Mobile Review: Phicomm Energy 653 offers more in less

Phicomm’s Energy 653 offers nothing new but all—glossy finish, decent build quality and sunlight legibility, fine colour reproduction, bigger display and 4G connectivity

By Mohd Ujaley

After launching one of the extremely light and compact device—Passion 660 in June 2015, Shanghai-based Phicomm seems to have surprised again with  its new entrant in the Indian market—Energy 653. The phone offers nothing new but all—glossy finish, decent build quality and sunlight legibility, fine colour reproduction, bigger display and 4G connectivity. There are plethora of entry level smartphones in the market but price of 4,999 sets Phicomm’s Energy 653 apart. However, the question remain, is it worth buying? Lets look into it.

In the hand, the first thing, I noticed is 5-inch display and elegant looks. In this price range, apart from few exception such as  ZTE Blade Qlux 4G, you will hardly find any device giving premium hands-on experience. Energy 653 has thin side bezels that offers good viewing angles and the removable back cover with glossy finish and thickness of just about 8mm, weighing only 125gm which makes it perfect fit into the hand.

As I said, the front is dominated by a 5-inch display, and also houses 3.5mm headset jack, micro-USB port and the front camera and also there are three capacitive touch keys in the bottom. The back is home to Phicomm branding at the centre, along with rear camera and LED flash at the top left corner and a speaker grille at the bottom. The power and volume rocker keys are placed at the right edge while left is completely free from any distraction. Interestingly, all the buttons and keys are customisable, you can assign the task as per your convenience.

Probing the innards,  Energy 653 is a good blend of hardware and software. The device runs on latest Android Lollipop 5.1 and Phicomm also has its own customised skin–Expect UI, over it. The processor–quad-core 1.1GHz, Qualcomm Snapdragon 210, ensures smooth performance. However, over a week, I used this phone, there was nothing special about multitasking to write about. Although, there was no serious lag while navigating through the UI and switching between apps but it did failed many times while opening gmail apps and using dial pad. Hence, I had to re-start again and again. The phone comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage of which 4.99GB is available for the users. The storage capacity can be increased upto 64GB with the help of  microSD.

On the camera front, this budget smartphone comes with a 8 megapixel rear shooter with f/2.4 aperture and a 2 MP front-facing camera. Few of the test picture that I clicked in daylight, the camera was able to capture fine details with decent colour reproduction, however same could not be achieved in low light. When it comes to the video, the device is capable of shooting HD videos upto 720p in resolution. Some of the videos I shot and played, the quality was good, something you would rarely find in this price range.

Energy 653 is one of the cheapest 4G LTE enabled dual sim smartphone. It also supports 2G, 3G Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0. I tried to use 4G network but due to poor network availability in Delhi from operator, could not bring home anything special to write about, hence it would be unfair to say anything about device ability to handle 4G. Also, the device is packed with a 2,300mAh removable battery. Depending on usage patterns, the battery may last between 5-6 hours a day but with continuous use of data and GPS, the battery may finish up swiftly.

With little more in camera section and little extra power to processor, this phone could have been one of the best available in the market in this price range, still at the price of 4,999, it has slight edge over its nearest rival ZTE Blade Qlux 4G and way ahead of other competitors. If you want to experiment with an entry level smartphone, Phicomm’s Energy 653 could be the best bet. It has more to offer in less.

SPECIFICATIONS
Display:  5 inch – 720×1280 pixels
Processor:  1.1GHz quad-core,  Qualcomm Snapdragon 210
Operating system:  Android 5.1 Lollipop
Memory & storage: 1 GB RAM + 8 GB internal storage (expandable upto 64 GB with microSD)
Camera: 2 MP front; 8 MP rear
SIM type: Dual Sim (4G LTE enabled)
Battery: 2300mAh, replaceable
Estimated street price: Rs 4,999

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