After spending over a week for one of MyPhone's DTV phone offerings, I had the result. This is my review for the MyPhone My86 DTV.
On the physical looks, My86 DTV has a bit curved back and rubbery finish still with their Philippine map. The device was not as heavy so one hand navigation is ok.
Unlike on the My36, Rio Pixie and some MP Android phones with MyOS touch, this one has almost stock lollipop on this one plus a new set on MyPhone wallpapers highlighting their Tatak Pinoy Tatak Matibay slogan but the old school wallpapers are there. I used the same wallpaper as to MyPhone Infinity Lite review. Yup, there is an app drawer and some MyPhone based apps which you can either disable or uninstall.
The 5 inch HD display was a pleasure to check out the DTV. The phone only has 2 point multi touch but gliding your fingers to navigate has a bit of effort on my part which i felt that it was in between the resistive and capacitive touch compared to my old school dual core MyPhone Storm TV. I hope that it is a software issue which MyPhone have to check.
Calls, texts, WiFi, Bluetooth, mobile data and WiFi were a-ok on my part.
I just found out that this device has the Speadtrum SC7731 octa-core processor which I am familiar in so those simple web browsing and some app switching can be done easily. Just do not put in some heavy games in it. Just a random thing, it does not have OTG compatibility.
On camera, I knew for the Php 2,999 price tag that I will fuully get the quality of 13 MP rear cam and 5 MP front on this one plus I got an info that the said SoC only supports a max. of 8 MP. Still what more you can ask for. The 2 selfies were taken without and with flash in that order. I shot in low light and in a rainy night inside ATC.
On mhy battery video rundown test, it survived at 8 hours and 23 minutes which is respectable for it's 2300 mAh battery. On using the DTV only using a bluetooth earphones at max volume , 75% brightness and battery saver on, it managed to do 5 hours. I had to to do this as the 3.5 mm. audio jack occupies as the DTV antenna
I saved the best for last for anything DTV for this phone. This device supports both the full seg (the choice if you have screens with high res) and one seg (which is fit for mobile devices). In scanning the phone, the HD channel is the full seg one while the one seg represented in SD (as some channels already labeled as one seg like ABS CBN one seg and TV5 one seg).
The My Digital TV app has some features like (in order by those icons below) list of channels, screenshot, changing screen aspect ratio from 16:9 or 4:3, channel left, record button, channel right, EPG (same function to ABS-CBN TV Plus which you can check the sked by the day - so far ABS-CBN and Sports and Action have it), search icon and settings. In recording, the HD channel averages about 20 MB a minute in 400 x 224 resolution and less than 200 for recording one seg channels. The file is in mp4 but for playback, I recommend you to use MX Player as the stock video player app will not recognize the file.
I expected that the signal reception will not be as strong versus the TV Plus but it is functional and good. when I used it while travelling on SLEX on high speed, one of the stress tests that some DTV boxes cannnot hold on. If you are planning to buy this phone mainly for DTV, I advise you to ask your neighbors with DTV boxes to check their channel signal availability so that you might have an idea. DTV channel signal in provinces are limited so better to do that thing if the DTV is one of your priorities but in NCR, it is almost as good in terms of accessibility.
I tried an expirement which I used an audo jack splitter so that I can accomodate the DTV antenna and earphones at the same time. It only works at it's best when I was in Quezon City, one of the best DTV spots that you can find right now. It struggled when I had it in the south of the metro so it will be better if you have a BT earphones or stick in speaker mode.
Two things that are missing in this device are the BML and EWBS (emergency broadcast weather service) which is helpful for alerts like for earthquakes (TV Plus had a test on it during the recent NCR Shake Drill last year)
As an extra, the audio jack does not have CTIA compatibility
Based on the overall experience, I will gonna rate the MyPhone My86 DTV as 3.75 out of 5. The touch sensitivity was really my biggest pain point on this device which I hope MyPhone will have a software fix very soon. I will really love to compare this with the My85 DTV at the same price but with Mediatek processor soon
