Hands-On: O+ 8.16

The successor to the popular O+ 8.15 is yet another bigger smartphone, the O+ 8.16. It has the same hardware secs as the O+ 8.15 but housed on a bigger chassis.

If the O+ 8.15 is the the Galaxy S4, the 5.7-inch O+ 8.16 is to the Galaxy Note 3. Not that we’re really comparing the two but our understanding is that both devices are positioned by O+ much like Samsung does. And while the 8.16 is already in the phablet territory, it doesn’t have any stylus to pair with it.

The 8.16 almost followed the same simple, yet elegant design of the 8.15 although we noticed it is more rounded in the corners and considerably thicker. The black matte finish is accented by a silver trimming around the edges.

The front panel is covered entirely of glass with the three soft buttons positioned at the bottom corner along the thick bezel.

The volume controls are on the left side while the power button is on the right. The 3.5mm audio jack is at the top end along with the microUSB port.

At the back is the 13MP autofocus camera with the LED flahs just below it, both surrounded by a protruding platform with matte silver finish.

The handset has a certain heft to it and the construction is pretty solid, like what we’ve always expected from O+. The hardware configuration might be a little underwhelming to some, especially users of the 8.15 since both have almost exactly the same specs, except perhaps for the bigger battery capacity and screen real estate.

O+ 8.16 specs:
5.7-inch IPS LCD display @ 1280×720 pixels, 258ppi
Mediatek MT6589T 1.2GHz quad-core processor
PowerVR SGX544MP
1GB RAM
8GB internal storage
up to 32GB via microSD (8GB included)
Dual-SIM, dual-standby
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 2.0
GPS
13MP rear camera with LED flash
Li-Ion 2,500mAh battery
Android 4.1.2 Jellybean

With moderate use, our battery test gave us a little over a day on a single full charge. However, when running a full HD 1080p video in a loop at 50% brightness and 0% volume, we ended up at about 6.5 hours run time. Not bad considering the size of the screen but still cutting it a little low.

Standard suite of benchmarks we ran thru the device showed pretty good numbers — 13,488 in Antutu, 3,938 in Quadrant and 46.2fps in Nenamark2.

The O+ 8.16 has a suggested retail price of Php12,995USD 221INR 18,773EUR 211CNY 1,613 and is available in stores since last month.