Hands on with the Cherry Mobile Flare HD

Last night during Cherry Mobile’s annual Dealer’s Night, we got to bring home the upcoming Cherry Mobile Flare HD, dubbed as the “œHD ng Bayan”. Having the “œFlare” moniker, expect a phone with specs to go with a really affordable price.

The Cherry Mobile Flare HD is probably the first phone from CM on 2014. It has a 4.3-inch HD-IPS screen giving it an above average 342 ppi pixel density. This means you’ll get a vibrant and sharp picture quality on the Flare HD’s screen.

Build quality is pretty much the same as other Flare handsets but we notice that it’s a bit thinner this time around. The back, where the 12-megapixel camera is located, has a smooth matte black finish. The size feels nice, not as small as your regular Flare, and comfortably slim although the back can be slippery at times.

Not counting the screen size, the Flare HD is pretty much the same as the Cherry Mobile Apollo. It has a 1.2HGz quad-core processor, 1GB RAM, 4GB internal storage plus a microSD Slot, a 5-megapixel camera, and has dual-SIM support too. The battery is rated at just 1,800 mAh though which is lower than the Apollo’s 2,000mAh.

Here are the benchmark scores for the Flare HD on Quadrant and Antutu.

Cherry Mobile Flare HD Quadrant ““ 4,842

Cherry Mobile Flare HD Antutu ““ 13,217

Pretty much what we expect from a phone with the MT6589 processor. Navigation was smooth although not as snappy as current gen phones with quad-core Qualcomm chips. Anyway, it performs admirably for its price and size.

I also noticed a new lockscreen from Cherry Mobile where there are little icons for apps like Facebook, Twitter, Weather, etc., on both sides which you can access easily by swiping towards the center. This essentially gives you a lot of easy access apps or widgets straight from the lockscreen.

There’s no definite price yet for the Cherry Mobile Flare HD when it will be available early next year. Only thing we got is that it’s going to be cheaper than the CM Apollo which currently retails for Php6,999.