While everyone was in anticipation of MyPhone’s first octa-core smartphone offering, the pioneer local brand also had a few other aces up its sleeve. One of them, the MyPhone Ocean Elite, is a gorgeous, super-slim smartphone that even gives the Infinity a run for its money in the looks department. Curious as to how well it performs? Read on and find out in my hands on review of the MyPhone Ocean Elite.

UPDATE: Pricing for the MyPhone Ocean Elite may have been revealed ahead of official release!

Build Quality and Design

The MyPhone Elite doesn’t feature the same premium glass finish as the MyPhone Infinity, but it does have the same crystalline pattern on the plastic backing. You could even argue that it looks better because the Elite isn’t as much of a fingerprint smudge magnet.

The front of the MyPhone Elite is dominated by the 5 inch display. Above it is the earpiece, front camera and light/proximity sensors.

To the left is a lone pop-out micro SIM tray.

On the right is another micro SIM tray for the 2nd SIM, as well as the volume rocker and power/lock buttons.

At the top, you’ll only find a 3.5mm headset jack, while the bottom has a microphone pinhole and micro USB port.

As mentioned, the back features the same crystalline pattern as the Infinity, although the material is made from plastic, not glass. There, you’ll find the 13mp camera and flash, MyPhone branding slightly below it, and the Ocean Elite branding toward the bottom together with the loudspeaker grill.

If you read my hands on review of the MyPhone Infinity, you’ll notice that the MyPhone Elite features a similar button layout with the power/lock button and volume rocker being on the same side of the phone. However, the Elite is slightly different in that the position of the buttons are reversed, with the power/lock button being above the volume rocker. As a result, it’s even more cumbersome to make a screenshot. Still, the phone is slim and elegant, somewhat resembling an HTC One from the front, and an iPhone from the side.

The Screen

The MyPhone Ocean Elite features a 5 inch HD IPS display. I wasn’t able to find out if any other notable technologies had gone into the screen, but the image quality was very good either way. Honestly, most people won’t be able to tell the difference between a 5 inch HD or Full HD screen, so you will probably be able to save a few thousand pesos by going for the Ocean Elite rather than the Infinity if you aren’t too particular about it having to be an octa-core phone.

Software and UI

The MyPhone Elite runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean out of the box. There’s no word yet whether MyPhone will be able to update the Ocean Elite and other upcoming phones to KitKat 4.4 soon after launch. However, they’ll be in talks with MediaTek pretty soon about the possibility of upgrading phones with MediaTek chips.

Anyway, the Elite runs a close to stock implementation of Android 4.2. The icons seem to come from MyPhone’s older icon designs as it was totally different from the Infinity unit that I had reviewed earlier. It runs the same Start Lockscreen though, which adds a lot of functionality to the phone. Other partner apps like Pouch, Line and My Karaoke have been preloaded as well.

Performance

The MyPhone Ocean Elite is driven by a 1.3GHz quad core MediaTek MT6582 processor coupled with a Mali 400 GPU. It’s a bit of an upgrade over the MT6589 and fares slightly better during hardcore 3D games. I wasn’t able to actually test the gaming capabilities but it has nearly the exact same specs as another phone that I previously reviewed. They even have close to the same benchmark results!

As you can see, the Elite scores about the same as a Galaxy S3 in Antutu, while it achieves 51.4 in Nenamark 2. If you can get the same performance as a Galaxy S3 while retailing for around Php10k, you’re doing great.

Impressions

There were quite a few other aspects that I wasn’t able to test while I had my hands on the MyPhone Ocean Elite, but my impressions of the phone are pretty positive. It has an elegant and solid build and that it’s even slimmer than the Infinity is very impressive. The only real unknown that will help decide whether it’s worth buying or not is the price. Since, there’s already another phone on the market with similar specs selling for Php8.5k, I’ll use that as the benchmark for pricing. Until late March or early April, we’ll just have to wait though.

MyPhone Ocean Elite Specs

• 5″ HD IPS display (720 x 1280 resolution, 294ppi)
• 1.3GHz quad core MediaTek MT6582 processor
• Mali 400 GPU
• Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
• 1GB RAM
• 16GB internal storage
• 13mp rear-facing autofocus camera with flash
• 5mp front camera
• 3.75G/HSPA+
• WiFi b/g/n
• Bluetooth 4.0
• GPS with A-GPS
• 2,000mAh battery
• Price: TBA
• Release: Late March / Early April