The new Wiko Upulse packs a lot of features at a great price
A GOOD phone need not be expensive. If you feel sceptical about phones below the RM1,000 price point, you should try the new Wiko Upulse.
For those who are not familiar with Wiko, it is a phone maker from Marseille, France which has been around since 2011. But it only made its presence in Malaysia a few years ago.
At just RM799, this 5.5-inch Android Nougat phone has features that matter the most to most users, such as good front and back cameras, nice design, large display, expandable storage and good security features.
DESIGN
Holding the phone, one can quickly observe the slightly curved back design of the body that gives a more comfortable feel to it. The screen corners are rounded with curved glass at the edge, making the phone a comfortable pocketable device.
For the price, it has some surprisingly premium features, such as the fingerprint scanner at the back for security. You unlock the phone by placing your index finger at the sensor, and it works flawlessly.
The phone doesn’t come with a home button, which I feel gives cleaner and much smoother surfaces. Instead, there is a virtual button. This also gives a lot of viewing space for watching movies and playing games in pure visual comfort. Nothing brings out your images better than a big, bright display.
Reading in the sunny outdoors is a breeze too with the display’s 500 nits brightness. It also comes with a Full Lamination for optimal colours and contrasts.
Although the screen is large, Wiko has a brilliant interface that allows users to navigate even with one hand. You can shrink the user interface to make any part of it easier to reach, which is perfect for navigating with your thumb.
It also has a Smart Left Page feature that allows users to see 80 per cent of their most viewed content all at once on one screen.
FEATURES
Under the hood is a quad-core 1.3GHz processor, 3GB RAM and a 32GB storage. But if you feel that this is not enough, the phone comes with a micro SD slot which can add an extra 128GB to your storage. The processor is not the most powerful, but it’s decent for doing day-to-day tasks like downloading and uploading stuff, and even for for multitasking, watching HD videos and playing games.
Also, its 3,000 mAh battery is good enough for a day normal usage.
CAMERA
The most important part of a phone is the camera, and the Wiko Upulse gives an intuitive camera experience. The back camera comes with a 13MP sensor using 5P lens with a bright f/2.0 aperture, while the front camera is 8MP with f/2.0 aperture and a soft light flash.
Its auto-scene detection will optimise the colours and contrast of your shots in almost all conditions. It automatically turns on the HDR mode when a backlit scene is detected. This makes it easy to shoot landscapes, portraits or your friend’s crazy stunts in bright sunlight or in dark lighting, from the rear and front cameras. The resulting images are pretty nice for social media usage.
CONCLUSION
If you’re on a budget and want a decent phone that can do more than just basic stuff plus has a good camera, you should take a look at Wiko Upulse.
Verdict: 3.5/5