Cloudfone Offers Smartphone with Interchangeable Batteries and Back Covers
It looks like Cloudfone is finally trying to cement their position as the local brand that offers the best long-lasting smartphones. They kicked things off last year with the Cloudfone Thrill 430x and they followed it up this year with the Cloudfone Thrill 530QX, a phablet with a massive 4,500mAh battery. Today we finally got our hands on their newest offering — the Cloudfone Thrill 400qx. This smartphone offers two configurations because it literally has two different batteries and back covers that you can interchange. There’s a more slimmer 1450mAh set-up and there’s the juiced up 3,000mAh! Fascinating right?
Let’s take a look at the specifications.
Cloudfone Thrill 400qx Spec Sheet
- 1.2GHz Snapdragon Quad-core Processor
- 512MB RAM
- 4GB Internal Storage, Expandable via microSD Card
- Dual SIM, Dual Standby
- 4.0-inches IPS WVGA OGS Touchscreen
- 8.0-megapixels primary camera with autofocus and LED flash
- VGA secondary camera
- 3G, WiFi, WiFi Hotspot, Bluetooth, GPS
- Android Jelly Bean 4.1
- Interchangeable Back Covers and Batteries
- 1450mAh or 3000mAh
- SRP: Php5,999
As you can see the only pitfall here is the 512MB RAM. This definitely would have sold like hot cakes if the RAM was at 1GB! Anyway, let’s move on to our unboxing and initial review.
Packaging and Hardware Impressions
The packaging the Cloudfone Thrill 400qx was your typical Cloudfone box. Big, colored yellow, and made of hard carton with the product shot up front with technical specifications along the sides. They made it a point to highlight the interchangeable batteries and back plates at the front though and they even labelled the different battery capacities of both packs as well as a photo of how thicker/thinner it can become.
Unboxing was straightforward. We removed the tape, pulled the inner compartment out, and we were greeted by the CloudFone Thrill 400qx wrapped in plastic. Upon seeing it though we were kinda underwhelmed since we’ve been used to seeing bigger displays already, especially for Android devices. The CloudFone Thrill 400qx has a 4.0-inch display and if you’ve used bigger screens this will really feel small already (especially if you’re coming from phablets).
We dug deeper into the box and found the two battery packs and the secondary back plate. If you use the 1,450mAh battery you can keep the phone slim, lightweight, and compact. However if you stuff the 3,000mAh and use the accompanying back plate for that the device becomes much thicker. It feels a whole lot like the first Cloudfone Thrill 430x. The bulge on the back becomes very pronounced and obvious.
Here’s a shot of the Cloudfone Thrill 400qx with the big battery. As you can see it protrudes outwards due to the sheer size, hehe.
Other than the batteries and the back plates, the usual stuff were also in the box: micro USB to USB cable, wall charger, manuals, and earphones.
Over-all this is a very unique and interesting offering. The ability to re-configure and change the phone up depending on what you need is definitely an appealing proposition. However the 512MB RAM is seriously a real buzzkill.
Performance Impressions
When it comes to performance the Cloudfone Thrill 400qx can do most of what you need with a smartphone. However in our initial tests it did slowdown when multiple apps were running or when we were trying out graphics intensive and RAM hungry apps like games. 1GB RAM would have really made this phone a strong contender. Sayang!
Full Review Out Next Week!
We’re going to put this phone through the paces over the weekend and have a full review out by next week! As far as initial impressions go we’re satisfied but left wanting due to the RAM and its effects.
Other Cloudfone Reviews:
CloudFone Thrill 530QX
CloudFone Thrill 450Q
CloudFone Excite 402D