity-wise, the K5 Note has got the basics covered with hybrid Dual-SIM support, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and finally, NFC for easy wireless pairing. These worked altogether well and as expected so we had no problems in this department.
The microphones strategically-placed around the device made call quality clear and easily understandable. From both ends, signal reception was audible and distortion was kept to a minimum.
Battery Life
We subjected the K5 Note on our usual battery benchmark test with brightness and volume set to 50% on Airplane mode.
Its 3,500mAh battery got a result of 8 hours and 27 minutes on the PC Mark app while our standard video loop test gave off 12 hours 21 minutes of continuous playback. That’s fairly impressive and useful for when you plan to binge watch on your favorite TV series.
Conclusion
The Lenovo VIBE K5 Note is a device that we would recommend to those on a budget but still require a sleek, handsome build. It’s also ready for media consumption as it has commendable display and picture quality that show good colors and details. We weren’t so happy with the sound performance but using dedicated headphones should easily do the trick.
When it comes to everyday use, the handset doesn’t fall short and could keep up with the tasks that we throw at it. Battery life is also something that the K5 Note delivers well. Plus, with its 12 hours + of continuous playback, you’d have more than enough juice to watch your favorite shows.
The Lenovo Vibe K5 Note retails for Php11,999 which already includes the new VR headset and controller. Lenovo has also included a clear case and a screen protector in the bundle to protect your newly bought device from unwanted damages. The device comes in two colors — platinum silver and champagne gold.
Lenovo Vibe K5 Note specs:
5.5-inch Full HD LTPS IPS display, 401ppi
1.8GHz MediaTek MT6755 Helio P10 octa-core CPU
Mali-T860MP2 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB internal storage
up to 128GB via microSD
13MP PDAF rear camera w/ dual-tone flash
8MP front camera
Dual-SIM
4G LTE, 3G HSPA+
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
NFC
FM Radio
Dolby Atmos
Fingerprint scanner
1.5W speaker, Hi-Fi audio with Dolby Atmos
3,500mAh battery
Android 5.1 Lollipop w/ VIBE UI (upgradeable to Android 6.0)
152 x 75.7 x 8.5 mm
165 g
We’ve brought you our hands-on and first impressions of the Lenovo VIBE K5 Note during its official launch, and after some quality time with it, we’re now ready to share our thoughts on the company’s smartphone aimed to those big in multimedia consumption.
Design and Construction
As a smartphone leaning towards media usage, Lenovo implemented a decent 5.5-inch display on the K5 Note. Just like the previous K4 Note, it features pretty thin bezels and imposes a capacitive type setup for navigation. Here we have the Recent Apps, Home, and Back buttons which give off a faint backlighting for operation in the dark.
Also seen up front are the usual selfie camera with an 8-megapixel sensor and the speaker for calls. Tucked under the display on the upper left is a solo LED light for notifications.
While it’s all glass up front, the back and the rest of the device is made of metal which gives off that sturdy, premium feel in addition to a classy look. The rear is also segmented into three parts, which is a design implementation found in other smartphones in its class. It has an all-metallic hue with no variation in color.
From this angle, we see the rear camera, flash, fingerprint sensor, and speaker grille but we’ll get to those in a little bit.
The right side features the volume rocker and power/lock button which are positioned to be easily reached with the right thumb.
The main shooter is placed right in the upper middle area right below the pinhole for microphone and above the dual-tone LED flash. It sports a 13-megapixel sensor and comes equipped with Phase Detection Autofocus (PDAF) to aid in producing sharper images.
The rear camera itself is somewhat protruding but is protected by a shiny trimming surrounding it. Right above it is the 3.5mm audio jack for connecting your personal headphones. Like most handsets aiming for an elegant look, the K5 Note has a running strip of chrome that goes around the entire device. Indeed, it adds highlight on an otherwise plain and straightforward design language.
This protrusion of the main camera makes the device rest solely on it when the phone is lying face up. This could possibly lead to unwanted scratches and wear during prolonged use.
Meanwhile, the microUSB port for charging and transferring files sits at the bottom and is accompanied by another pinhole for the microphone.
I have personally been a fan of Lenovo’s offerings that sport premium-like built although the device itself is only gunning for the mid-range category. It’s fairly light to hold, has decent ergonomics, and isn’t that hard to navigate using one hand.
Display and Multimedia
Since it wants to position itself as a multimedia device, it’s been fitted with Full HD resolution display with IPS technology for sharing content thanks to its wide viewing angles. Pixel density is around 401ppi which is decent for a screen this size.
Watching a couple of Stranger Things episodes, the K5 Note gave off good colors and contrast on most scenes. Details are discernible which is always a good thing and made us further appreciate what we were watching. Picture quality-wise, we couldn’t really find a glaring fault to point out on this phablet.
Lenovo veered away from the dual front-facing speaker setup that they used on the K4 Note and instead, went for a speaker grill at the lower end of the back panel. They then used Dolby’s Atmos technology on its 1.5W speakers but although a bit more powerful than ordinary speakers, they don’t really satisfy us while watching movies or TV series. We still would rather use a pair of good headphones or connect it to external speakers.
OS, UI, and Apps
The K5 Note runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box and is layered with the company’s VIBE UI. It is also upgradeable to Android 6.0 via an OTA update.
Storage-wise, it comes with 32GB of space and is expandable to 128GB using an additional microSD card. Out of the 32GB of available storage, around 8GB is used for software and other pre-installed apps like Evernote, LateRooms, McAfee, Shazam, and other bloatwares tucked in the app drawer.
Camera
Sample shot (cropped)
Using its 13-megapixel camera, the K5 Note produced detailed shots when ample lighting was available. The above photo is a cropped image and still it shows the details on the cat’s fur, eyes, and whiskers. Although at night, some of the images show digital noise and appear a bit smudgy when zoomed in. Take a look at the sample shots below:
In addition to those, using the K5 Note for video showed good quality on its Full HD (1080) clips and exposure compensation is on point. We also notice that autofocus for video isn’t as snappy as we’d like it to be and still requires the user to tap on to the subject in order to focus as seen in the samples below.
Performance and Benchmarks
Running on a Helio P10 processor with eight cores clocked at 1.8GHz, we didn’t experience any major lags or unwanted crashes while using the device as a daily driver for social media sites, playing NBA 2K11, and editing photos.
It still maintained its 3GB of RAM from its previous version and we could say that it proved enough for our demands.
As for security, its fingerprint sensor worked correctly 10 times out of 10 attempts meaning the recognition is spot on.
We also ran our standard benchmarking apps to give comparison against other devices. Check out the scores for each software:
We’ve mentioned in our early hands-on encounter at its launch that the package comes with a portable VR headset and remote which can be used for playing games and the like.
We first tried watching a movie on the K5 Note and used its feature to automatically convert all content and make it VR-compatible. The technology works as advertised but we experienced some comfort issues during prolonged use.
Using the remote, there were some confusion on the controls as pushing a button doesn’t really correspond to its supposed task and we had to adjust to get it to work properly.
Connectivity and Call Quality
Connectivity-wise, the K5 Note has got the basics covered with hybrid Dual-SIM support, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and finally, NFC for easy wireless pairing. These worked altogether well and as expected so we had no problems in this department.
The microphones strategically-placed around the device made call quality clear and easily understandable. From both ends, signal reception was audible and distortion was kept to a minimum.
Battery Life
We subjected the K5 Note on our usual battery benchmark test with brightness and volume set to 50% on Airplane mode.
Its 3,500mAh battery got a result of 8 hours and 27 minutes on the PC Mark app while our standard video loop test gave off 12 hours 21 minutes of continuous playback. That’s fairly impressive and useful for when you plan to binge watch on your favorite TV series.
Conclusion
The Lenovo VIBE K5 Note is a device that we would recommend to those on a budget but still require a sleek, handsome build. It’s also ready for media consumption as it has commendable display and picture quality that show good colors and details. We weren’t so happy with the sound performance but using dedicated headphones should easily do the trick.
When it comes to everyday use, the handset doesn’t fall short and could keep up with the tasks that we throw at it. Battery life is also something that the K5 Note delivers well. Plus, with its 12 hours + of continuous playback, you’d have more than enough juice to watch your favorite shows.
The Lenovo Vibe K5 Note retails for Php11,999 which already includes the new VR headset and controller. Lenovo has also included a clear case and a screen protector in the bundle to protect your newly bought device from unwanted damages. The device comes in two colors — platinum silver and champagne gold.
Lenovo Vibe K5 Note specs:
5.5-inch Full HD LTPS IPS display, 401ppi
1.8GHz MediaTek MT6755 Helio P10 octa-core CPU
Mali-T860MP2 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB internal storage
up to 128GB via microSD
13MP PDAF rear camera w/ dual-tone flash
8MP front camera
Dual-SIM
4G LTE, 3G HSPA+
WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
GPS, A-GPS
NFC
FM Radio
Dolby Atmos
Fingerprint scanner
1.5W speaker, Hi-Fi audio with Dolby Atmos
3,500mAh battery
Android 5.1 Lollipop w/ VIBE UI (upgradeable to Android 6.0)
152 x 75.7 x 8.5 mm
165 g
Sony H.ear Go SRS-HG1 is one of the company’s latest premium-sounding wireless speaker with high-resolution audio and extra bass feature. Like all such speakers, it will allow you to stream audio from nearly any audio device. But does it offer promising sound for its price? Let’s find out on our review.
Design and Construction
The Sony H.ear Go SRS-HG1 has five different eye-catching looks in Lime Yellow, Viridian Blue, Bordeaux Pink, Charcoal Black and Cinnabar Red. It is also designed to be portable with just 0.79kg so that you can carry it around wherever you want. Undeniably, this is a sleek-looking speaker with a clean and elegant design that seems well-built.
There are five soft buttons on smooth-to-the-touch finish top — Power, Extra Bass, Volume Up and Down, and Hands-free Call. You will also see on this side the six tiny LED lights with assigned labels that indicate the different modes and functions of the speaker — Charge, Link, Network, Bluetooth, USB and Audio In. Pressing the “Extra Bass” button on top allows you to enter Sony’s Extra Bass technology that promises to deliver deep and punchy bass sound, while pressing the “Power” button longer will activate the Bluetooth pairing option. Additionally, the NFC chip is placed on this side for easy pairing to any NFC-enabled devices.
Take a look at the back and you will see another grill for the rear bass radiator. There is also a big “Function” button on the upper right corner for you to switch into the different connection modes. The micro-USB and the DC IN are located on the lower back along with the 3.5mm port for wired connection. This is also where the Stereo Pair, Set Up and Update/WPS button are also sitted in line with the Left and Right Stereo indicators.
Sound Quality
The Sony H.ear Go SRS-HG1 features a dual 35mm full-range drivers and passive radiators paired with high resolution audio. It also has an array of connectivity options like the standard 3.5mm audio input, Bluetooth, USB, DLNA and Wi-Fi. We often end up using its Wi-Fi connectivity option to connect into our home network so that we can directly stream music via Google Cast or Spotify Connect.
Like any Sony speakers, it boasts exceptional sound quality. The battery life is rated at around 12 hours, which is great. It’s excellent when it comes to highs with clean midrange that made vocals sound crisp and present. It obviously got a punchier bass, thanks to its extra bass feature, which overall improved the sound quality. It also excelled with Chainsmokers’ Closer and Roses with a mellow and smooth bass drop.
Furthermore, if you’re a type of person who always want to follow the beat, its precise detail and powerful bass will surely take you anywhere at all times. Since it fusions stunning sound with easy connectivity, this wireless speaker is undeniably a perfect choice. Check out our product demo video below of the Sony SRS-HG1 featuring some of the EXUDE Dancers from our friends at Far Eastern University Institute of Technology.
Conclusion
The Sony H.ear Go SRS-HG1 is one of the best sounding wireless speakers you can buy with one caveat: it’s a little bit pricey at Php9,999. Additionally, it may not be as compact or have quite sturdy design compare to others, but it still sounds exceptional and visually-appealing. The addition of its wide range of connectivity may also come in handy for users who bring their speaker everywhere they go. This is certainly worth checking out if you are looking for a high-end wireless speaker with high-resolution audio and is capable of delivering deep and clear bass.
Sony H.ear Go SRS-HG1 specs:
Dimensions: 204 x 62 x 60mm
Weight: 0.79kg
Speaker Type: Full Range
Connections: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, DLNA, Google Cast, Spotify Connect
Input and Output Terminals: Micro-USB, 3.5mm jack
Power: AC Power, Rechargeable Battery
What we liked about it:
* Great overall sound quality
* Clear sound reproduction
* Exceptional mids and highs
* Powerful bass
* Loud volume
* Wide range of connectivity
* Long battery life
