The local smartphone industry is undeniably a budding economy as more and more brands have entered the market in recent years. Although some would argue that the products from these brands are merely rebranded devices from foreign manufacturers, the amount of software customization that they’ve put in in these handsets obliges us to at the very least take a second look.
Take for example Happy Mobile which recently entered the smartphone scene just last year. The company already has a number of models out in the market and is now in the process of expanding this line to include several new models including the quad-core Magic Touch.
The Happy Mobile Magic Touch is a 5.5-inch lower tier smartphone that plays in the same league as other affordable quad-core handsets like those from Cherry Mobile, Torque and Alcatel to name a few.
We were fortunate enough to get a review unit of the Magic Touch courtesy of our friends from Happy Mobile. If you’re interested in getting one for yourself, we recommend reading our review to get yourself acquainted with the handset before making the purchase.
Click to Expand Full Specifications
| BODY | Dimensions | (115.4 x 78 x 8.6 mm) |
| Weight | 183.30g | |
| DISPLAY | Display Type | IPS Display |
| Display Size | 5.5-inch | |
| Display Protection | qHD (960 x 540) | |
| UTILITIES | Primary Camera | 13MP |
| Camera Features | Autofocus, LED Flash | |
| Secondary Camera | 5MP | |
| GPS | YES | |
| Card slot | YES | |
| PERFORMANCE | Operating System | Android 4.4.2 KitKat |
| Chipset | MediaTek MT6582 | |
| Processor | 1.3GHz Cortex A7 quad-core | |
| Graphics | Mali-400 MP | |
| Sensors | Accelerometer, Light Sensor | |
| Internal, RAM | 8GB (Internal), 1GB (RAM) | |
| CONNECTIVITY | WLAN | YES |
| Bluetooth | YES | |
| NFC | NO | |
| Infrared port | NO | |
| USB | YES | |
| Battery Rating | 2000mAh | |
| Price | 5,999 (~$130) |
What’s in the Box?
The Happy Mobile has pretty much covered the basics when it comes to the things that comes with the Magic Touch. The phone is packaged with a number of accessories and essentials including a data/sync cable, a wall charger, a wired headset with inline microphone and even a plastic screen protector.
Our unit also came with a flip cover (though we’re not sure if Happy Mobile will automatically come with it or it’s just a promo) and the usual paper works (introductory manual and warranty card).
Design and Construction
As the Magic Touch is designed to be an affordable handset, don’t expect it to have the fancy stuff you’d find in more expensive models. The device is a bit of a plain Jane with a style that’s understated and simple. It won’t win any design awards anytime soon but the good thing is that it’s designed in a way that it doesn’t look cheap.
Checking the front of the device, you’ll find a very minimalist setup. Majority of the space is occupied by the 5.5-inch screen and the top and bottom is where you’ll find the front-facing camera, the earpiece and three capacitive buttons (home, menu and back) that’s dimly lit with a red backlight.
The edges of the phone are also treated in the same minimalist fashion. The lock/power button is located at the right edge of the device, the volume rocker are placed at the left, the microUSB charging/syncing port, as well as the microphone pinhole are located at the bottom and the 3.5mm headphone jack is placed at the very top.
The phone’s back is treated with a soft touch plastic that is very comfortable to hold. The camera is placed at the topmost part and protrudes slightly from the back. Below the camera is the LED flash and further down is where you’ll find the speaker grille and the lone Happy Mobile branding on the phone.
In terms of materials used, the Magic Touch is made completely out of plastic. Even the hardware buttons are made with plastic that merely sits on top of the electronic contact. At 8.6mm, the Magic Touch is just a few millimeters thicker than the iPhone 6 but it doesn’t look that thick because of the handset’s wide profile giving the illusion that it’s slimmer than it actually is.
Audio, Visuals and Optics
In terms of audio, visuals and optics, the Magic Touch has some pretty capable hardware. As we’ve mentioned earlier, the device has a 5.5-inch IPS display with qHD resolution (960 x 540 pixels), which is a bit disappointing since a lot of entry-level phones these days have at least HD resolution. On the positive side, we’re very happy (and pleasantly surprised) that Happy Mobile made the phone’s screen really bright. In fact, we only used around 15-20% of the screen’s brightness when indoors.
We also didn’t have any complaints about the display’s color correctness. The screen was able to deliver crisp images and videos as well as vivid colors. This combined with the bright backlighting and the phone’s big screen make for an enjoyable viewing experience, which is perfect for those who like watching YouTube videos on their phones.
As for the phone’s audio equipment, we have to say that the sound department isn’t one of the Magic Touch’s strong suit. For starters, the headset included in the package isn’t something that we would recommend anyone using. The cables used on the headsets are quite thin and the sound coming from the audio drivers is very tinny.
Although most people these days prefer to use their own headsets compared to those bundled with phones when listening music on their devices, the Magic Touch is, unfortunately, one of those phones that are a bit picky with headsets. It seems the phone only works with headsets with TRS connectors so you’ll have limited choices when it comes to headphones if you plan to use the Magic Touch as an audio player.
The speaker at the back didn’t do well either. Just like the phone’s headset, the speakers give off a tinny sound and lacks power. Even when we try to crank up the volume, the Magic Touch only managed to register 80dB on a sound meter (equivalent to the sound pressure exerted by a telephone dial tone). There were also instances where the sound coming from the earpiece at the front of the device is a bit weak, resulting in a choppy call quality.
Then we have the phone’s optics. The Happy Mobile Magic Touch packs a 13MP at the back and a 5MP camera at the front. Although the rear camera has a large sensor, the quality of the images could do a bit of work. Most of the images we’ve taken are okay in terms of color correctness but almost all of them have minor issues with focusing so for those looking for a phone to use as a camera substitute, the Magic Touch might not be the best choice. Otherwise, the handset will do fine for casual shutterbugs. (Check sample shots below)
Then we have the phone’s optics. The Happy Mobile Magic Touch packs a 13MP at the back and a 5MP camera at the front. Although the rear camera has a large sensor, the quality of the images could do a bit of work. Most of the images we’ve taken are okay in terms of color correctness but almost all of them have minor issues with focusing so for those looking for a phone to use as a camera substitute, the Magic Touch might not be the best choice. Otherwise, the handset will do fine for casual shutterbugs. (Check sample shots below)
Software and UI
The Happy Mobile Magic Touch runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat with a few UI customizations by Happy Mobile. Overall, there’s not a lot of bloatware installed on the device but you’ll definitely notice that Happy Mobile has taken the liberty to install a lot of social media apps on the phone out of the box.
Having said this, you’ll need to update these apps once you sign in with your Google account.At the off chance that you’re not using that much social networking apps, they can be uninstalled using the apps menu under the phone settings.
Happy Mobile has also used Cooee MS Launcher as the home app/launcher and has installed a number of themes for the home screen, which users can easily configure using a ThemeSwitcher app. Some of the basic apps on Android has also been skinned on the Magic Touch. For instance, the notifications pull down bar now has a white; and the same goes for the Settings menu, the calculator app, the FM radio and the Music app. Speaking of the music app, the audio player gets his own home screen page that features a turntable graphic whose vinyl turns whenever there is an audio file playing.
Another nifty software addition on the Magic Touch is the gesture control app. This app combines three kinds of gesture to perform specific functions on the phone. The first type of gesture set you can use with this app are lock screen gestures (Screen Off Gesture) which activate certain apps when you draw a symbol or letter on the phone’s lock screen.
There’s also a Screen On Gesture which allows users to lock the phone by double-clicking on the home button or do a screenshot by doing a three-finger swipe on the screen. Finally, there’s the Air Gestures which uses the phone’s camera in order to perform specific function in most media apps. Air Gestures are mostly concentrated into the Camera, FM Radio, Music, Gallery and Launcher apps; and functions as a replacement for the swipe right/left gesture. Unfortunately, this feature can accidentally activate when your hand moves in front of the screen even if you don’t really intend to do a gesture. Simply holding your phone at a different angle can cause your audio player to skip a song or your gallery to move to the next picture.
Other software customizations on the phone can be seen in the audio and camera departments. The music player comes with a built-in sound equalizer where users can not only select pre-defined EQ presets but also manually adjust not only the sound frequencies coming out of the speakers but also the bass and surround sound levels.
The camera app, on the other hand has a lot of features that should help users improve their shots. There re settings to control the camera’s ISO range, picture size and shooing modes. The app also provides flexibility in terms of exposure levels, white balance and a few nifty features for selfies like Smile shot and Face detection. Happy Mobile also put a number of creative photo filters and scene modes to make the process of taking a photo much easier and convenient.
It’s good to note though that the phone has very limited storage for apps. Although the phone is advertised with having 8GB of onboard storage, only a fraction of that (more specifically 800+MB) of that is used for apps and the operating system. If you’re planning to install a lot of apps on this phone, we strongly recommend getting a microSD card. Otherwise, you’ll be extremely limited to the apps you can use.
Performance
With 1GB of RAM, the Happy Mobile Magic Touch is definitely considered as an entry level phone. On light to normal use, the phone is able to handle apps and processes rather smoothly and without any problems. During our week-long use of the phone, we didn’t experience any lags or app crashes.
We also tried to put the handset through its paces by playing some games on it and we were impressed at how the Magic Touch was able to handle them albeit a few dropped frames. For casual gamers, the handset will certainly keep up with the games you’ll run on it.
In terms of synthetic benchmarks, we got around 18,000 from Antutu and an 1179 from Geekbench. During our benchmark tests, we got a maximum of 70 fps, which is actually okay and puts the Magic Touch in a nice place in terms of media playback capability in its particular price range.
Lastly, we look at the phone’s battery and how it performs under day-to-day use. So far, the Magic Touch was able to last for over 24 hours on a single charge with light to medium use; so it’s certain that this number will decrease when the phone is used with more energy-consuming apps and features.
Final Words
With the rapid increase in the number of players in the local smartphone industry in the Philippines, more and more consumers are realizing that they are now able to choose a product whose features they want without spending too much. Having said this, the need for manufacturers to produce capable but budget-friendly models has never been more important.
At Php5,999 (or approximately US$130) the device is definitely an attractive buy.
The Happy Mobile Magic Touch is one of the models that was created to fulfill this need. The phone as built with budget-conscious consumers in mind and offers an interesting mix of features that we’re sure a large number of smartphone users will love. However, the handset is not without any issues. In order to keep the cost and consequently the price of the product down, there had to be some compromise either on the hardware side or on the software side.
Our biggest gripe with the Magic Touch would have to be its storage. Although the company has advertised 8GB of on-board memory, the phone was only able to use less than 1GB for apps which meant that without an SD card, users will definitely be limited in the number apps they can install on the device. We also didn’t like that the speakers were a bit underpowered and are unable to complement its bright display.
What’s good about the phone though is that bright display. We also like that Happy Mobile made an effort to build the phone quite well despite the use of plastic, and of course at Php5,999 (or approximately US$130) the device is definitely an attractive buy.
