The flagship device from one of the local smartphone brand which was launched late last year – (StarMobile Knight Spectra), came to our home office for review. So hang in there as we present to you our StarMobile Knight Spectra Review.
This has been in the market and you can still consider this as your daily driver.
Today, we offer you our sound review of the StarMobile Knight Spectra.
Unboxing: Knight Spectra
The packaging of StarMobile is something you always look forward to. The Knight Spectra as expected comes in a nice packaging and as usual, it ships with lots of free items inside the box.
Aside from the good-looking 5.5-inch On-cell AMOLED multi-touch capacitive screen smartphone comes the standard accessories like the wall charger, micro-USB cable, and earphones. And like we told you, it ships with freebies like clear plastic case, screen protector, a stand, and a 3.5mm audio adapter. The freebies would have cost around P750 or more. With these free items in the package, you’d like to thank StarMobile for their generosity.
Specs and features
The Knight Spectra sports a dual-rear camera, one with a 13MP and the second one that has 2MP. It features autofocus and has LED flash. The front which is for selfie shots has 8MP fixed focus camera.
Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 MSM893 with 1.5GHz Quad + 1.0 GHz Quad-Core ARM Cortex-A53 (64-bit Octa-Core) and it is paired with a 3Gb of RAM.
On the storage department, StarMobile included a generous 32G internal while a micro-SD support can still take up to 64Gb of external storage. Good enough if you want to focus on taking high-resolution photos and store lots of videos.
On the connectivity side, you get 4G LTE on either a micro or nano SIM, Dual 4G LTE Standby, but should you decide to add more storage, the second slot doubles as micro SD expansion, killing the second SIM slot.
The 5.5-inch display features on-cell AMOLED multi-touch capacitive screen, full HD display with 1920 x 1080 pixels at 401ppi.
The body of the Knight Spectra wrapped in scratch resistant glass – both the front and back.
All these mentioned features and specs above are maintained by a 3,500mAh Li-Po non-removable battery.
Dual camera with Super Refocus feature
As someone who likes to take photos, I am happy that StarMobile has developed a camera app that works hand in hand with its dual rear camera. The Super Refocus feature lets you edit the focus point of the subject after taking the shot. You can adjust the F (focal length) of the lens later producing a better photo.
Here’s what I am talking about.
If you don’t mind the dual rear camera and use the standard 13MP using automatic settings, you get this kind of image.
This image above has this EXIF: f/2 1/120 4.92mm ISO71 using automatic settings.
Digital TV: hit and miss
The 3.5mm audio adapter that is included in the package is supposed to act as an external antenna so that the digital TV receiver gets the signal. In my case, I have tried several times to scan the digital channels currently available in Metro Manila. I found, at least, seven (7) of them. However since my location is inside a condo unit, the Knight Spectra had a hard time getting the signal. I guess this would be best outdoors or if mounted in your car. It can double as dash cam at the same time.
Display, UI, and software
Android 5.1.1 Lollipop runs the show of the Knight Spectra. With StarMobiles little customization specially on the settings menu, the whole UI looks similar and very easy to use.
Before you start using the camera, you also want to configure it to the way you want the camera to act. Here’s the UI of the camera.
I am glad to report that StarMobile has only installed a few homegrown apps which are useful too specially if you are migrating your data from your old smartphone to Knight Spectra.
StarMobile Sync 2.0 is used in migrating data from your old phone to your Knight Spectra. The second important app from StarMobile is the StarMobile Care, from this app, you can access customer service, go to forums, and register your product. They also pre-installed CleanMaster, an Android app optimizer, and battery saver.
Some more actual photos of Knight Spectra
By the way, the power button has LED that lights up where there is a notification. This works well in the evening when you want to just put your phone into silent mode.
Conclusion
So the big question is, should we recommend StarMobile Knight Spectra to you?
Yes and no.
Yes if you have the budget. Currently, its SRP is P14,999 and is available in all StarMobile stores and kiosk including Lazada.
If your consideration is the camera, you might want to wait until StarMobile updates its camera app because currently I have seen some lags in taking photos. It becomes not so responsive at times.
No, if you have time to research more. At this SRP, you can add a little more and get a far better smartphone with higher specs.
Overall, this StarMobile Knight Spectra (Review) has been wonderful. If not for the high price tag, it would have been a great daily driver. It will make a great tool for bloggers and can work as a backup camera for photographers. If StarMobile can update the OS and the camera app so that it performs faster, it will be better.
