Cherry Mobile Flare S5 Plus Hands-on, First Impressions

One of the many Flare handsets launched by Cherry Mobile is the Flare S5 Plus which is, as its name says, an upgraded variant of the Flare S5. Check out our first impressions below.

The Flare S5 Plus is equipped with a 5.5-inch 1080p display. It’s an IPS panel assuring wide viewing angles on any side. The display has a black border that separates it from the brushed metal-look of its top and bottom bezel. An 8-megapixel BSI shooter and a couple sensors sit above display along with the earpiece. The lower front face has a physical home button that doubles as a fingerprint scanner and a pair of capacitive menu and back key similar to Samsung.

The side frame is made out of aluminum with the volume rocker and power/lock button on the right leaving the left side virtually empty of anything.

The top side has the 3.5mm jack and a lone antenna band.

The bottom end has a reversible USB Type-C port sandwiched by a drilled holes for the microphone and the loudspeaker.

The rear is a shiny polycarbonate removable cover. It provides access to the dual Micro SIM card and microSD card slots although the 3000mAh battery is non-removable. The rear camera is a 16MP BSI sensor accompanied by a dual LED flash.

The handset is a bit hefty on hand. If this has a bigger battery, it would be a nice trade off. After a few minutes on hand, the phone seems tiresome to hold.

The Flare S5 Plus is powered by a 1.3GHz MediaTek 6753 octa-core processor paired with Mali-T720 GPU. It’s got a generous 3GB of RAM and a standard 32GB internal storage which is expandable via the microSD card slot up to 64GB.

Cherry Mobile Flare S5 Plus specs:
5.5-inch IPS LCD @ 1920 x 1080 pixels
1.3GHz Mediatek 6753 octa-core processor
Mali T720 GPU
3GB RAM
32GB 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
Fingerprint Sensor
GPS w/ A-GPS
3000mAh non-removable battery
Android 6.0 Marshmallow

The Flare S5 Plus will retail for Php8,999USD 153INR 13,000EUR 146CNY 1,117. A full review is already on the way, be sure to check back again for updates.