Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo Review, The Elegant Windows Phone!

Prestigio, one of the newest faces in the Philippine mobile tech scene is very well known for their high quality and well designed smartphones. What if you're not into Android and still wanted the Prestigio device? I glad to share with you that they have one here in the Philippines called the Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo.

Multiphone 8500 Duo review

The Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo is a Windows 8.1 smartphone with slim and well designed looking profile and decent specs. I was able to get hold of it for more than a week to share with you what are my thoughts with it. Let's start!

Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo Specs

Display: 5 Inch HD 1280 x 768 resolution w/ Gorilla Glass protection at 294 ppi
CPU: 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 200 processor
GPU: Adreno 302
RAM: 1 GB
ROM: 8 GB expandable via microSD card up to 32 GB
Back Camera: 8 MP w/ LED flash
Selfie Camera: 2 MP
Battery: 2,000 mAh
OS: Windows 8.1
Connectivity: WiFi, 3G, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS, Dual SIM, FM Radio
Sensors: Accelerometer, proximity, compass, light, gyroscope
Dimensions: 145 x 70 x 8.3 mm
Weight: 140 g
Price: 9,699 Pesos

Unboxing / Accessories

The box

Prestigio is notoriously known for bringing one of the most visually appealing smartphone packages in town. It comes with the manuals, in ear monitors with mic, charger and the phone itself. What could be added in the package in their future releases is a phone case for added protection.

The accessories included in the package

Build Quality / Design

At the back, showing the slightly rounded design, gorgeous Prestigio emblem, 8 MP rear camera and flash

To back up what I've said about the design profile of this unit, the Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo features one of the slimmest Windows phone device right now at just 8.3 mm. This device also has that well rounded corners and smooth chrome finish on the side to give you a nice feel when holding the device. The black cover also features a textured matte feel too that can give you a good grip on this phone. It's just prone to fingerprints that might make you wipe your phone always.

At the right side showing the regular placement of the power button

On the left you have the volume rocker

On top you see the 3.5 mm jack, micro USB port and the slightly protruded rear camera

A clear view to see the slimness of this phone

The general build quality of this device is great, it feels quite durable, not too heavy at just 140 g and I loved that they included a glass protection on the screen. It's not on the higher end scale type of build yet, but it's better than some of the devices in the price point. Overall the Multiphone 8500 should be good enough to last you for a long while as long as you're not abusing it.

Dispay Quality

The display of Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo

The Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo features a 5 inch IPS HD display with a good amount of pixel density at 294 ppi. The result of that is sharper icons, photos and details on the screen. The viewing angles, brightness and colors were decent, but I'm a bit spoiled with better displays. I find the colors a bit dull compared to other phones of the same specs and the brightness isn't that strong that might give you some problems when viewing the phone under sunlight. The multi touch function should be improved too. The good thing there is the display performance of this phone should be good enough for most non picky individuals.

Audio Quality

This device comes with most of the standard things I'm looking for to the audio quality of the phone. The speakers was able to deliver acceptable loudness with nice clarity and details. Should be enough for you to hear your calls or enjoy your tunes even from few meters away from the device. There's just distortion when you crank the volume more than 90% that makes me suggest to use it at around 70-80% to enjoy it better.

The audio out thru headphones also passed my phone standards. There's not muddy tunes, the details from the lows to highs were present and it was able to present a nice balanced warm sound signature that's not overly bright and bassy. It also has enough driving power for your favorite after market small headphones and most earphones.

Call quality and mic which is the most important function of any phone performed also performed very well in our test.

Note: It's great that there's a stock in ear monitor with mic included in the package

Battery

With the use of a not so big screen and a less power hungry processor, the Prestigio Multiphone 8500 Duo's 2,000 mAh was able to last me a day on a single charge. I used the phone mainly for several calls, messaging and social media during that time. When it comes to heavy usage, this phone was able to surprise me. It lasted a little over 6 hours on max brightness, WiFi and Bluetooth on when playing light to moderate games that's quite impressive. It also has a battery saver to further extend the battery life of the phone.

Camera

The Multiphone 8500 Duo utilized an 8 MP rear camera sensor with autofocus and LED flash at the back, while the selfie camera is at 2 MP. To my surprise, both of those cameras were able to get me great shots with good lighting. Even if there's no image stabilization and the camera software isn't as beefy compared to the Lumia's, this device was able to give me decent focus speed, very fast shutter speed and image saving time. Even if it's not that good in lowlight, I don't find it as a deal breaker as most phones doesn't really perform nicely in that segment and you can always use the its decent flash.

Sample Shots

Normal landscape shot

Normal shot and HDR compared

A surprisingly good selfie phone

Performance

Even with the use of just the entry level 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 200 processor, the general peformance of the phone is very much acceptable. That's probably due to the 1 GB of RAM included and the great memory management of Windows Phone OS. The Adreno 302 GPU performs decently in gaming and other graphic requirements, but don't expect it to be great when used with apps with heavy requirements. I also noticed concessional lags in browsing websites with a lot of images.

Software-wise, the Multiphone 8500 has all of the Windows tools that you'll need. It's also easy to understand and has an a rapidly evolving marketplace where-in you can download the apps you wanted. When it comes to connectivity, the 8500 Duo has WiFi,, Bluetooth and the fast HSPA+ connectivity.

Pro's - Good battery life, decent performance, appealing looks and nice camera
Con's -  Display isn't that good, priced quite high nowadays

Verdict

It's a decent entry level Windows phone that was launched mid 2014 arrived late in the Philippines. However even if this one still offers a good package, it's now priced a bit high for the specs nowadays. I'm expecting Prestigio Philippines to give this one a price cut soon, just like what they did with the Multiphone 3450 Duo.

GIZ Rating: 3.75 / 5 Stars