Meet WIKO T50 - Still a contender in early 2023?
WIKO is a new contender in the smartphone industry and recently the T50 model entered the PH market mid last year.
Fast forward to early 2023, we revisited the WIKO T50 to see if it is still a compelling offering for the price.
Meet the WIKO T50
As a recap, the T50 boasts a 6.6-inch FHD+ IPS LCD screen, 12nm 2.0GHz MediaTek Helio G85 SoC with Mali-G52 2EEMC2 GPU, 6GB RAM, 128GB storage, 4000mAh battery, and 40W fast charging.
But first, let's unbox it.
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| WIKO T50's box |
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| Inside the box |
Inside the box, you will find the smartphone itself, adaptor, USB-A to USB-C, warranty, user manual, screen protector, and transparent case.
Build Quality/Design
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| The rear view of the phone |
First of all, WIKO gave the handset a modern-looking device, somewhat similar to what you see around the entry-level or even mid-range.
Neat look!
The body is made out of polycarbonate plastic, and it has an elliptical camera island that houses the triple camera setup. It comes in three different colors such as Aqua Green, and Lively Pink and the one we have here is Midnight Black color.
To our eyes, it looks simple, neat, and elegant with a shiny rear cover. Although we notice that it is prone to fingerprint smudges.
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| The front view |
Upfront it has a 6.6-inch wide Full HD+ display with a centered punch-hole design. Personally, I would prefer this over a dewdrop notch, or side punch hole as they are simply convenient to look at.
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| The screen in landscape mode |
The screen quality looks crisp, has good details, and has balanced colors. It may not be an AMOLED type but it surely gives a pleasant viewing experience. However, we noticed that its peak brightness may not be enough when used under the sun. You can still see it but it gave us a hard time.
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| Right side view |
Looking at the right side you will see the volume rockers and the side-mounted fingerprint reader. Which in our experience performs responsively most of the time.
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| The left portion |
On the left side, it's just a plain plastic frame and has no buttons. Speaking of the frames, we think it is quite sturdy and looks pretty solid.
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| Top view |
The top part covers the 3.5mm headphone jack, a sensor, and a microphone.
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| The bottom view |
At the bottom, you will find the USB-C port, another speaker grill, microphone, and SIM card tray slot.
Camera Samples
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| Daylight shot 1 |
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| Daylight HDR mode |
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| Indoor food shot 1 |
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| Indoor food shot 2 |
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| Selfie daylight 1 |
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| Outdoor selfie in a gloomy weather |
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| Outdoor night shot |
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| Outdoor night shot using HDR mode |
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| Selfie low light 1 |
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| Selfie using the screen's flash |
If you notice, the T50 produced decent photos for environments with good lighting in both the rear and selfie shots. We were able to get good picture quality, near-accurate colors, and an acceptable dynamic range.
However, it falls short in low-light conditions. While it got the exact colors of the scenes, we noticed there are a lot of noises and some blurry areas. The HDR mode helps by brightening the image and improving the dynamic range but only by a little. We would like to point out that there's no night shooting mode which could be a remedy to it.
Taking photos with the T50 is inconsistent. Sometimes it requires still hands as we notice that it is quite slow in processing the image but other times it is okay. We notice this happens when the phone gets warm upon prolonging the usage of the camera app. Hopefully, we expect WIKO to fix this issue. After all, they are just new in the market and can still improve in the future.
Performance
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| The benchmark results |
For benchmarks, the WIKO T50 gets 234,469 for AnTuTu, 344 single core, 1,318 multicore performance in Geekbench, and 772 points for the 3D Mark test.
Usable speed,but nothing remarkable
In real-life usage, we find the phone capable of handling mainstream tasks such as social media, video streaming, picture taking, and even gaming.
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| The gaming experience |
We even tried MLBB and COD: Mobile which gave us decent performance at high settings and 60 FPS. We only encountered frame drops after heating due to long hours of playing.
The 6GB RAM is still acceptable by today's standards and we have no problem with it. We rarely encountered lags when opening multiple apps and it is still a breeze when switching between them. It also goes the same for the 128GB memory if you're a light gamer and just use the phone for social media, and video streaming, rarely takes photos and videos and such then there's no need to look for bigger storage.
Meanwhile, our battery test using PC mark gave us 14 hours and 47 mins in 50 percent brightness. Another highlight of the phone lies in its fast charging as it uses a 40W adapter. We find it a time saver, especially for us who often forgets to charge our devices at night. Based on our observation, it can quickly get to 25 percent from zero in just 10 minutes and a full charge in 1 hour only.
The speakers are surprisingly good even at louder volumes. We noticed the details won't deteriorate and it can even fill the whole room at max volume. The fingerprint sensor also works quickly and won't give you problems when opening the device.
For connectivity, the 4G LTE picks up the signals decently our webpages or YouTube streaming loads fast. It goes the same with the WiFi and there's even a 5GHz frequency which will allow you to take advantage of faster internet speeds.
Note that some affordable phones already have 5G at this price point.
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| The phone's UI |
The phone runs Android 11 with a resemblance to the stock OS. We only saw minimal bloatware inside which is a good thing, unlike others who have ads and dozens of bloats preinstalled. This is also the reason why we think the whole navigation experience was fluid and responds quickly.
WIKO T50 Specs
Display: 6.6-inch 2.5D curved LCD screen w/ FHD+ 2404 x 1080 resolution at 399 ppi
CPU: 2.0GHz 12nm MediaTek Helio G85 octa-core processor
GPU: Mali-G52 2EEMC2 (1,000MHz)
RAM: 6GB
ROM: 128GB
Back Camera: 64MP w/ PDAF + 8MP ultra-wide-angle + 2MP depth + LED flash
Selfie Camera: 16MP
Battery: 4,000mAh w/ USB-C 40W Fast Charge
OS: Android 11
Connectivity: WiFi (2.4GHz/5GHz), 4G LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, GPS, A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, Galileo, dual SIM (nano)
Sensors: Accelerometer, light, orientation, proximity, gyroscope, sound, magnetic
Others: Side-mounted fingerprint sensor, USB-C, Colors: Aqua Green, Lively Pink, Midnight Black
Dimensions: 160.7 x 73.3 x 8.4 mm
Weight: 179 g
Price: PHP 11,999 (PHP 9,999 sale price)
Quick thoughts
Now priced at just PHP 9,999 (From PHP 11,999), the WIKO T50 offers better value than ever.
For us, it is an okayish-performing device with style, decent cameras, and fast charging.
However, we feel that the brand could've brought more to the table considering its competitors in this price range have more powerful devices with a refined UI experience and can also bring similar strengths that the T50 has. Most PHP 10K phones are also equipped with newer and stronger internals. Some even have 5G.
Still, if you are willing to try something new despite the aforementioned nitpicks then this device could be the one you're looking for.
What do you guys think?
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