Cherry Mobile Magnum HD: First Impressions

I've been reading about the Cherry Mobile Magnum HD since last year. Specifications-wise, it's nearly the same as HTC Desire HD, running on a 1Ghz Qualcomm Scorpion Processor and an Adreno 205 Graphics Processor (Qualcomm MSM8255 SoC - Snapdragon). Just last month, Cherry Mobile slashed off the prices of their Android products putting the Magnum at just PhP14,000 (also their tablet, Superion, is now only 14,000). At this price point, I guess it's one deal I can not pass. I now have an early Christmas and Birthday present for myself. :D

Design

The Cherry Mobile Magnum does not sport curves as is common nowadays. I personally prefer this "literally edgy" form over curved ones as it appears more masculine and just plain simple.

While most pictures depicted in ads are Gray, my unit is Chocolate Brown

The Cherry Mobile Magnum only has 3 physical buttons, Power on the left, and Volume controls on the right. The other 4 inputs are part of the capacitive sensor. While this makes the phone flat, the inputs can easily be accidentally pressed especially on landscape orientation. Sometimes it also feels unresponsive, though, Haptic feedback makes you know if you were able to press the button.

The Cherry Mobile Magnum has 3 ports, the Headphone Out on top, HDMI-D and micro-USB at the bottom. The HDMI-D lets you output the display to a TV with HDMI input. This is still something I've got to try as I have no HDMI-D cable lying around.

Speakers are located at bottom left and right, somewhere you can easily block with your hands while holding the phone. Its sound quality is average.

Overall design looks sturdy and it doesn't feel or look like plastic. The phone is a bit flexible though, I guess it's the reason why the lower left part of my glass screen is popping out and not sitting flush with the chassis. I guess I have to take a trip to the service center for that. :D

Display

The Cherry Mobile Magnum comes with a 4.1" WVGA (800x480) LCD Screen. LCD size and resolution is the primary reason I'm upgrading from my LG Optimus One. While the LG Optimus One is one great phone, I already find the resolution limiting, I can't read books and web pages without significantly zooming in the pages. Here are screenshots of a forum I frequent, without zooming in, I can already read posts with the Cherry Mobile Magnum.

No need to zoom to browse posts on the Cherry Mobile Magnum

Even though I like the larger LCD of the Cherry Mobile Magnum, it's quality is just average. Colors are dull, and contrast is average. Here are comparison shots with my LG Optimus One.

In person, Reds on the Cherry Mobile Magnum appear more like a dark shade of Magenta

Contrast on the Cherry Mobile Magnum is average

The quality of the LCD is not a deal breaker though. I still enjoy watching movies, playing games, and surfing the web with it.

Camera

The Cherry Mobile Magnum is equipped with two cameras, a 5 Megapixel with LED Flash on the back, and a VGA front-facing camera. All I can say is that the camera is average, perhaps useful for casual shots.

The Cherry Mobile Magnum can also capture videos in 720p HD. I've only done some quick tests with it and it appears to be sluggish indoors.

I'll post sample photos and videos in an update.

Update (Oct. 1, 2011): I forgot to mention that the camera on the phone has autofocus capability.

Here are some snapshots from the camera. These are 5MP files straight from the camera.

Macro (Autofocus) using LED Flash

Macro (Autofocus) using a 11W CFL desk lamp

Performance

The Cherry Mobile Magnum is a performer as it has the same hardware with HTC Desire HD and Sony Ericsson's Xperia Play. Here's the benchmark score from Quadrant.

The Cherry Mobile Magnum plays games smoothly. The only gripe I have with the phone is that sometimes the screen becomes unresponsive and you get to lose in the game. With the Gingerbread update though, it happens less frequently.

Multimedia-wise, it's supposed to be able to play almost all types of files. I still haven't tried playing all sorts of files with it though. I have only tried DVD quality MP4 movies.

The phone is also fast when it comes to surfing the web. I'm using Opera Mobile as my browser, and it's a great mobile browsing experience.

Battery Life

I don't know whether I have a bad battery or phones of this hardware level are really power hogs. 4 to 6 hours of heavy surfing and battery's dead. Add heavy gaming to it and you have to recharge every 4 hours or so. I haven't done a full standby test, but it seems to consume around 4% to 6% of Battery life every hour on standby with GSM network and WiFi enabled. The stock Froyo that came with my phone seems to be buggy as Cell Standby is always the top battery consumer (even when playing games heavily, Display is just around 3% to 5% of the consumption) with more than 70% of the time, without signal. The Airplane Mode trick somewhat alleviate that.

UPDATE (Oct. 1, 2011): After upgrading to Gingerbread, on standby, the phone consumes around 1% to 2% of the battery life per hour, giving perhaps a maximum of 1 to 2 days of light use. Most probably, there were buggy applications on my phone's stock Froyo that keeps the phone awake (and keeping Cell Standby as top battery consumer).

This is what consumes most of my battery
Back on the stock Froyo, Cell Standby is on top
consuming around 40% to 60% of the battery

Phone activity for 10 hours,
few minutes of gaming, about an hour of net surfing

After 10 hours of my average daily use,
battery level is at 52%, not bad

What's In The Box

The Cherry Mobile Magnum's package is bare minimum. The package contains the phone, a micro-USB cable and its wall adapter, a set of earphones, and a Quick Start Guide. Unluckily, the sales agent told me that the package does not include a microSD card, while most phones at this price range will at least include a 2GB card. Anyway, that's fine for me as I've got some spare lying at home.

The micro-USB cable included is quite short, perhaps just around 2 feet of length. The earphone, while it appears average, is surprisingly loud, louder than one of my more expensive headphone. It's now my earphone of choice when watching movies as I can hear almost everything with just one or two notches of volume from mute.


Overall, the Cherry Mobile Magnum is one good deal for the price. It's highly recommended for people, on a budget, who wants a large screen or a fast processor for their smart phone. I'd not recommend it for brand-conscious people though. :D