Cherry Mobile Flare S5 Hands-on, First Impressions

Cherry Mobile finally released the Flare S5 — a lower-midrange phone in Cherry’s latest Flare series.

The Cherry Mobile Flare S5 is 5-inch smartphone that sports an IPS display with a 720p resolution. The design language of the handset reminds of Samsung’s Galaxy series with a physical home button below the display and a pair of capacitive keys on either sides. The button also houses a fingerprint scanner has become a common feature for such devices. An 8MP selfie camera sit above the display.

The Flare S5 has an aluminum frame that wraps the side of the handset to add premium construction to it. The left is where the volume rocker and the power/lock button are placed.

Up top is the 3.5mm headphone jack an antenna band to let radio waves pass through the metal frame. At the bottom, the Flare S5 features a USB-Type C connector, and holes for the loudspeaker and microphone.

The glossy rear panel is, as mentioned, removable to give access to the dual SIM card slots and microSD card slot. You can’t pry out the 2400mAh battery as it’s already built-in. The rear camera a 16MP BSI sensor with phase-detection autofocus and dual-LED flash.

Powering the S5 is a 1.3Ghz Mediatek Octa-core processor with a Mali T720GPU. It has 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The S5’s storage can be expanded via the microSD card slot that supports up to 64GB. The S5 also features a gyroscope, just in case you’re wondering.

Cherry Mobile Flare S5 specs:
5-inch IPS LCD @ 1280 x 720 pixels
1.3GHz Mediatek 6753 octa-core processor
Mali T720 GPU
3GB RAM
16GB internal storage
Expandable via microSD, up to 64GB
16-megapixel BSI PDAF rear camera w/ LED flash
8-megapixel BSI front camera
Dual SIM
4G LTE (700MHz ready)
Wi-Fi 802.11ab/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0
USB Type C
Light Sensor, Proximity Sensor, G-Sensor
Gyroscope
Fingerprint Sensor
GPS w/ A-GPS
2400mAh non-removable battery
Android 6.0 Marshmallow

The Cherry Mobile Flare S5 has an SRP of Php5,699USD 97INR 8,233EUR 92CNY 707. The Flare S5 has a bigger brother, dubbed as the Flare S5 Plus, with a bigger display and more storage.

Pete Deyto contributed to this article