So we got the latest smartphone from Kata, the 5.7-inch phablet called M1 from the blogger’s night last night at the Sky Bar at the roof deck of Ace Water Sports in Pasig City.
No less than Kata’s CEO David Chen went to hang out with us for some beer and cigar. The entire team of Kata Philippines were there to meet up with the select tech bloggers and present M1.
Kata M1 is the latest model from this US brand that was started in HK but now distribute its smartphones and tablets in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, Indonesia and the Philippines.
M1 according to David Chen, is a limited edition smartphone from Kata. Chen said they will only manufacture more or less 1,000 units. Hong Kong and Philippines will get most of the inventory.
M1 will be retailed at P11,990 and will be out on sale on May 10. Early customers can pre-order now until end of April for a limited price of P9,990.
Unboxing and Initial Impressions
We unboxed M1 immediately and used it with a little hesitation at first. First, because it is our first time to use Kata, secondly we thought that it is just another “China” smartphone. But I was totally amazed when I saw M1 in all its glory. It looks really good with a glossy white finish.
M1 features a dual-SIM – one is regular SIM card and the other is a micro-SIM; it has microSD slot which allows users to expand its 16G internal storage to up to 32G.
It is powered by a quad-core MTK processor, with 2G RAM which is just the right hardware specs to the Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean OS. Kata M1 runs the stock Android so that you may have room to customize anything from the launcher, themes and other stuff you want to do with your smartphone.
Running several apps which are usually the apps I commonly install like Instagram, Facebook, Google Apps (Gmail, Maps, Google+, YouTube, and Chrome), Twitter, Flickr and HangOuts (used to replace the usual SMS apps) – – and switching from one to the other is fluid. I haven’t noticed any lag at all. This has impressed me immediately.
The next most-used feature of the smartphone is the camera. I don’t normally bring a second device to take photos during events, so M1’s rear 13MP must perform well, I said to myself.
Here are few samples taken at the Mazda 3 test drive event last night.
The three photos above are raw; direct from M1’s camera. The third one, I used the camera filter. As you can see, photos are sharp and clear. I just tested the rear camera, not minding the front “selfie” 2MP camera. I am not into “selfies” so lets just leave it like that. :).
Unboxing photos of Kata M1.
Design-wise, M1 has a better looking get up compared to previous models from Kata, the rounded corners made it look more premium. All ports – 3.5mm audio and micro-USB port are all located on top of the device which is not a problem with me.
The power button is on the right side while the volume rocker is at left. The 4,000mAh batter is replaceable as opposed to the current models out in the market.
To keep the M1 into an affordable price point, Kata did not put any other premium accessories like a glass protection. So you have to invest on a screen protector immediately upon purchase.
Over all Kata M1 is impressive. Shifting from one app to another is very fluid. Screen is very responsive, no lags at all. Camera is superb.
This is the smartphone that is priced accordingly – not so expensive, not so cheap, but affordable.
We will evaluate more M1 in the coming days. This will be my default smartphone for now.
how come katadigital’s site lists m1 front cam as 5mp and the battery as non-removable?