OR a lot of us, the holidays are a chance to unwind and spend time with family and friends. It’s also the time to kick back and catch up on some quality programming with said family and friends, to “Netflix and chill,” so to speak.
18-carat, limited-edition phone from China draws ire of internet
E’VE seen a few ostentatious smartphones firsthand — iPhones encased in gaudy gold casings and Vertu handsets made of titanium immediately come to mind. None of them, however, have been scorned by the internet quite like this Forbidden City-themed item from China, which appropriately costs a king’s ransom. To a fault, obviously.
Cherry Mobile Iris review: A peek into the future
F you’ve seen the latest Cherry Mobile phones, we’re talking the more recent ones that made headlines after the 2016 Flare launch event, you’ll probably agree that the Philippines’ top smartphone brand is once again operating outside the box. The company seems to be willing to roll the dice to razzle and dazzle amid an industry-wide slowdown in technological development.
Samsung Galaxy S8 to launch later than expected — report
AMSUNG fans who, despite the Galaxy Note 7 debacle, still have faith on the brand and are willing to give the Samsung Galaxy S8 more than a passing consideration, may have to wait a bit longer for a Galaxy S7 successor. Later than expected, we mean.
Apple iPhone 7 still faster than Android’s fastest
H, the OnePlus 3T (click for complete specs). A Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chip hums under its metal unibody; also inside: 6 gigs of RAM that can handle even the most difficult situations without breaking a bead of sweat. Such a beast of a phone — on paper and otherwise — don’t you think?
Cherry Mobile Flare X2 review: Style and substance for less
HE Flare X2, one of the more interesting Cherry Mobile offerings of late, is now available nationwide. Retailing at P7,999, it’s aimed at consumers who don’t want to splurge on a smartphone, but also don’t want to compromise on design or performance.
Nokia’s first Android smartphones set to debut in 2017
HE dream of a proper Android phone from Nokia lives on. The storied phone maker will return to the smartphone market in early 2017 under a company called HMD Global, which acquired the exclusive rights to use the Nokia brand on phones and tablets for the next 10 years.
YAAO 6000 Plus smartphone has a 10,900mAh battery
little over a week ago, we featured 10 locally available smartphones with batteries above 4,000mAh. Battery-wise, the most impressive unit we wrote about was the recently announced Cherry Mobile Flare S5 Power, which carries a tablet-grade 6,050mAh cell and provides two days of continued use (or more, if you’re being prudent about what you do with the device).
Lenovo Phab 2, Phab 2 Plus, Phab 2 Pro launched in PH
HE Philippines’ big-screen phone market just got bigger with Lenovo’s latest Phab lineup. The company today announced the Phab 2, Phab 2 Plus, and Phab 2 Pro for the local market, all three aiming to ride the people’s seemingly insatiable addiction to smartphones with monster displays.
The Cherry Mobile Defender is built for tough love
HE Cherry Mobile Defender (click for complete specs) is the company’s first truly rugged smartphone featuring a metal frame and rubberized plastic bumpers. The battery is fixed into the assembly, and all ports are covered with rubber flaps to seal the body. It doesn’t look off-kilter to us — which is not what we expected when we first heard about it. (The list of fairly attractive rugged phones gets thin after Samsung’s Galaxy Active series.)
Hands-on: Cherry Mobile Taiji Android phone/ebook reader
HERRY Mobile this week gave us our first look at three Android smartphones due for release this December. Among them is the Taiji — incidentally, also the most interesting of the bunch for reasons that will become obvious in a moment.
The 10 most popular guys in video-game history
EMEMBER the first time you held a joystick or a control pad? Remember the first video-game character you played? Chances are, that protagonist has had a great impact on your life as a gamer. So this week, with news of Super Mario Run coming to mobile in December, we’re paying homage to the guys who have punched, kicked, jumped, fired, rolled, slashed, and stomped their way into making the video-game industry what it is today. The gaming world would have been lost without them. Before getting really into gaming, you should check out VPNs for online games. This will ensure …
Infinix Hot 4 Pro, Hot S, Note 3 Pro budget smartphones released in PH
OU may not have heard about Infinix yet, but the Hong Kong-based smartphone brand is certainly well aware of the Filipinos’ appetite for devices in the “good but cheap” category. It’s common knowledge in the Philipppines that price has been, is, and will, in the foreseeable future, be king.
Apple iPhone 7 Plus review: King of big phones
T’S New iPhone Day in the Philippines! Apple’s Plus-sized iPhone has historically been one of the best phones money can buy, and now it’s back for another encore. And if you’re still on the fence about whether the iPhone 7 Plus is the right smartphone for the job, you’ve come to the right place — as long as you can afford it.
OPPO F1s review: Beyond selfies
ODAY, OPPO Philippines is launching a limited gray version of the OPPO F1s (click for complete specs) to coincide with the company’s official announcement of Alden Richards as an endorser. Almost three months after its gold and rose-gold variants were first released on the local market for P13,990, is the smartphone — now costing P12,990 — still worth considering? Read on.
Cherry Mobile Flare 5 review: incremental improvements
HERRY Mobile, the leading mobile brand in the Philippines, unveiled six new Flare smartphones last month. Devices, it hopes, will carry the Flare label past the “5 million phones sold” mark in 2016. Much of that burden falls on the Cherry Mobile Flare 5, the cheapest of the bunch. Priced at P5,499 — a tad higher than the Flare 4 (pictured in the background above) that cost P4,999 at launch — it falls into the company’s most profitable demographic whose tastes are often ultimately swayed by price.
Beyond the Box reveals iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus prices
HE wait is nearly over for Apple fans around the country. Beyond the Box, one among several official Apple resellers in the Philippines, recently posted the off-contract prices of all iPhone 7 (click for complete specs) and iPhone 7 Plus (click for full specs) models on its social media accounts and website.
10 smartphones powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
PEED has always been a big talking point within the smartphone community — though we would be quick to argue that having more CPU cores and more RAM are not necessarily as advantageous as some companies make them out to be. The iPhone 7, to wit, has a quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM, but it handily beats its Android counterparts in real-word and synthetic tests.
Uber vs. Grab: Comparing fixed fares. Is there any difference?
OPPED in an Uber anywhere in Manila recently? You may have noticed an all-in, fixed fare on the Uber app, as opposed to a suggested fare that could be more expensive or cheaper than the actual fare.
LG V20: How much it will cost, when it will be released in PH
G Philippines has announced the price and date of availability of its other signature phone, the LG V20. This Korean manufacturer’s counter to arch-rival Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7, which is now discontinued after a botched recall and multiple fire reports, is the first non-Google handset to ship with the new Android 7.0 Nougat operating system. We’ve listed it as a good alternative to the Note phone.