Not a lot of android phones have a physical keyboard. Maybe they are not really made for it, or maybe that’s just out of style these days. Well, despite the growing interest of people in touchscreen devices, there are some who prefer the traditional way of input – through a physical keyboard.
I admit it, at first texting on my smartphone does feel like I could do a little better if I’m typing on a physical keyboard. However, as soon as you get along with the on screen QWERTY keyboard of android, you’ll be as fast as Flash. I’m not convincing you to jump to the touchscreen bandwagon but how about reading the rest of our review before you decide? Alright, then we’re set.
Design
The design of the O+ 8.2 unsurprisingly looks odd at first since it’s not everyday that we see a phone of this type. The traditional touchscreen display is obviously on top and right below it is four capacitive buttons namely; Menu, Home, Back, and Search. Moving down further, we’ll find the QWERTY physical keyboard.
The handset sports an orange lining on the side and the whole body is black colored. The removable back case is textured so it won’t slip in your hands accidentally. At the top and middle of the back is 3.2-megapixel camera.
The look doesn’t really look attractive for the normal eye but once you get used to it, you’ll eventually appreciate its design. It actually appear to be cute thanks to its vibrant orange lining which I like a lot.
Display, Performance, OS
The O+ 8.2 flaunts a 2.8-inch QVGA (240×320) TFT display so I was not impressed on how it looked like. Honestly, the screen isn’t really bad but I just got used to better screens that’s why I was underwhelmed. However, for its brightness, clarity, and color reproduction, I would say that the O Plus 8.2 managed to give a pretty good job on it. For less than Php4k, we can’t really complain that much.
Being a low-end android phone, it means that it won’t be something that power users should rely on. It gets the job done most of the time but for those who need more speed won’t be too impressed. But the good thing is, it was never intended for that.
It performs quite acceptable in today’s standards and is often smooth when it comes to basic tasks. Actually, even the not so demanding tasks works okay. The UI is smooth and navigating through homescreens and app drawer pages are fast.
O Plus 8.2 comes preloaded with Android 2.3 Gingerbread and I know, it’s not the latest. It’s probably fine for most first time users but I think that they should be better off with ICS. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gingerbread. I love it’s simplicity and functionality but Ice Cream Sandwich is such a huge leap that I couldn’t ignore. Anyway, almost all the things that you might need comes with this handset and Gingerbread is a good compliment for its not so flashy hardware. If it will run ICS on this hardware, forget it.
Overall, I could safely say that there’s actually little lag that you need to deal with. Basic operations and basic games do run fine and I don’t see any with it as you’ll be buying it with the knowledge that it doesn’t carry much power.
Internet Connectivity, Gaming
When it comes to connectivity, the 8.2 has everything you need. From 3G, Wi-Fi, Internet sharing, Bluetooth, and GPS is all there. In real life, you’ll only be needing the core features such as Wi-Fi, 3G, and Bluetooth.
Mobile data browsing is smooth thanks to 3G connectivity and the same goes when on Wi-Fi. Of course the bluetooth doesn’t have any issues. Pairing and sending files were a no brainer as you would expect from an android phone.
Gaming is nothing to be excited about, but it still has some kicks anyway.. Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds, and Cut the Rope are some of the games we tried and you could expect that it would run anything you throw provided that it’s on par with the caliber of those games. Again, you won’t find anything spectacular, particularly Temple Run, but it’ll still be a decent experience when it comes to gaming.
Camera
O+ 8.2 doesn’t really have a very nice camera and considering the price we can’t complain all that much. However, when you’re on good lighting conditions, it’ll still take fairly good photos. On instances that you don’t have much light, it’ll be below average. Check out the photos below.
Multimedia, Storage, Battery
Like any other android phones, the O+ 8.2 is also a multimedia powerhouse though its limit in screen size is a caveat. Viewing videos is doable of course but enjoying it is a bit hard as you can barely see the content especially if its a movie. For older people or those who don’t have a good pair of eyes, it’ll be straining as the details will be harder to distinguish.
The speaker is good enough for conventional listening but it won’t fill out an entire room. Playing music on loudspeaker is nice but it’s just for basic use. If you’re on a noisy environment, I would suggest that you use the earphones so you can enjoy your music or video better.
Another culprit to O+ 8.2 is its lack of sufficient storage. There is only around 150MB of internal storage but thankfully there is microSD card support up to 32GB. You will be limited in the number of apps that can be installed but you can always move over some of them on your microSD card so you can make space for new ones. Some of them cannot be moved though, like widgets, launcher, and other apps which is required to stay in the internal memory.
Since it doesn’t have powerful hardware, the 1400 mAh battery performs well and is long lasting prior to moderate to heavy usage. The basic principle applies that if you play games and surf the web more often, then it’s likely that you would run out of juice quickly. If you use this for texting, calling, and a couple of minutes of surfing and gaming, it can last you a day and a half to two full days.
Conclusion
O+ 8.2 isn’t really a super android phone in its regard but rather a modest performer that would give an acceptable android experience at a very low price. There are a lot of competitors out there and that’s inevitable, but they don’t have a physical QWERTY keyboard that a lot of feature phone users (and Blackberry) are leaning to.
O+ 8.2 Specs
- 2.8-inch QVGA TFT Display
- QWERTY physical keyboard
- 650MHz Mediatek processor
- 256MB RAM
- 150MB internal memory
- 3.2-megapixel rear camera
- VGA front facing camera
- WiFi, WiFi hotspot
- 3G, HSDPA
- Bluetooth
- microUSB
- GPS
- Android 2.3 Gingerbread
- 1400mAh Li-Ion battery
To be honest, the specs are quite underwhelming these days as we are now moving to more powerful hardware. If speed and gaming is important to you, I suggest you take a look at our review of the O+ 8.52 and O+ 8.6 as they are more geared towards those categories. If you have a couple of thousands more, then you can also look at O Plus 8.12 which is priced at Php11,995.
O+ 8.2 is available on all O Plus stores and retailers nationwide for only Php3,995.
i bought this phone for easy texting because of its qwerty keyboard. but i have some problems with this phone. first the battery, it only lasts in less than 24 hours upon use of maybe 30 texts, 2 calls, and 20 minutes music (i turned off all network connection except the sim). second, the mini memory card’s slot is difficult to open and seal. the back cover seems fragile if you want to open the phone. the worst is upon log in in a social network site, there was pretyped email address already (i don’t know if this was used by other buyers before for testing, i bought the phone brand new). all other aspects are fine for a less than 4k phone.
can instagam app run here?..
Does the camera have autofocus?
Any idiot will buy a flare over this.
Android Touch and Type? Lol