O+ 8.52 Unboxing: Affordable Jelly Bean Powered Android Phone

Our friends from O+ USA just sent us their new affordable Jelly Bean powered smartphone, the O+ 8.52. It’s a very good looking and sleek android phone with an average size to fit in to those who don’t jump into the ‘bigger is better’ hype. Do you want to know what’s inside the box? Check it out after the break.

The O+ 8.52 doesn’t have the same packaging as the O+ 8.12, instead it’s housed in a small box with a printed “O+” brand in front. The box still looks elegant despite its unusual design and I must say that it’s really cool. If you have been on an O Plus kiosk before, it’s actually the one beneath the phones on display.

UPDATE: Check out our full review of the O+ 8.52 HERE.

Opening it up reveals the O+ 8.52 on top. Digging down deeper, we’ll find the other accessories. First is the manuals and the Sandisk microSD card and the next set can be found on the lower level. Actually, the box contents is the typical O Plus goodies namely: the android phone, battery, FREE 4GB microSD card, microUSB cable, charger, earphones, manuals, and warranty cards. If you’ve noticed, O+ is generous enough to include a free microSD card in the package so in case you still don’t have funds to buy high capacity sd cards, you can still use it right away and enjoy it without needing anything else. Who doesn’t want to load their android phones with tons of games right after purchasing it?

First Impressions

The O Plus 8.52 is very snappy straight out of the box. It has the same internals like other cheap android phones in the Philippines but it’s surprisingly better. We immediately noticed it after fiddling with it for a while and I believe that we should give credit to Google’s Project Butter for this added smoothness. The 4-inch WVGA IPS display is also great as the colors are vibrant and pretty accurate. Sunlight legibility is okay and since it’s IPS, it’s significantly better than those with TFT screens.

The 1GHz dual-core processor, PowerVR SGX 531 GPU and 512MB RAM combo is getting old already but it’s still a fine duo. With the addition of Jelly Bean, it’s even faster and will bring you the goodness of the new Android version which ICS lacks. One thing that I like most about it so far is the ability to expand the notifications so you can easily see it without needing to go to a certain app. It’s a big time saver for someone like me because I will not be going through the app anymore if I immediately see that the notification is not that importan to look at.

I ran it through AnTuTu Benchmark test and I got a score of 7011. It’s great for its price and it just goes to show that it’s better than other devices which is on the similar price category.

Other features that are worth noting are the 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash and VGA front-facing camera. It also has the capability of 720p HD video recording which is a major plus considering its fairly low price tag. I was actually surprised to see that option in the video recorder because I thought that it would pack a 480p quality at best. As far as first impressions go, I could say that this smartphone is a competitive entry to our local market especially because of the Android Jelly Bean OS on-board. The only problem I’m seeing is its mediocre  1450mAh battery but its already more than 24 hours since I opened it and it still has lots of juice left so I’m not gonna draw some conclusions yet until I fully test it on everyday usage.

We’ll be using it thoroughly  in the coming weeks to give you a better perspective on how it performs so if you’re interested on this gadget, stay tuned to know our final verdict in our full review. The O+ 8.52 is now available at O Plus Kiosks nationwide and it can be bought for only Php5,999.

UPDATE: You can find our comprehensive review of the O Plus 8.52 HERE.