Page 3 : The Flash Plus 2 Cameras, Display & Performance, Our Verdict

The Flash Plus 2 Cameras

Like its predecessor, the Flash 2 smartphone, the Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) is focused on photography. Flash even coined a term for the ultimate mobile photography experience – mobigraphy. To achieve that, the Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) has a 5 MP front camera that not only uses larger 1.12 μm pixels, it is supported by a dedicated LED flash. The front camera also has a 84.4° wide-angle lens with f/2.2 aperture.

The 13 MP main camera at the back features PDAF (phase-detection autofocus) technology, which allows for faster focusing. It has a bright f/2.0 lens with a wide angle of 76.5° and a blue optical glass filter. It is supported by a dual-tone LED flash, for more realistic skin tones.

The main camera is not only capable of recording full HD (1080p) videos, it can even do so at 60 fps. So the Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) is not only great for taking photos, it’s great for taking videos. But with limited storage, it’s best to add a microSD card if you intend to take many videos.

 

Display

The Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) comes with a 5.5″ Full HD OGS (one glass solution) display with a pixel density of ~401 ppi. Coupled with MiraVision 2.0 technology, we find it very pleasing to our eyes in use. The screen looks crisp, with colours that aren’t overly vivid, while remaining properly saturated.

The screen brightness was pretty satisfactory, although the adaptive brightness feature does seem a little slow in responding to changes in ambient light levels. The viewing angles are mostly acceptable with minimal colour shift when viewing from an indirect angle.

The Full HD resolution of 1080 x 1920 is perfect at this price point. It offers much greater resolution than competing devices with 720p displays, and you can really tell the difference. On the other hand, it saps less power than QHD displays (1440 x 2560) without a noticeable difference in sharpness.

The Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) uses Asahi Dragon Trail Glass to protect its display. This is similar to Gorilla Glass, offering a little extra ruggedness as well as high scratch resistance. Despite not fitting the Flash Plus 2 with a screen protector, we had not encountered any scratches within our period of use.

 

Performance

Under the hood, the Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) is powered by the MediaTek Helio P10 SoC. Also known as the MediaTek MT6755, it has an octa-core processor that consists of a set of 4 ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at 1.8 GHz, and a set of 4 ARM Cortex-A53 cores running at 1 GHz. It also has a dual-core ARM Mali-T860 MP2 GPU to handle 2D and 3G graphics.

The Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) comes in two variants. The basic model has 2 GB of LPDDR3 memory and 16 GB of internal flash storage. A higher-end model comes with 3 GB of LPDDR3 memory and 32 GB of internal flash storage. The model we tested came was the 2 GB model with 16 GB of storage.

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As expected, the Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) generally ran very smoothly, and switched between apps instantly. However, we did notice some slight lag after 2-3 days of continuous use. It could be due to the lack of polish in the UI, or an overly aggressive memory saving algorithm.

So, how does the processing package compare to other smartphones? Here are some results from common benchmarks :

AnTuTu Benchmark : 41,896
GeekBench 3 : 781 (Single Core), 3014 (Multi-Core)
Basemark OS II : 879 (Overall Score), 506 (Graphics Score)

This is decent performance, albeit nothing to shout about. Overall, this is no speed demon, but it’s fast enough to get the job done.

 

Our Verdict

The Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) is big jump in quality and capability from the Flash 2 smartphone. If you were impressed by the performance and value offered by the Flash 2 smartphone, you will undoubtedly be impressed by the Flash Plus 2. It is better than its predecessor in every way, and yet remains affordably priced.

Now, the Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) is not designed to take on the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge (Amazon | Lazada) or the HTC 10 (Amazon | Lazada). It is targeted at those who want an affordable phablet with decent performance and photographic capabilities. In that perspective, the Flash Plus 2 has certainly achieved its goal.

At its price point, you will be hard-pressed to find a smartphone with similar performance and photographic capabilities, a fast fingerprint sensor and build quality. The Flash Plus 2 (Amazon | Lazada) challenges the perception that you can’t have a decent smartphone with good photographic capabilities at an affordable price point. We can’t wait to see what Flash will come up with next!

 

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