Cherry Mobile just released a new brochure for their Cherry Mobile Festival. While the previous flyer was all about smartphones, this new one is all about tablets. A couple of interesting ones from the Cherry Mobile Fusion line, the Fusion Aura and Fusion Breeze 2 come with Android 4.4 Kit and retail for less than Php2.5k!
The specs are pretty much the same between them. Both feature 7 inch capacitive screens and come equipped with 1.5GHz dual core processors. They also have the same dual camera setup (2mp rear, VGA front) and come with micro SD slots that allow you to expand your storage up to 32GB.
There are a few details that are lacking though. There’s no specifics on RAM/ROM although for the price, it’s probably 512MB RAM and 8GB storage. The Fusion Aura has a 2,600mAh battery but the brochure doesn’t specify the Fusion Breeze 2’s battery capacity.
While it puzzles me that Cherry Mobile would release two tablets with virtually the same specs for the same price, I guess this is part of their strategy to throw everything they’ve got against the wall to see what sticks. Anyway, for Php2,299 you’re getting relatively decent entry-level tablets for those who have basic needs.
Obviously, off angle viewing is horrendous. However due to it’s price, this might be perfect for the kids. With a Miracast dongle, they can see their games on our LG 50 incher. I could use as well as a cheapo media player connected to my LG HTS.
I bought a Fusion Breeze 2 tablet for my kid but we can’t use it for more than two hours because of very short battery life. I tried it for myself, used the tablet while on 98% and moved some pictures from the internal storage to my external SD card. 15 minutes later, the battery remaining shows 82%.
When I first bought it, I had to replace the unit the same day at the store because of a dead pixel on the display. When I took it home, I saw a very tiny dead pixel on the replacement unit which made me doubt the quality of the product I bought. I charged it with the device turned off thinking it will charge faster but it took six hours to reach 100% battery.
I used it for a while with only the Wi-Fi turned on to download some apps and noticed the battery decreases by 1% almost every 2-5 minutes. I also did some browsing while waiting for the apps to be downloaded. I made sure I closed all running programs I don’t use. The brightness was at the default level. The battery has reached 15% and turned red indicating low battery charge remaining after using it for less than an hour and a half. I can’t imagine how fast it will drain if I have apps running at the same time.
So I tried resetting the tablet back to factory settings thinking it will fix the issue but unfortunately, it didn’t. I took it back to the store the next day and told the sales person about the issue. We turned off the screen display timeout to observe how fast the battery will drain without doing anything with it. The battery drained 1% every 4-8 minutes. They replaced the unit with the same model, and I was advised that this is normal with Fusion Breeze 2. I asked about the battery capacity and they answered it’s only around 2,000-ish mAh. I doubted it since my Lenovo A269i only has Li-Po 1300 mAh battery and doesn’t perform like this. That information they gave me isn’t credible since they couldn’t give me a straight and confident answer about its battery capacity before I bought the tablet.
I took the second replacement unit back home and see how it would work out while using it the same way I did with the unit I had prior to it. Sadly it’s the same issue. I did some research on the internet for any related issues with this model (which I admit is something that I should’ve done first) and found out that most users don’t recommend this due to its known very short battery life.
So I took it back to the store before my 7-day return period ends and see if they can have it replaced with a different model, probably the Fusion Aura and I’ll just pay the difference of the old model and the new one. I spoke to a male sales person at the store who told me that this is normal for this specific model. He initially asked me a question how long I was able to use the tablet from 100% until the charge gets depleted and I answered I was only able to use it for less than two hours. He answered back with a condescending tone and said “Are you sure??”. I told him a brief summary of the issue and I was surprised with his reply. He arrogantly told me that I shouldn’t base the remaining charge on its percentage since it’s not accurate (Wow!). So I asked him “So how do I know if I can still continue using it or when do I have to charge it? Do I need to completely drain the battery so I can maximize my usage before I charge it? Or can it be that my remaining 15% can last an hour compared to its first 85% that only lasts up to 40-45 minutes?”. He changed his tone and became more argumentative. He answered back saying “That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is you should not base the remaining charge on the percentage.”
I knew he can’t help me. I’ve been in the customer service industry for many years now and I know with people like him, our discussion will just end up in circles without landing to a solution (he made me remember a customer care agent with Nokia Care from few years back in which I had a very dreadful experience). So I ended the conversation by asking him how much battery life there is with the Breeze 2 and the Fusion Aura I wanted. He said the Breeze 2 has 2,000mAh while the Aura only has 1,500mAh. When I did the research prior to going there, I knew the Fusion Aura has 2,600mAh and just asked him for the sake of knowing whether if he really knows what he’s saying.
Now I’m stuck with this tablet and my kid will have to keep on charging it after every hour. This is the first time I bought a product from Cherry Mobile and I’m not very happy with it. Yes, I bought a product for only P1,999 and I shouldn’t expect more out of it. But for P1,999, I learned how awful their product quality is. They may have products that tries to match most well-known and leading smartphones today through specifications but that’s not how you measure quality.
For how much I purchased the tablet, it made me wonder what’s the reason behind the lack of information and how poor their employee service is.