Tag: Cellphones

I was recently looking for a good backup phone. I was scrounging through some of the China phone models from Cherry Mobile, Torque and MyPhone. My initial criteria for a good backup phone were:

• Dual sim (i.e., dual standby);
• A good battery life (despite the dual sim capability);
• Less bells and whistles – to support the long battery life;
• Sleek, sturdy and small — that puts Qwerty phones out of the question (I already had a Qwerty phone);
• A sub-P2K price;

[adsense250]

Having these in mind, I settled for the Cherry Mobile D15, features of which include:

• Dual SIM / Dual Standby;
• Camera;
• FM Radio;
• MP3 / Video Player;
• Flashlight;
• Micro SD Card up to 2GB;

At a price of P1,999, I guess the extra features (on top of my minimum requirements) including the FM Radio and MP3/Video Player make CM D15 worth it. And these features are basically what make up the pros.

Now, for the cons:

• Meager battery life performance. That’s 3days for light use, 2 for moderate, and 1 for heavy use before recharging. It may be acceptable to many, but not for me who have experienced using the small and sturdy Nokia 1202 (the latter could last me 2 weeks on light use);

  UPDATE: Turning off one of the sims improved battery life dramatically. It took me 5-6 days before recharging when only 1 sim is active.

• The keys are a little bit on the hard side;
• Typing a message is faster than reading what you have typed. If you type real fast into its numeric keypad, you have to wait a bit for the screen to actually display your message;
• Volume during mp3 playback is not adjustable;
• Substandard voice-call-audio quality. Volume for voice calls are adjustable, yes. But the sound quality–it’s like listening from a tin can;
• A headphone jack that often fails to lock into position;
• An FM Radio where radio networks battle over one frequency. You tune-in to one station (that’s “spot on” in its digital frequency dial), and you’ll hear two network programs fighting for your attention;
• The OS is proprietary, which I think is not optimized at all to extend battery life before recharging;
• Picture quality of the camera, in a rate of 1 to 10, is 1;
• The body is built of almost (if not all) plastic. But then, that’s what makes it lightweight;

Conclusion

I’m not one of those people who hop from one blog to another just to bash about the cheap cellphones’ lack of this and that “loser” features. Why look for a cheap phone when the features you really want don’t come cheap to begin with?

As the cliche goes “you get what you pay for”.

As for me, I’m half-satisfied with my purchase. At least I have my dual-sim phone and I intend to push it to its limits. For its price, I wouldn’t mind if it won’t get me even a year of extreme usage.

The upcoming release of the dual-sim phone from Nokia (the Nokia C1 or C2) is a welcome development. Hope it comes with the *needed* long battery life just like the Nokia 1202 and within the same price range.

P.S. Another insightful review of the Cherry Mobile D15: A good phone is a useful one: the Cherry Mobile D15.