Cherry Mobile Cosmos One Plus Quick Review

Cherry Mobile opened up the year with a massive flagship handset in the name of CM Cosmos One Plus. We got an early review unit and put the handset in a quick stress test to see how it fares.

The Cosmos One Plus succeeded from last year’s flagship Cosmos One which was the anniversary model from Cherry Mobile priced at just under Php7,000USD 119INR 10,112EUR 114CNY 869.

The new flagship comes with an impressive configuration, packing a 2.0GHz octa-core chip from Mediatek with 3GB of RAM and dual-LTE capability.

The unit feels a bit hefty but with solid build and construction despite the fact that it’s mostly made up of polycarboate materials. The body is flat with a slightly curved back to allow for a more comfortable grip. The black model has a metallic-silver trimming and a textured back cover.

The volume rocker is found on the left side while the power button is on the right side together with a dedicated camera shutter. At the top side is the 3.5mm audio port with the noise-cancelling mic and the bottom end is where the microUSB port is found with the speaker mic.

The handset has a 5.5-inch full HD LTPS (Low-temperature polycrystalline silicon) display giving it a resolution of 401ppi providing a clear and crisp image. The capacitive buttons at the bottom corner (Menu, Home, Back) are slightly backlit but can be hard to see under direct sunlight or outdoors.

With Android 4.4 Kitkat right out of the box and a simple almost Vanilla-like user-interface, the Cosmos One Plus feels snappy and responsive. Cherry Mobile added a few extra feaures like Cast Screen (Miracast), HotKnot (WiFi Direct), Gesture Sensing, Schedule Tasks (Power On and Off), and SIM Management for the dual-LTE support. There are also a number of pre-installed apps like Pinoy App Shop, TouchPal X, Wireless Update App, Torch, and NFCTagMaster.

Over-all performance of the Cosmos One Plus is very impressive, even beating a lot of the benchmark scores of international flagship devices of 2014. The Mediatek MT6595 chip uses an ARM ‘big.LITTLE’ architecture, with 4 2.0GHz high-performance Cortex-A17 and 4 1.7GHz energy efficient Cortex-A7 processors.

Benchmark scores are among the highest we’ve seen so far, starting with a staggering 47,614 score on Antutu Benchmark.

Based on the benchmark scores alone, the Cosmos One Plus got way better scores than the LG G3, HTC One M8, Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro and Xperia Z3. Only the Galaxy Note 4 trumped the Cosmos One Plus in almost all tests.

The GPU is not as good a Qualcomm’s Adreno 330 graphics, thus a much lower score in 3DMark.

The Cosmos One Plus also uses the same Sony IMX214 sensor as the Nexus 6, Oppo Find 7a and OnePlus One. Suffice to say the camera on the Cosmos One Plus performed really well, even under low-light conditions. Here are some sample shots taken with the Sony IMX214 sensor:

[fancygallery id=”169″ album=”202″]

As for battery life, the removable 2,700mAh Li-Polymer battery lasts us about a full day on moderate use but in our standard battery bench, the Cosmos One Plus only got 7.5 to 8 hours running a video in a loop at 50% brightness and 0% volume.

Cherry Mobile definitely has a superphone right here with the Cosmos One Plus. The high-end hardware configuration is evident from the top performance in our benchmark tests. It comes with dual-LTE connectivity which is rare and first seen with the Huawei Ascend Mate 7. They top it off with 3GB of RAM that only flagship handsets tend to carry nowadays and a very capable Sony sensor for the camera.

Cherry Mobile also promises a Android 5.0 Lolipop update for the Cosmos One Plus soon so that’s something to look forward too.

Suggested retail price of the Cherry Mobile Cosmos One Plus is pegged at Php13,999USD 239INR 20,223EUR 227CNY 1,737.

Cherry Mobile Cosmos One Plus specs:
5.5-inch LTPS display @ 1920×1080 pixels, 401ppi
Corning Gorilla Glass 2
Mediatek MT6595M 2.0GHz octa-core processor
IMG Rogue G6200 450MHz GPU
3GB RAM
32GB internal storage
up to 64GB via microSD
Dual micro-SIM
LTE Cat 4 150Mbps
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n/ac
Bluetooth 4.1
NFC
Miracast
FM radio tuner
14MP rear camera, Sony IMX214 BSI Sapphire Lens f/2.0
GPS with aGPS support, GLONASS
8MP front-facing camera
Li-Polymer 2,700mAh battery
Android 4.4.2 Kitkat

What we liked about the Cosmos One Plus:
* High performance scores
* Dual-LTE, dual-SIM capability
* NFC-ready
* Generous amount of RAM
* Full HD display
* Good rear camera
* Reasonable price point

What we did not like:
* Average battery life
* Uninspiring design