We unbox MyPhone’s first Android One smartphone
Yesterday we saw the official launch of Android One in the Philippines, and today we’ll be unboxing one of the two devices that’s part of Google’s new initiative: the MyPhone Uno. The MyPhone Uno is the sexier of the two Android One offerings in the Philippines, though it’s not as attractive hardware-wise as its competition. Before we start the unboxing, let’s check the specs:
MyPhone Uno Specs
- 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek 6582 processo
- 1GB RAM
- 4.5-inch FWVGA display
- 4GB storage, expandable via microSD up to 32GB
- 5-megapixel rear camera
- 2-megapixel front camera
- Dual-SIM
- 3G
- WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS
- Android Lollipop 5.1
- 1700mAh battery
Packaging and contents:
Since the Uno is part of MyPhone’s more affordable line of handsets (pegged to be priced at below 5K) we weren’t surprised to see the phone packaged in the same way that MyPhone’s other budget smartphones were. When you get the box, you’ll be pleasantly surprised to see that MyPhone has had foresight to include an 8GB SD card as a freebie, which you’ll need to beef up the rather sedate 4GB of storage that the phone has.
Opening the box, you’ll see the basic accessories that MyPhone includes in most of its phones – a USB cable, charger, headphones and a user manual. We were stumped at first because we couldn’t find the microSD card that was promised in the box – turns out it was already inside the phone, probably to prevent it from getting lost in the packaging.
Initial Impressions: curvy, responsive and fast
Like what we said during our initial hands-on of the Uno, its body has a more of a slender, curvy shape that’s a sharp contrast to Cherry Mobile’s One smartphone. While the Uno is a budget device, the overall build quality is top notch, and the phone has quite a nice heft to it and feels extremely solid overall.
One of the things you’ll immediately notice on the front of the Uno is the lack of capacitive Android navigation keys. This has been ditched for software keys on the display itself. This is the direction that Google is going for with Lollipop, and is the same setup that the Cherry Mobile One uses.
Turning the phone over you’ll see the 5-megapixel rear camera that’s been embedded in a raised, aluminum circle on the back of the device. The Uno uses a plastic shell that encloses the back and sides of the phone, kind of like the Rio. Once you take the back out, you’ll see the two micro SIM slots, as well as a microSD card and the removable battery.
While the display resolution leaves much to be desired, the actual display quality is rather good. It has good viewing angles (none of that negative effect that’s usually seen on affordable phones) and good color reproduction overall.
Even though the Uno sports hardware that’s undeniably near the bottom of the hardware tree, its still a very fast and responsive smartphone, thanks to Android 5.1 Lollipop. While Google hasn’t officially announced the changelog for Android 5.1, we’ve been told by one of the execs of the local brands present during the event that the new version are basically just bug fixes to Lollipop, with no added features whatsoever.
We took a sample shot of one of our gundam toys to gauge the photo quality of the camera in the Uno. We noticed a bit of lag when pressing the shutter button until the phone actually captures a photo, something that we’ll be keeping in mind while we review the device.
That’s it for this unboxing, we’ll be reviewing the Uno in the coming days to see what it’s capable of. MyPhone has not announced a price for the Uno as of yet, only promising that it’ll retail for less than 5K.