So I don't need to show what's in the box as you've seen couples of video about Flare S5's unboxing.
Update: My unit is V5 version that has full of bugs. V9 is the newer version as of the moment.
Cherry Mobile Flare S5 Specs:
SRP PHP 5,699
OS: Android 6.0 Marshmallow
Display: 5.0" HD IPS, 294ppi w/ 2.5D Curved Glass
CPU: 1.3GHz Octa Core 64bit
SoC: Mediatek MT6753 Chipset
GPU: Mali-T720MP3
ROM: 16GB (microSD up to 64GB)
RAM: 3GB
Rear Camera: 16MP f/2.2 Samsung S5K3L8 BSI PDAF w/ Dual LED Flash
Front Camera: 8MP f/2.4 Omnivision OV5648 BSI
Connectivity: 4G LTE (700MHz LTE Ready), 3G HSPA+, WiFi, BT 4.0, Dual SIM (Micro-Nano)
Feature(s): Fingerprint Sensor (Front), USB Type-C, HotKnot™, USB-OTG
Sensors: Accelerometer, Light, Proximity, Orientation, Gyroscope, Sound, Magnetic, Gravity
Battery: 2,400mAh Removable
Design/Ergonomics
Front view
This handset is equipped with 5-inch HD display with a 2.5D glass. It does not have either the Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail but its still a great display.
Back cover
At the back, the back cover's design is a glossy faux metallic plastic type that is visible with fingerprint smudges and scratches. The back cover is removable. There's a 16MP main camera w/ dual LED flash.
Removed from the back cover, you can see the micro SD slot, dual sim slot (micro-nano) and the removable 2,400mAh of battery inside!
Side viewing
The sides are metallic build and just a bit thick phone. This handset can hold in one hand usage because it is easy to grip even it is just a bit thick phone because of metallic design. On top, there's 3.5mm jack for headset use, on the right side, spots volume keys and power button and the bottom you can see the microphone, speaker and the USB-TYPE C port or micro USB 3.1. That is pretty great that this handset is a most affordable smartphone with USB-TYPE C.
On front display, there's sensors, LED notif. light, earpiece and an 8MP front facing camera.
On the bottom, there's a recent button, back button and the home button which has also functioned as fingerprint scanner for unlocking Flare S5.
Display
The display has a 5-inch HD resolution screen. There's also noticing that the display has surrounded with the not so thick bezels that may be dealbreaker to some people who don't like bezels as their display demands. For almost bezeless preferences, you can prefer Flare X Lite and no bezel edge-to-edge flagship phone the Flare Infinity.
Flare S5's display looks sharp and decent with the HD IPS screen with a resolution of 720 * 1280. It has good viewing angles but found a bit saturated screen that might affect the images of the quality in Flare S5.
Flare S5's display looks sharp and decent with the HD IPS screen with a resolution of 720 * 1280. It has good viewing angles but found a bit saturated screen that might affect the images of the quality in Flare S5.
5-point multi-touch!
Good thing also, Flare S5 can support up to five fingers of touch and never felt an issue.
Audio
Speaking of the speaker output, it's quite good and it's quite bad because the speaker is not so loud but not so low and noticed a little bit distortion if you played a full music volume. The good thing the speaker output puts in the bottom unlike most other budget phones that speaker locates at the back of the phone.
In microphone quality, there's no problem such as recording, calls and other audio uses.. There's nothing to worry about calling.
Connectivity
As the connectivity goes, there's no problems with calls and texts and WiFi connection. And what's great about this phone is equipped and supported with 700MHz LTE band which has better than regular LTE. In terms of data connectivity, it causes the phone more heating process depends on the signal network. The slower the local connection, the phone makes hotter so you should go with WiFi and stronger LTE band or you should set to 3G for lesser heating issues due to the metallic build.Battery
The Flare S5 is equipped with average 2,400mAh of battery which long lasts up to 4-5hrs when straight WiFi use, and 4G LTE straight use from 3-4hrs. depends on the usage. Don't expect too much from the battery life you can get from Flare S5 but it's pretty decent for me. Charging time is 2¾ to 3 hours full of charge from 5% . So,you might charge your S5 fast without using it or else charges slower since it is not fast charging support.
Performance
Moving on to the the Flare S5's performance, the Flare S5 is still using the dated Mediatek MT6753 Octa Core processor clocked at 1.3GHz paired with Mali-T720MP3 GPU and 3GB of RAM. I didn't do benchmarking since most of the budget smartphones have the same processor and same score at around 34-38k. Even if its dated processor, I almost even felt no lags when it comes to multitasking, social media use, and many apps which is recently open thanks to the 3GB RAM from Flare S5.
Stock UI Vanilla Android 6.0 is still not bad!
In sensors, you have the light, proximity, gyroscope, orientation, sound, gravity and the magnetic. You can enjoy with VR experience using your Flare S5.
When it comes to the gaming, I tested some games but it didn't felt much lag like Minecraft PE, 3D City Racing, Clash of Clans and the recent popular online game which is Mobile Legends (currently using Low setting). I didn't do NBA2K17 or even 2K16 since I tested it on other MT6753 devices like Flare 4, but you can still play in the ultra low settings. If you want to play in higher settings, you can definitely go with the popular Snapdragon-430 devices like Vivo Y55 and the very own Flare X2. If you are definitely. playing with the Pokémon Go even nowadays, you can be happy since the gyroscope sensor from the Flare S5 is present. But in Asphalt 8, you can play games at high settings since it is the same gaming GPU with the Flare 4 or S4.
Camera
The Flare S5 is equipped with the 16MP f/2.2 Samsung ISOCELL S5K3L8 sensor with PDAF and BSI. However, it uses the original Mediatek UI camera which does not have manual controls (unlike Huawei or whatever) and the camera UI is pretty plain and there's a presence of HDR and Panorama and the standard filters. But it did a pretty great job when it comes to the rear camera even the display of the Flare S5 is saturated in view and dull, the images were taken are very descent, sharp and very detailed. I didn't say that it is the best camera smartphone but look its only under 6k smartphone. Only one thing that I got a bit disappointed is the LED Flash, when after taking a picture in low light, it notices the yellowish image so you might gonna adjust or edit the picture. Yes, it is a yellowish but still took good pictures even still a bit grainy. Going to the macroshot, it can take a nice blur shots either. Update: more sample shots
The Flare S5's front camera uses an 8MP f/2.4 Omnivision sensor with BSI. It takes a good quality, even some grainy which is visible at night, still takes more descent colors and sharp than other smartphones. So, this is advisable for those who loves to take selfies even the front flash is absent (which can be found in Flare 5).
Update: more selfie samples
Update: more selfie samples
One of the nicest selfie cameras for the price. -GizGuidePH
Features
Fingerprint Scanner
The Flare S5 has fingerprint scanner located at the front. It doubled function as home button (click the button for home). The fingerprint is very accurate and very cool. In just less than a second, it unlocks the phone very quickly.
Fingerprint commonly unlocks the phone, not only with that function but also controls the camera control to take a photo, music control to change music (in Google Play Music), Gallery control in just touching a fingerprint goes to swipe another picture), Launcher control to swipe to the left, and also the pre-installed app lock. You can register up to five fingers for that.
USB TYPE C
Another highlight of the Flare S5 is having a USB Type C or technically micro USB 3.1. The differences between the USB Type C and the traditional micro USB 2.0 is that USB Type C has to plug it in one way unlike the traditional that you might to plug in the correct way or else it won't function. But in the newer USB Type C you won't have to worry to connect or plug without checking if it is not in proper way. It has also USB OTG feature but need USB OTG with USB Type C version for that.
Other features
The phone has 700MHz LTE band as what I've mentioned above for the recall purpose. Besides, theres also the Smart Wake
and Turbo Download feature. For the changing font lovers and don't want to root Flare S5, you can change font as you want.
Update: V9 version won't have changing font style so the V9 users should root their S5 before changing font. Unlike V5 it has changing font options.
Conditions / Issues:
Let's go to the major or common issues about the Flare S5.
Date and time issue - (V5) For most users (including me, not all), whenever restarting or rebooting the Flare S5, changing the font style and size, the date and time automatically sets to December 31, 2016 which is kinda bug from Flare S5 and also the Flare S5 Plus. Even sometimes the phone silently and automatically sets to Dec. 31. So you might to turn on Automatic Date and time on Date and time settings or turn off then turn on again.
Update: Change your launcher like Google Now Launcher (if you want as same as original). Some users found that this bug is found on the stock launcher.
*It won't have this problem on V9.
Update: Change your launcher like Google Now Launcher (if you want as same as original). Some users found that this bug is found on the stock launcher.
*It won't have this problem on V9.
YouTube Problem - the another issue is the original YouTube app install and update. This is just a terrible, terrible OLD UI YouTube and just can't even install or update to latest version. The solution for this problem is you need to download an OGYouTube app / TubeMate app for better options or better root the Flare S5 for those who are in root experience.
Note: Do not disable the original YouTube app to avoid the repeating annoying message "Unfortunately, the YouTube has stopped."
Update: It won't have this problem on V9 version. Unlike the V5, you can update the stock YouTube app.
Update: It won't have this problem on V9 version. Unlike the V5, you can update the stock YouTube app.
Solution for YouTube app issues V5
Auto-Downloading annoying apps - there are some noticable apps autodownloaded like Apus Launcher, Super File Manager, Search app, Turbo Cleaner and other annoying apps that might disturbed your phone. So we need to uninstall those unnecessary apps (for most users) everytime. Hope Cherry Mobile would fix this problem. I think its from the bloatware apps or something.
Update: It won't have problems on V9.
Minor issues
Fingerprint Scanner sometimes doesn't work (some users have experience, considered as minor issue) - You need a clean cloth to gently clean both your fingertips and fingerprint scanner with a cloth in order to fully function your fingerprint scanner feature. Better keep your fingertips and scanner clean before you can register your fingers in the feature.
Heating issues - Due to the build issue and sometimes from the Mediatek issue, the Flare S5 sometimes gets hotter depends on the app user or the signal goes slower connection, and also especially for online gamers, so you need to leave the phone for few minutes (at least 3 minutes) or better use a CPU cooler and leave it for few minutes.
Camera issue (minor) - If you received this message "Can't connect to the camera", better restart your phone to restore the camera options.
Yellowish flash result of the camera - The LED flash did a great bright but yellowish when viewing a picture. I think it is a software issue, that's a minor.
Screen overlay - One of the major problems of the Marshmallow OS. You need to turn off unecessary permissions to the specific apps specially the unwanted Cherry apps for the sake of Marshmallow OS' limitations.
Saturated display - There's a noticeable that a display is saturated and a bit dull to view images that are lack of accurate colors.
Speaker output - The audio quality is not loud enough and a little bit distorted, so you need a headset.
Lining screen issues ( some users) - There's some users need to full the brightness and expand notification menu to show a bit visibility issues. So, its either defect or the MiraVision's fault. So, you need to adjust the MiraVision settings in order to keep the LCD gets worse.
Battery status issue (some users) - Sometimes I've experienced that the battery won't go to 98-100% so I need to remove the battery and reinsert back. So better calibrating the battery just in case.
Spare USB Type C cables are hard to find on some stores - Unless you should purchase on CDR King or Lazada for that. Remember that the USB-Type C is different from traditional standard micro USB 2.0.
Back cover issue - you need to buy a protection for the back cover in case of visibility scratches since the back cover is made of polycarbonic plastic material.
Pros:
- Firm and solid premium design
- HD Display is sharp and good in viewing angles
- Decent and good front and back camera
- USB-Type C is a newly feature
- Accurate fingerprint scanner
- Gyroscope works
- 700MHz LTE band
Verdict / Conclusion
Is this the right phone for you? For me, I think so. This is my main phone since two months ago. For the price of Php5,699 you can get a premium and solid design, 3GB RAM, good and decent cameras, fingerprint scanner feature and USB-Type C feature. Even there are several issues we have to deal, still its very worth it.
Score: 9.25 / 10
Update: We, Flare S5 admins, talked with the quality control or Head Officer from CM which is Mr. Gene, he gathered information already about the common issues of the Flare S5 and the Flare S5 Plus. Stay tuned for the software update for future's fixed issues.
Update: 03/02/17: I am using V5 unit. Hope there's an update like the more stable V9 that has not the same software problems as V5.
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