Vivo V5 now official in PH, takes on OPPO’s F1s
REMEMBER that selfie phone Vivo launched in India about a week ago? The one with the 20-megapixel front camera? Well, it’s finally official in the Philippines, with the release slated for November 26, 2016. And with a P12,990 suggested retail price, it seems to be gunning for the similarly priced OPPO F1s’ place in the local market.
The Cherry Mobile Defender is built for tough love
THE 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
CHERRY 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
REMEMBER 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 you’re fully protected and it will also keep your connection stable.
I haven’t included LoL on this list, as I recently bought myself a League of legends account as you know. I’m still learning the game, but I fully expect it to be the next big craze in the Phillipines. Once I get time, a full review is coming out on it!
Another game that I think should be on the list is Clash of Clans. However, it is on the mobile gaming platform so that’s probably why it isn’t. Anyway, I love it. I’ve just read the TH10 war base cheat page to make sure my base is maxed out for farming and strong enough if people decide to attack it.
Anyway, enough of my mobile games. Lets get on to the real games to be reviewed!!!
Infinix Hot 4 Pro, Hot S, Note 3 Pro budget smartphones released in PH
YOU 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.
Download Super Mario Run for free starting December 15th, but…
REMEMBER that one gaming-related announcement at the Apple iPhone 7 launch that made you take a walk down memory lane? Hold your breath! Nintendo has finally revealed that you can download Super Mario Run for iOS starting December 15 — for free!
When your phone will get Android Nougat
DATA collected by Google on the first week of November tells us the sorry state of Android. It turns out that Android Nougat, the latest version of the mobile operating system released on August 22, is installed on less than 0.4 percent of all Android devices. Most are still stuck on Android Lollipop.
Apple iPhone 7 Plus review: King of big phones
IT’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.
LTE speed in PH improves, but still one of world’s slowest — report
WIRELESS-COVERAGE mapping company OpenSignal’s latest State of LTE report is out. The good news? Data taken between July to September 2016 showed that average download 4G connection speed in the Philippines increased from 6Mbps in the fourth quarter of 2015 to 7.27Mbps this time. The bad news? We still lagged behind most other countries in the world.
OPPO F1s review: Beyond selfies
TODAY, 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.
Smart iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus postpaid plans revealed
A week before the official Philippine launch of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus on November 11, Smart Communications has finally revealed its complete postpaid offerings for Apple’s latest smartphones. Globe Telecom had earlier posted its own postpaid plans.
New Huawei Mate 9 said to become faster the more you use it
THERE’S a newly launched large-screened smartphone that’s looking to fill the void left by the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Meet the Huawei Mate 9, the smaller, 5.9-inch successor to last year’s 6-inch Mate 8.
Cherry Mobile Flare 5 review: incremental improvements
CHERRY 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
THE 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.
Here are Globe’s iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus postpaid plans
A few hours after Smart Communications put up its registration page for the Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Globe Telecom’s reservation page went live, but with more info than you can find on Smart’s. It already shows how much your cash-out for each of the model is for every plan being offered by Globe.
Smart iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus registration page is up
NOVEMBER is around the corner, and you know what that means for Apple fans for the past three years: A new iPhone is about to be launched in the Philippines. True enough, Smart Communications just put up their registration page for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, coincidentally on the day Apple announced a new MacBook Pro. You can register your interest on this page.
10 smartphones powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 821
SPEED 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.
Xiaomi Mi MIX, the future of smartphones, is here
XIAOMI dropped a bomb on us at the launch of the Mi Note 2 (click for full specs): It announced the Xiaomi Mi MIX, a concept product that could very well be the smartphone of your dreams. Except that unlike other concept devices which you won’t find in stores at any time soon, it will already be available starting November 4.
Note 7 owners may get Galaxy S8, Note 8 for half the price of S7, but…
SAMSUNG Electronics Philippines marketing director Chad Sotelo has confirmed that the tech giant has an upgrade program for Galaxy Note 7 owners. Unfortunately, it’s being offered only in South Korea — for now.