Philips S398 smartphone review

The company Philips (or is easier to call a spade a spade – the company SangFei) has another smartphone with strange characteristics. On the one hand, 5-inch screen with HD resolution, relatively fast chipset, and on the other – a very weak battery. In fact, we get the model S388, with only slightly more advanced settings: higher resolution display, the camera have added 3 MP, to the capacity of the battery – 300 mAh. The chipset is the same, and the appearance is very similar.

Design, size, controls

Philips S398 hull shape is rectangular, upper and lateral faces are smooth, the bottom is slightly arched, reverse side slightly sloping. Dimensions large enough for five-inch device – 143x71x9.5 mm, weight is also rather big – 170 grams, while the solid plastic.

Color is only one device – black, but the bundle includes extra shifts socket yellow. If the black lid is covered with “soft tachem”, the yellow is made of semi-gloss plastic, a little slippery to the touch. In any case, it is nice to have an extra socket, you never know what will happen to the primary.

In his hand is a good smartphone, but the bottom corners, I think, a little sharp.

Screen appears, protected by glass, and quite strong: a couple of weeks of active use and after a few simple krashtestov nothing wrong with the surface did not happen. Oleophobic coating if there is, it is extremely weak. Display gathers on himself all your fingerprints, well, that at least they are easily erased.

The upper insert is made of porous smartphone black plastic. Edging – glossy plastic, too black.

Top center of the front panel is the voice speaker, taken away the dark metal mesh. Its volume average, the interlocutor can hear relatively legible and clearly, the tone is closer to the lower frequencies are not too pleasant to the ears, but the sound is soft.

To the left of the speaker – the front camera and light sensor / proximity. Below the display are the traditional buttons for OS Android. Illumination is, quite bright.

The microphone is located on the bottom, on the top – micro-USB and 3.5 mm audio jack for headphones.

Left – two separate volume control buttons on the right – the power button. They are very convenient to use, since it is easy groped fingers, bulging, stroke average.

On the reverse side are the camera module, acting on the body by a millimeter, LED flash and speakerphone.

To remove the rear socket, you must hook the recess on the left. On top of the battery are two slots for microSIM-cards, just above and to the right – the memory card slot standard microSD.

Display

In Philips S398 uses a screen diagonal is 5 inches. The physical size – 62h111 mm beyond the right and left – 4 mm at the top and the bottom – about 15 mm.

Matrix is IPS-technology (OGS). Low resolution – HD, ie 720h1280 points. Density – 293 PPI.

Capacitive sensor layer supports up to 5 simultaneous touches.

Maximum viewing angles, but under certain inclinations picture violet and yellow.

The maximum brightness of white color – 318 cd / m2, the minimum brightness white – 39 cd / m2 maximum brightness in black – 0.58 cd / m2, the minimum brightness black – 0.07 cd / m2. Contrast – 547: 1. Average temperature – 6700 K, but at maximum brightness level rises to 7000 K.

Judging by the chart, all colors are about the same level, though there is a lack of a minimum of red. The color scheme is practically corresponds to sRGB.

Battery

This model uses a removable lithium-ion (Li-Ion) battery capacity of 2040 mAh. I believe that at this point the battery with tsiferkami less than 2300 should not appear on store shelves, unless it is a budget machine for a penny. Two thousand milliamps – it’s not even half of the device!

Manufacturer provides some data on the time of “life» Philips S398: standby time – 300 hours, talk time – 8 hours.

If you do not use the Internet, mainly calls and messages, the unit will stand at best until the next day. With the internet you can count on 5-6 hours.

I think more detail is not necessary to paint, and so you should be understood that while the S398 is small.

Communication capabilities

Nothing interesting in this section will not tell because everything here is, as usual for the platform MTK: two sim-cards, there are Wi-Fi (DLNA, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot), Bluetooth version 4.0.

OTG mode I did not “wound up.” The reasons unknown to me.

A few words about GPS. When a “cold” start about two minutes are 1-3 satellites, if the GPS is included in the room; near the window in the same time there will be 4-5 satellites; in an open space more. There were no problems, but the sensitivity of the average.

Memory and memory card

RAM is only 1 GB, although for most tasks is enough. Built-in Flash-memory bit – 8 GB, the user can use even less. There is a slot for memory cards microSD.

Camera

As always, we are greeted by two camera modules. Primary – 8 MP, and the front – 2 MP. Rear camera lens aperture is F2.0, but because of the weak module in a large sense no optics.

Photos taken in good light are obtained quite good, but as soon as the light level decreases, popping noise falls detail and so on. On the phone, which is quite natural, frames look great on the computer too clearly visible artifacts (under them, I mean poor quality of the image).

Noticed a small oddity: the camera often can not focus to infinity (no more than 10-15 meters). Appendix signals focus, and the output we get slightly unfocused picture. Such a situation I have already met. Probably the case in the firmware.

Smartphone can record video in 1080p resolution at 30 f / s. Almost the same situation as with the photo – bad focuses at infinity. Sound mono, the quality is good.

The front camera has pleased. Despite the 2 MP, “self” obtained fun, especially if they are made under normal lighting conditions.

Performance

In most of these devices should Taiwanese chip MediaTek. Smartphone Philips S398 is no exception (it seems that the music library free distributes this chip, almost every budget unit overlooked me exactly on 6582). It uses the most common among the “public sector” lately chip MT6582: CPU Cortex-A7, 28 nm, 4 cores at 1.3 GHz, graphics accelerator Mali-400MP2 with a clock frequency of 400 MHz.

For comfortable operation S398 of the processor is more than enough. With games there is a small problem (mostly small lags and freezes).

Software Platform

The gadget runs on Google Android operating system version 4.4.2. Proprietary shell is absent, but some icons are redrawn, and, frankly, not very well. Wait for Android 5.0 just is not worth it.

Multimedia

This handset has a standard music and video player, radio.

The speaker volume is the average quality too: completely missing high frequencies, sometimes the speaker is making strange noises (the impression that the speaker is taken from the model S388). When you close the hole Speaker volume is reduced to virtually zero.

The headphone volume is high, distortion is not heard, it sounds great player. However, perhaps not enough deep bass and more expressive high.

The video player is able to “play» FullHD videos, but often emerge artifacts. Therefore it is best to restrict the video in 720p.

Conclusion

Unimpressed Philips S398 is not produced. Staff in all respects weak and ugly, despite the presence of little yellow caps. Instead of corporate capacious battery is worth dohlenkih battery only 2000mAh. The screen quality is the usual, customary resolution, the camera is weak, but still a weirdo. Moreover, the device relatively large and heavy (for the class).

If you’re a fan of the brand, or if you want to have a smart phone from a known brand (at least at the hearing), then look at the Philips S398. In general, I recommend to choose from something else, more than the original. However, it is clear that with the current prices to find a decent inexpensive product is extremely difficult.

Philips S398 smartphone review