OS, UI, Apps
Just like the Flare 4 and Flare S4, the Flare S4 Plus runs on an Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box. Additionally, it comes pre-loaded with the usual Cherry Mobile apps such as Cherry Play, Cherry Fun Club and Dr. Booster app which optimizes the RAM and boosts the performance when playing games or when using specific apps.
While switching between windows by swiping left and right is easy, we encounter misses from time to time when opening the notification panel or when swiping the finger from the top of the screen.
One of the extra features of the Cherry Mobile Flare S4 Plus is the ‘HotKnot’ which allows data transfer between smartphones by simply touching their displays. The Flare S4 Plus also has a ‘Gesture Sensing’ feature that lets you control some of the smartphone’s features and apps’ behaviors such as taking photos, navigating through songs and unlocking the phone, by moving your hand form left to right across the top of the smartphone. We were unable to successfully test this feature though.
On the other hand, the ‘Smart Wake’ feature was fun to use. This feature lets you wake the screen via double tap and initialize the camera, browser and apps by drawing the letters ‘c’, ‘e’, ‘w’, ‘m’ or ‘o’, among others.
Camera
The Cherry Mobile Flare S4 Plus packs a 16 MP camera compared to the 13MP cameras of its siblings. Additionally, its rear camera uses a BSI sensor that performs better in low-light and improves noise reduction. The front camera also has higher resolution at 8MP and uses a BSI sensor as well. The Flare S4 Plus’ superior camera provides better auto-focus than the Flare 4. However, I prefer to manually focus on the subject by touching the object on the screen first to prevent underexposure. The Flare S4 Plus’ camera takes more saturated, bright colored images with better details.
The Cherry Mobile Flare S4’s rear camera has a bunch of shooting modes including Multi angle view mode and Motion Track mode. Users can also adjust the exposure, white balance, scene mode and other settings to take better photos. The rear camera has an additional PIP or Picture in Picture mode that can be used both when taking photos and videos.
The front camera does not have a whitening/wrinkle removal tool found on the Flare 4. However, it can shoot HDR photos.
Sample photos taken by the Cherry Mobile Flare S4 Plus
Sample photos from the front facing camera of the Flare S4 Plus
Performance and Benchmark
All the three latest Cherry Mobile Flare models are powered by the same 1.3 GHz 64-bit Octa Core MediaTek MT6753 processor. The Flare S4 Plus however comes with a bigger 3GB memory. The Flare S4 Plus handled gaming and multitasking efficiently, loading and running games including Asphalt 8 in high settings without a hitch.
Check out below for the benchmark scores.
Antutu – 33,226
Quadrant Standard – 19,514
Geekbench 3 (Single-Core) – 613
Geekbench 3 (Multi-Core) – 2825
Vellamo
Chrome Browser – 2,133
Metal – 1,170
Multicore – 1,517