Cherry Mobile Flare X3 Hands-on and First Impressions

by Joey June 27, 2019

written by Joey June 27, 2019

It’s been more than a couple of years since we’ve last seen an X-series smartphone from Cherry Mobile, and yesterday, the country’s top smartphone brand just announced the Cherry Mobile Flare X3. Packed with five AI cameras and 6GB RAM to boot, the Flare X3 aims to cater to mobile gamers who are into photography as well. We were lucky enough to experience the 6.18-inch smartphone even for just a short period of time during our recent visit at Cherry Mobile’s head office, and here are our first impressions of the device.

DESIGN and CONSTRUCTION

The Flare X3 comes in Twilight Purple, with a gorgeous gradient design with shades of dark blue and red, this in contrast from the traditionally subtle design of Cherry Mobile smartphones. At first glance, you would have mistaken it for a smartphone from a different brand if not for the “Cherry Mobile” inscription in the middle.

Both the front and back are glass, and the sides made of metal with chrome silver finish. There are no physical home buttons on the display, and on top is the dual front-facing camera housed on a familiar notched design. At the back is the triple-rear camera setup and flash arranged vertically, a design we’re becoming accustomed to with the recently launched smartphones.

At the bottom is the USB Type-C port and speakers, and on top is the 3.5mm headphone jack. The Flare X3 uses a hybrid SIM slot which can be found on the left of the device. On its right are the volume rockers, power button, and just below, the fingerprint sensor. The placement of the fingerprint sensor is unconventional but something we’ve already seen in some smartphone brands.

The Cherry Mobile Flare X3 is aesthetically pleasing and offers a solid design and build that is nice to hold, similar to those of premium smartphone brands.

DISPLAY and MULTIMEDIA

The Flare X3 sports a 6.18″ FHD+ TrueView display with 19:9 aspect ratio, providing a wider screen to enjoy when watching movies or playing games. Display quality is crisp and vivid, and legible even when we tested it outside.

CAMERA
The Android 9 Pie smartphone boasts of five AI cameras. In front you have the 20MP + 2MP dual camera for selfies, and at the back you have the triple rear camera setup composed of a 12MP main camera + 5MP camera for bokeh + 2MP monochrome camera. The autofocus worked well even indoors and shots were clear. Sadly, we were not able to test the camera further because of our limited time, and it was already past office hours. We were lucky enough though to get a copy of some night photos previously taken by our friends.

Powering the Cherry Mobile Flare X3 is a Mediatek Helio P60 processor with 6GB of RAM. We loaded and tested a couple of games including Mobile Legends on the device and as expected, we enjoyed our time playing and hardly noticed any lags. We can’t wait to get our hands on a test unit and find out more what the device has to offer in terms of performance.

For storage, the Flare X3 comes with 64GB out of the box and can accommodate up to 256GB more via microSD. Battery is also sufficient at 4000mAh.

The Flare X series smartphones have always been the device for power users, and clearly Cherry Mobile took some time to come up with another well-thought-of device, evident of the Flare X3’s quality design and promising internals. All that’s left is the official retail price.