Cherry Mobile has a lot of smartphone offerings but despite that, each of their smartphones has a unique selling point. In the affordable category, you can barely see the difference between those smartphones. Well, one of their smartphones, the Cherry Mobile Flare J1, stands out in the tough business as the Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017 does have a really tough and strong display. Interested? Well, let’s check out the other aspects of the smartphone aside from its display.

A plastic build

Well guys, what can you expect on an affordable smartphone like the Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017? It isn’t the cheapest smartphone in the market but it is definitely affordable and a smartphone made for masses. The smartphone is made up of plastic and at the back, you can see the plastic faux leather. The build quality of the smartphone isn’t the most ideal even at its price range.

The smartphone has a slightly thick build but don’t worry because the smartphone is still ergonomic thanks to its curved back which fits perfectly on our hands. While on the front, you can see the three capacitive buttons below the screen and unfortunately, these buttons don’t light up.

Compared to most smartphones these days, the Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017 has a removable back and you can only see this feature mostly on smartphones that are below P5,000. Inside the smartphone is the removable 2300mAh battery, the two sim card slots, and also the MicroSD card slot.

The power button and the volume rocker of the smartphone are rightly placed on the right side of the smartphone while the 3.5mm audio jack and the micro USB slot are placed on the top of the smartphone. Unfortunately, the placements of these ports are too close to each other and you cannot fit in a micro USB port and also the earphones at the same time.

A really tough display

The unique selling point of this smartphone is its display. The Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017 got a 5-inch display. Before we talk about how tough the glass of the display is, let’s talk about the quality of the display first.

Well, the display of the Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017 isn’t really the best one the industry and you can really notice that the smartphone’s display is a little bit washed out. The quality isn’t that good even at its price range and you can notice that the color reproduction isn’t on point and you don’t have a really good viewing angles on this one.

But here’s the feature that you cannot on most smartphones. The toughness of the display of the Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017 is just really amazing. If you’ve seen my unboxing and hands-on of the smartphone before, you’ve probably seen how tough the smartphone is when I smash the smartphone on the edge of the wooden table and also when I dropped it on the floor. Yep, no breaks and no cracks. The display of the Cherry Mobile Flare J2 is really damn tough.

Performance

The smartphone is not really a performer but that’s already expected on a smartphone with a really affordable price. Inside the smartphone is a 1.3GHz Spreadtrum SC7731 Quad-Core processor and also a 1GB of RAM. It’s not an ideal processor for performance but it can do its job if you’re just planning to use the smartphone for light and casual apps.

However, if you’re planning to use the smartphone for heavy gaming then you might have a problem. I’ve used the smartphone for Mobile Legends and yes, the smartphone can run the game, however, don’t expect that the smartphone can run the game smoothly and at enjoyable frame rates. Well, better to stick to your light and casual games when you get the Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017.

Camera

Well, don’t expect too much from its camera. The smartphone packs an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED Flash and then there’s the 5-megapixel front camera. Again, the camera of the smartphone isn’t really a performer and since you’re buying a very affordable smartphone, expect that it won’t perform as expected. The Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017 takes shots that are a little bit overexposed and I noticed sometimes are a little bit oversaturated. Check out the photos that I took using the smartphone below:

Verdict

The smartphone is definitely for people who are just looking for an affordable smartphone. Well, there are actually a lot of smartphones that are in the affordable line but this one stacks up against most smartphones when it comes to the toughness of the display. But the rest of the hardware? Well, nothing so much special about it but I wish they could improve it in the next generation.

So who do I think will buy this smartphone? Well, if you’re not into games and you just want a cheap and affordable Android smartphone that is really tough because you keep on breaking the display of the smartphone, well, here you go.

The Cherry Mobile Flare J1 2017 is now available for P2,699