The Starmobile Knight has been in my mid-range smartphone buyer's guide since July of this year. The problem is that this phone is very hard to find. Having spoken to two dealers, when stocks do arrive they do so in very small quantities. No point recommending a phone if it is not readily available in the market.
So what is the best replacement? One seemingly obvious choice is the 5-inch Cherry Mobile Cosmos Z, with its 1080p display. Yup, that is a full HD Display. This phone has a retail price of Php11,999. The drawback with this choice is that a full HD display pushes the MediaTek 6589T chipset to its limits. While this phone scores well in the benchmarks conducted by Yugatech, the Nenamark score is 33.9 frames per second. That is about 25% less than its rivals. I also worry that the 2000 mAh battery may not work out to well with the heavier drain of the 1080p display and MediaTek 6589T chipset.
Another choice would be the 5-inch Cherry Mobile Cosmos S with a 5-inch 720p display. This monster also has the MediaTek 6589T chipset inside. It crushes all its competitors in the Nenamark benchmarks with a score of 50.9 fps in the tests conducted by Yugatech. This phone also has a large 2500 mAh battery to make up from the expected increase in the battery drain. The main drawback of this choice is unlike the other locally branded phones, this one is not dual SIM. This makes it the only phone in this comparison which is not dual SIM. This phone also does not have a MicroSD card slot, but it does have 16 GB of internal storage. This phone is also on the cheaper end of the spectrum, priced at Php10,999.
The third option would be the 4.8-inch Cherry Mobile Cosmos X2 with its Samsung built 720p Super AMOLED display. Priced at Php11,699, this phone is a nice well rounded package. It has a 16 GB of internal storage which can be expanded by a MicroSD card. The battery is 2200 mAh unit, and it is user replaceable. It is equipped with the less power MediaTek 6589 chipset. I do not have a source for benchmarks of this phone, but I would expect it to do 45 fps or so, in Nenamark.
The fourth option would be the 5-inch MyPhone Agua Vortex. The specifications are almost the same as the Cosmos X2, but it does not come with a Super AMOLED display and the battery is a smaller 2000 mAh unit. This choice is the most expensive at Php12,388. It does come with a nice case with a premium looking aluminum border, like the one of the iPhone.
I have not made a decision. I was hoping you guys could give some feedback.
This might sound counter intuitive at first, but I think this might be a good fit -- Nokia Lumia 625.
ReplyDeleteTwo reasons:
- it's big, at 4.7 inches it's the largest non-Android smartphone to be recently released in the PH market. Which brings us to;
- it's smooth when it comes to navigating the interface, particularly scrolling. Windows Phone 8 is consistently smoother than the Android user interface even after Jelly Bean.
Basically if you want a large phone with a smooth UI and you can adapt to WP8 ecosystem, then the Lumia 625 could be something to consider.