Cherry Mobile FB100 Review - Budget FB Camera Phone

The Cherry Mobile FB100 is one of the more interesting ultra budget smartphone as of this writing. After unboxing it few weeks back, we mostly enjoyed what we first experienced. Aside from being a "Facebook centric handset", this device is a potential decent budget camera phone.

The beautiful 5 inch HD screen of FB100

Anyway, without further ado, here's our full review!

For the review part 1: Cherry Mobile FB100 Unboxing And First Impressions - Designed For Facebook!

Display Quality

Miravision software for display color calibration

Like what we previously stated, handsets with good HD screens under 3K isn't that common. Fortunately, this device is one of them. It has a 5 inch HD IPS screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels with the sharpness of 294 pixels per inch. It means that this is sharp enough not to make pixels visible from afar. Colors are also fairly nice where it showed some good hint of warmth and saturation.

The standard 5 points of touch

On board daylight, visibility is acceptable. It's not that legible, but acceptable. This handset has 5 points of touch as well.

Audio Quality

Speaker quality needs improvement

The single speaker behind is average in terms of loudness. However, quality is far from great. Sound is mostly muffled, muddy, noisy, and grainy. On max loudness level distortion is messed up. It's a understandable for a super budget phone though.

Speaker audio needs improvement.

For headphones audio, output is generally clean sounding. It isn't just full sounding where it missed producing punchy lows, sparkling highs, and full bodied mids. Soundstage is average, but separation isn't that evident.

Microphone for calls sounds decent and fine. For audio recordings, noise is very audible all over. It is mostly buddy as well. This is another point of improvement Cherry Mobile should notice.

Battery Life

Surprising battery test score

Considering that it only has 2,000 mAh of juice, the test results we got from the FB100 are surprising. Based on PC Mark battery test records, we got a score of 7 hours and 23 mins. That's an hour better than the average score we are getting from over 3,000 mAh handsets. Like the Flare S Play, this is a power optimized handset even with small battery capacity.

In real life usage, we were able to register at 5 hours and 22 mins of usage. Charging time is at 2 hours. Again, surprising for a phone with just 0.6A USB wall charger.

Camera

The 8 MP autofocus main camera behind

Equipped with an 8 MP f/2.4 main camera, we initially thought that the FB100 is like one of those budget handsets with below-average camera performance. But, we're wrong, the quality of stills taken with this device good.

It has a standard camera interface with HDR, panorama, and basic filters. Focus and shutter speed is decent, but not the speediest. Shooting in HDR will require very steady hands for about 3 seconds. Close-up shots are possible on 2 inches near subjects.

Going to its quality, the photos taken using this handset were sharp considering the price. Dynamic range is fine as long as you're in well lit places and most of our shots doesn't look look pale or soft. Yes, there are overexposure, grains, loss of detail in some conditions (especially lowlight), but again, this is just a sub PHP 3K phone. Understandable.

Rear Camera Samples

Auto vs HDR

Close-up shot, auto mode

Indoor dim lighting

Night test HDR

Bright flash (a bit overexposed subject)

In front, an 5 MP f/2.8 lens will take care of your selfies. There's no autofocus, but there's beautify and HDR to enhance your selfies. Wideness of angle also can fit 3 to 4 people. Shooting speed is less than a second as long as you're in a well lit place.

Quality-wise, details are sharp enough and colors are pretty warm. HDR works decently in harsh lighting conditions. Struggles in lowlight are understandable and expected due to its f/2.8 aperture lens. There's just no flash to make you at visible in the dark.

Selfie Camera Samples

Auto vs HDR

Angle is wider than the selfie cam of most budget smartphones

Lowlight selfie

For videos, the main camera can record up to FHD 1080p resolution. Shakiness are present due to its lack of OIS. Quality of colors are identical to what it can do in stills. Again, quality is acceptable for the price.

Video Samples

Performance

Antutu and Geekbench scores

This handset is loaded with a 1.3 GHz MT6580 quad core processor, Mali 400 GPU, and 1 GB of RAM. That's the common setup we usually see on very affordable smartphones like this one. It is good for casual usage and loading light apps. Facebook, Instragram, and Twitter works well. YouTube doesn't lag up to HD 720p. Playing other videos are also fine up to HD 720p quality. There's an 8 GB expandable storage for your files as well.

For gaming, games like Subway Surfers are playable. Asphalt 8 on very low settings also works, but expect some frame drops. NBA 2K17 isn't playable on this handset. Expect minor heating in playing games especially on 3G data mode.

Clean Marshmallow UI of the phone

Software-wise, it has a near stock looking Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS. There are few bloats, but it isn't the annoying ones. Smart gestures for shortcuts are missing though.

All the other basic telephony experience is fine. SIM signals aren't the strongest, but fine. Bluetooth works and GPS is stable. There's no OTG support though.

Pros - Nice HD screen, decent performance / battery life, very good cameras for the price 
Cons - Plasticky build and feel, software is too plain, tinny speaker audio, Facebook button is gimmicky

Verdict

The build quality of this device needs improvement and we feel that the dedicated Facebook button isn't for everyone. Gimmicky to make it short. Fortunately, Cherry Mobile made sure that the other aspects of this phone are okay!

Performance is decent for light apps, screen quality is HD good, and the cameras are very surprising for the price. At PHP 2,999, it is a decent buy.

Build / Design - 3.25
Display - 4
Audio - 3
Battery – 3.5
Camera - 4
Performance - 3.5
Average - 3.5 / 5