Cherry Mobile just dropped six new smartphones the night of October 17; some of which we were expecting due to leaked images found online and some have yet to be officially unveiled. We got our hands on all six smartphones released by the local brand, but it’s time to look at the most affordable of the bunch — the Cherry Mobile Flare 5. Before we dive in, here’s a look at its specs.

Cherry Mobile Flare 5 Specifications

• 1.3GHz MediaTek MT6753 octa-core processor
• Mali T720 GPU
• 3GB of RAM
• 16GB of expandable storage (up to 64GB)
• 5-Inch HD AMOLED Display; 1280×720 resolution
• 16-megapixel Rear Camera
• 8-megapixel Front Camera
• Dual SIM; LTE (700Mhz Ready)
• WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0
• 2500mAh Battery
• Android 6.0 Marshmallow
• Php 5,499

The Cherry Mobile Flare 5 is remarkably light due to the choice of material used throughout the phone — plastic. It’s back cover has a finish that mimics brushed aluminum with a particular design pattern that is somewhat reminiscent of phones coming from a certain Taiwanese brand.

Being that it has a 5-inch display, it’s a tad smaller than the usual sea of 5.2-inch devices we’ve been seeing as of late. It has rounder corners and slightly chamfered edges that make it even easier to hold and use with one hand.

Taking a tour of the device, most of the physical buttons on the Cherry Mobile Flare 5 are found on the right side that houses the power button, volume rocker, and a programmable toggle that opens up the camera app by default. Up on top is the MicroUSB slot and the 3.5mm jack; leaving the left and bottom of the Cherry Mobile Flare 5 bare.

Flip the phone over and you’ll see the 16-megapixel camera and its accompanying LED flash and the speaker grille near the bottom of the device. Removing the backplate reveals both Micro SIM slots, Micro SD slot, and the non-removable 2,500mAh battery.

In the front is the 8-megapixel camera on the forehead and the bare chin of the device that’s extremely huge as they’ve opted to use on-screen navigation keys in the Flare 5. Thankfully, the beautiful 5-inch AMOLED screen serves as a distraction. It has great color saturation and good contrast ratios to make what little videos we were able to watch with the Flare 5 enjoyable.

Powering the Flare 5 is the MediaTek MT6753 processor; a popular choice for budget devices. It’s paired up with 3GB of RAM, 16GB of expandable storage, and a Mali T720 GPU. Navigation was rather quick without any noticable lag and had pretty standard benchmark scores given its processing package.

And that’s pretty much it for this hands-on and initial review for the Cherry Mobile Flare 5. We’ll try to get this device plus the five other smartphones Cherry Mobile recently unveiled back to HQ, so we can put them through their paces.