Here’s our review of the Omega Spectrum!

It was only a matter of time before Cherry Mobile created an answer to MyPhone’s unbelievably value packed Rio. It’s a well known secret that most manufacturers, local brands included, make most of their money in the budget smartphone segment. CM’s answer came in the form of the Omega Spectrum, a quad-core smartphone that has all the same attributes as the Rio, at least on paper. Does CM’s newest smartphone have the chops to knock the Rio from its perch?

Cherry Mobile Omega Spectrum specs

• 1.2GHz quad-core Broadcom BCM 23550 processor
• 1GB RAM
• 5-inch HD IPS display, 1280 x 720 resolution
• 4GB storage (possibly expandable via microSD)
• 8-megapixel camera with flash
• 2-megapixel front camera
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, GLONASS, Miracast ready, USB OTG capable
• 3G
• Dual-SIM
• 2000mAh battery
• Android 4.2
• Php 4,999

Elegant, understated premium design

To be honest, when we first saw the Omega Spectrum, we were a bit underwhelmed. When we got to unbox it live during the podcast however, we made a quick 180 with our assessment. While it’s not as visually arresting as the bright and colorful Rio, the Omega Spectrum is beautiful in a way that a BMW E30 is beautiful – sleek, elegant and shapely. The gentle curves of the device make it pleasurable to hold, while the matte black finish on the back further accentuate its elegant frame.

The Omega Spectrum has a 5-inch HD IPS panel, much like its rival, though its display is protected by scratch-resistant Asahi Dragontrail glass as opposed to clear acrylic on the Rio. The display of the Omega Spectrum looks punchier than the one on the Rio, and is slightly brighter and better.

As far as button layout goes, there’s really nothing surprising about the Omega Spectrum – power and the volume rocker is located on the right side, while the 3.5mm jack and the USB port are located on top and bottom of the device, respectively. A small LED light is located on the left side of the earpiece on the Omega Spectrum.

One thing about the design we don’t like is that the camera protrudes a few millimeters from the back of the device, which exposes the camera lens to a higher risk of scratches and damage when you lay it down flat on a table.  The capacitive keys on the bottom of the bezel do not light up when touched.

The Omega Spectrum also uses a custom lock screen on the front that gives you quick access to all the apps that you may need.

Hardware is a bit underpowered, but still capable

When companies offer products like the Rio and the Omega Spectrum at a compelling price point, sacrifices had to made to get the price as low as possible. For the Rio, it was the less than stellar display, plastic screen and a plastic shell that was susceptible to chipping. On the Omega Spectrum, it’s the processor. While both the Rio and the Omega Spectrum use a quad-core processor, the one on the Omega Spectrum is a Broadcom one as opposed to a MediaTek on the Rio. Not all processors are equal even they both have four cores, and the BCM 23550 is no exception to this rule. Navigating through the Omega Spectrum, you’ll definitely notice quite a bit of lag though it’s not enough to be genuinely frustrating. Even with a Nova Launcher installed, the experience was never really that smooth as compared to the second version of the Rio.

It’s understandable of course – an HD display takes a lot of processing power to run, and sadly the BCM 23550 processor was probably running at the very edge of its performance envelope. The hardware itself isn’t terrible – our time with a similarly powered Cherry Mobile device, the Sonic 2.0 was very pleasant, and had none of the lag issues that we were experiencing with the Omega Spectrum.

As far as synthetic benchmarks go, the Omega Spectrum posted a score of 13171 points in AnTuTu. It’s capable of decent gaming, and does not exhibit lag in simple games like Flappy Bird and Temple Run like the first batches of the Rio did. Much like the Sonic 2.0, the Omega Spectrum is capable of decent gaming, and ran Dead Trigger 2 relatively well, although we did notice lag spikes at the beginning of any level, which is normal.

Okay camera

The camera on the Omega Spectrum isn’t bad, with good color reproduction all around. It’s also capable of good closeup shots. One thing that we did notice was that the camera interface gets hit by lag around a second after we open the app.

This isn’t a major issue, but it’s something you want to be aware of as it may cause you to miss an important shot when you’re in a hurry to grab a photo of your cat/kid/pet doing something adorable.

All-day battery life, and then some

One nice side-effect of having a less than powerful processor is that the phone doesn’t consume as much juice. The Omega Spectrum lasted around 6 1/2 hours during our battery rundown test (which involved looping a video until the battery dies) before it hit 20% battery! This translated to more than a day of useful battery life with moderate use. We’re sure that if you manage your phone’s settings you can get even more from the 2000mAh battery. Good job on that front Cherry Mobile.

Verdict: the Omega Spectrum wins over the Rio in some aspects, falters in others

In its own right, the Omega Spectrum isn’t a bad smartphone at all, and is certainly deserving of the Php 4,999 price that it asks for. That being said, comparisons with the Rio is unavoidable, since they’re playing in the same price range and has roughly the same specifications. Is the Omega Spectrum better than the Rio? Well, yes and no. Like anything, Cherry Mobile compromised in some aspects of the phone to deliver the specs, with the processor being one of the major compromises. The Rio (the new version at least) is smoother and is more capable when it comes down to computing power, though it loses out to Omega Spectrum’s superior battery life and Asahi Dragontrail glass protection and better display.