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Starmobile Diamond in the flesh, first impressions

We received the StarMobile Diamond over the week-end and tried it out to see if it is worth all the buzz it has been generating in the past couple of weeks.

Announced around the last week of March, the Starmobile Diamond is the company’s newest and biggest flagship handset.

It comes with a 5-inch IPS LCD screen at 720p resolution. That puts the pixel density of the Diamond at 293ppi which is already very good (beating the Galaxy Grand at 87ppi). Add to that the fact that it uses an IPS panel, the display is noticeably clear and crisp.

The body feels a bit bulky and, if you looks at the photo above, you would have noticed the thick bezel. Even the bottom corner where the soft buttons are situated, the area there seems to be under-utilized. The glass that lines the entire front panel feels very solid and thick, probably the result of employing Dragon Trail Glass from Asahi.

[uds-billboard name=”starmobile-diamond”]

The rest of the chassis feels very solid as well, though it seems a bit bulky already. The silver trimming around the white polycarbonate shell gives a slight relief from the monotone color.

The power button is on top along with the 3.5mm headphone jack and micro-USB port. At the back is the 12MP camera with LED flash as well as the speaker grills.

To give you an idea how the bezels ate up a lot of space, we placed the Starmobile Diamond beside the Galaxy S4 with both having 5-inch display.

The paint job on the Starmobile Diamond looks a bit more on the off-white spectrum (shown below the back side of the Diamond and the S4).

The handset has a respectable hardware configuration, starting with a dual-core CPU, 1GB of RAM and Android 4.1 Jellybean.

Starmobile Diamond specs:
5.0-inch IPS LCD display @ 720×1280 pixel
Dragontrail Glass display
1.0GHz dual-core processor
1GB RAM
4GB internal storage
up to 32GB via miroSD card (8GB included free)
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
3G/HSDPA 7.2Mbps
Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby
Bluetooth 2.1
GPS w/ aGPS
12MP rear camera, BSI
3MP front-facing camera
Li-Ion 2,000mAh battery
Android 4.1 Jellybean

Our only concern would be the rated battery capacity so that’s something we will look into closely when we do the full review.

The Starmobile Diamond is already available in stores and has a suggested retail price of Php9,990.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

31 Responses

  1. Avatar for kimpoy kimpoy says:

    cherry mobile omega HD “LAGGERS”
    starmobile Diamond “not LAGGERS”

    try nyo mag laro sa OHD ng real racing 3! mabilis pang slide show!

    sa SMD ok na ok ang real racing 3! no lags!

  2. Avatar for cha cha cha cha says:

    Quad-core MyPhone A919i Duo will have a ONE day SALE on April 30 for only Php7,900!

  3. Avatar for Kiko Kiko says:

    regarding aftersales for both SM and CM… or specifically CM. ano po ang problema? ano ba usually nagiging problema sa phones nila. Kasi since nagkaroon ako ng cellphone siguro once lang ako kumontak sa techservice (Nokia pa that time).

    I want to know what usually ang problema na naeexperience ng mga CM users.

    I’m interested to try Omega HD kasi.

  4. Avatar for neybey neybey says:

    okay ba ang sm diamond sa gaming? mga tipong dead trigger. saka kaya ba neto 1080p 30fps video recording? thanks

    • Avatar for chacha chacha says:

      …pwede na isacrifice ng konti un camera for quadcore kung gamer ka
      myphone A919i official price is P9,590 according sa sticker nila.

      http://goo.gl/lWwDW

  5. Avatar for jamison3point jamison3point says:

    MAKINIG… same manufacturer ang pinagkukunan nila ng cellphone. KASO MGA DRE. yung OMEGA HD kinuha nila un at tinatakan ng cherry mobile omega HD which is not HD. dahil sa processor nila ay Mediatek 6577… samantalang ang DIAMOND ay Mediatek 6577H.. napansin nyo ba? may H. saka ang omega ay nirepack lng samantalang ang STARMOBILE ay kinuha, then inenhance at pinag aralan tapos binalik sa manufacturer nila para gumawa ng desired nilang design… then saka nirepack. kaya mas mahal mga dre…. STW!!!

    • Avatar for Dennis Dennis says:

      I strongly agree! Pinagpipilitan na same OEM eh Same quality na agad, palibhasa yung mga nagmamagaling eh sa mga nababasa lang nila nakukuha. Nakabasa lang eh magaling na tingin sa sarili. Pagtyagaan nyu i translate yung thai page. Aminado naman ang i-mob na mas maganda si iq4 in terms of performance. Hays. We’ll in terms of design, mas gusto ko si OHD. In terms of everything, I’d go with SMD :D

  6. Avatar for lee lee says:

    anung unit name ung ilalabas ni mp? ok ang porma ng cm ohd. bet ko but wala k nmn mahanapan n stock :(

  7. Avatar for Danilo Ramos Danilo Ramos says:

    pwede ba ako bumili ng unit like samsung tab or samsung smart phone

  8. Avatar for rk rk says:

    sm diamond vs cm omega hd???… i go for cm omega hd this time… they have almost the same specs… but the looks of omega hd is stunning! it has more wow factor than sm diamond.

    cm omega hd… [winner]
    sm diamond… [loser]

    • Avatar for eutropics eutropics says:

      good luck nalang sa batt life ni omega, mas ok pa battery ni diamond, basahin mo lang dun sa isang blog, yung kay techlokal ata un eh

    • Avatar for rk rk says:

      omega hd battery issue???… i think is more on firmware side not on the hardware side. the cherry mobile sucks on android firmware. the starmobile’s firmware is one of the best in the local scene… if you just compared the two on hardware side… the build… the looks… the screen… the bezel ratio… panalo ang omega hd. They have same hardware quality… kasi iisa lang ang oem supplier

      by the way, omega hd’s weak android firmware can be remedied… but that’s another story. :)

    • Avatar for chacha chacha says:

      yup, nakakapagtaka din firmware ng Starmobile, compared sa Cherry, according sa mga friends kng user ng SM at cherry, mas matipid sa battery daw SM, at mas smooth ung starmobile.

  9. Avatar for juzak juzak says:

    Mas konti kasi bumibili ng Starmobile kaya malamang mas maaasikaso ka. Kung pareho sila ng nabebenta ng Cherry, lalagapak rin ang after sales support nila.

    • Avatar for ben ben says:

      tomooo!

    • Avatar for Janeth Janeth says:

      Nakakaloka si Cherry, labas ng labas ng bagong phone, they cant even manage their aftersales. Ayusin muna nila ang aftersales before sila maglabas ng many many many phones. Kalerki!

  10. Avatar for koyalee koyalee says:

    mas ok naman aftersales ni star or kahit siguro yung mp, kaduda-duda yung aftersales ni cherry eh, yung mga kaibigan ko, panay pila lang raw inabot dun sa north edsa service center nila x.x

  11. Avatar for otwist otwist says:

    Happy pa din ako sa Starmobile Flirt ko, so pass na muna sa Diamond hehehe…

    • Avatar for Harakiri Harakiri says:

      I have my starmobile Energy, mukhang tempting ang design ni Flirt, pero nagugustuhan ko rin si Diamond. Ayaw ko ng Cherry Mobile, ok pa Myphone or Starmobile.

  12. Avatar for cher cher says:

    2000 mah battery? Fail na naman Starmobile sa battery ng mga phones nila

    • Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

      Surprisingly good nman ang battery life neto for as long as u have one of those battery saving apps like Juice defender installed (which conserves unnecessary drain during idle/standby)….sa aking experience, mas matakaw ang GalaxyS3

      Tatagal to ng 8-10 hours sa heavy browsing brad
      Kung 720p video playback….almost 6 hours nman
      Yun nga lang pang Angry Birds lang ang gpu neto, which isn’t a big deal to some…

      Minimum brightness level (which is still bright)

    • Avatar for Justin Justin says:

      Yeah! Got my sister an Omega HD which has 100mAh higher battery compare to SMD. However, SMD lasted longer. Why oh why?!!

  13. Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

    Got to give props to iMobile Thailand…This phone’s ips screen is a killer…slightly better than my S Amoled Note 2….at ang ganda ng camera sa lowlight, pang high end yung quality…yun nga lang bakit 3gp ang codec sa HD video at hindi. Avi….

    Anyways. This phone (the Cherry Mobile variant) is the best bang for buck smartphone at the moment bar none.

  14. Avatar for Freeje Freeje says:

    Waste of space hence bulky.

  15. Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

    Na mis calculate ng Starmobile ang pricing dito….akala nila siguro walang mag re rebrand na iba… it’s essentially almost identical to a Php 7,999 Omega HD….lol

    FAIL , Starmobile…Fail

    • Avatar for Migz Migz says:

      Isip isip muna dude kung rebranded ba talaga from i-mobile or your just basing your conclusion sa mga blogs lang na nababasa natin. Tsk

    • Avatar for abuzalzal abuzalzal says:

      Anong gusto mong palabasin ngayon? Mas SUPERIOR ang SM? Lmaaaaaaaao….lokohin mo lelang mo mr starmobile employee

    • Avatar for Migz Migz says:

      Well, you should be proud Mr. Cherry Mobile employee because I have an OHD. Wala akong nakita na sinabi kong superior ang SM. Basa basa muna. Haha

    • Avatar for jaypee jaypee says:

      di naman kailangan ng away dito, let’s agree nalang na may kanya kanya silang strengths. eh kung mura si cherry, eh di mura siya. si star, at least ok naman reputation niya sa aftersales. magkaiba naman yung reputation nung dalawa eh, di na kailangan pagtalunan yung specs

    • Avatar for kumanderbobot kumanderbobot says:

      FYI, same oem manufacturer ng OHD at diamond. that is a fact. some build and quality is the same. pero sa presyo ng diamond dun nalang ako sa quadcore na ilalabas ni myphone. taob ang dalawa dun.

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