It was my first attempt to review something from Cloudfone and it was the first octa-core phablet to break the Php 5,000 barrier before the end of December. Will the Cloudfone Excite 501o will be "sulit" to buy? Check out my review.
On the first boot of this device, these are what to expect to this device in it's main page and app drawer. It was also one of the few Cloudfone devices that has some pre-loaded ABS-CBN related apps which you have an option to uninstall it. The UI looks like a typical stock Android to me which is great.
Out of 8 GB ROM, there is about 4 GB for app storage and around 2GB for phone storage which a bit sad that it doesn't have unified storage. One of the concerns on this device is having a lower qHD display which is not bad for me as I zoomed out an online article via Opera Mini and almost no pixelated texts at all. It was my first time to encounter a phone with qHD screen resolution which still looks great when I am in full zoom mode in reading my e-books.
On calls and texts, I got no problems when I used the 2 sim slots on both Globe and Smart even that I only got 2 to 3 bars. In my house, Globe has the strongest signal which is quite unusual for this device compared to most of my phones that I reviewed which full bar is already a normal thing to me.
On entertainment, it got a good default volume for music and video using their stock headset. Unfortunately, the 3.5 mm. audio jack is not CTIA compliant. I had no problems on accessing my music files from the stock music player and videos via MX Player
The FM Radio is also working as fine plus a USB OTG is available on this device which is great.
On connectivity, there are no issues on pairing to Bluetooth and WiFi. That 2-bar signal was the culprit which I had a bit of difficulty in using my 3G mobile internet on both networks as I switch at times from 2G/3G mode to 3G and vice versa. I wonder what's the cause based on my experience.
On benchmarks, no surprise that I got over 31,000 on Antutu based on it's clock speed. It got 5 point multi touch and 58 fps based on Nenamark. The biggest shock that I checked (as you can also see some previous reviews on this device online and check their benchmark screenshots) that Cloudfone used 1.7 GHz Mediatek MT8392 octa-core processor which is normal to use for Android tablets instead of the MT6592 based on my research. I sent this discovery to some Cloudfone officials if it is really the processor for this device as official or just one or two batches and so on. No reply so far from them regarding this inquiry.
On battery test, I ran some HD MP4 videos on MX Player with 10% phone brightness, 7 MX Player brightness, 11 on volume, no Bluetooth, 3G, WiFi and 1 sim on 2G/3G mode and used their stock headset and got around 8 hours and 31 minutes from 100% to 1% from it's 2,250 mAh battery. I expected that it can be a little better at over 9 hours based on the battery capacity and lower screen resolution. Because on the misery that I experienced on 3G mobile surfing, it can survive for me for around 16 hours with blogging, taking pics, photo editing, texting and calling on over 5 hours of screen time.
On camera, both cams have f/2.8 aperture. The front cam is only good for taking pics outside or with a very good lighting. The rear camera doesn't have the fastest camera shutter speed but it's speed is acceptable to me. The output of pictures is already good enough but cannot match other octa phones with f/2.0 aperture.
Cloudfone Excite 501o 8 MP rear camera samples
Cloudfone Excite 501o 2 MP front camera sample
On gaming, I felt the difference of having a 1.7 GHz octa-core phone over the 1.4 Ghz octa-core again when I played Modern Combat 5 and Dead Trigger 2. I only had a very little lag on some scenes but it is very playable.
Pros: 1 regular + 1 micro sim, more on stock Android, qHD display is still great compared to others, cool back cover for a local brand, USB OTG
Cons: Not CTIA compliant on audio jack, issues on 3G mobile net connection, not that good selfie camera.
If there is one edge of this device over the already huge number of octa-core phone competitiors is the faster clock speed at 1.7 GHz octa-core compared to others with 1.4 GHz octa. This is also one of the fastest octa-core phones that I encountered on charging. I hope that they made around 6 GB for app storage but my biggest issue here was the difficulty in 3G mobile surfing and non-CTIA support on audio jack (most of it's counterparts have that quality)
I'll gonna give 3.5 out of 5 for the Cludfone Excite 501o based on my overall experience. You can still buy it at Cloudfone stores and authorized dealers for Php 4,999
