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Rating : 6.5 / 10 |
The CECT P168 A8+ is the latest version of the popular P168 series with the new shake control - allowing you to change music and wallpapers with just a quick shake of the phone. It also automatically orientates your movies to full screen the player is put on its side.
With a large 3.2" QVGA touch screen, dual SIM card, easy to use, and capable of multiple functions. This is more than just a cell phone but a full fledged multimedia centre also. The A8+ also has built in Bluetooth, 2.0MP camera, and expandable memory slot.
Specifications:
Network:
GSM Tri-Band - 900/1800/1900
Sim card:
Dual slots
Expansion slots:
MicroSD (2GB max)
Display:
Type: 3.2" QVGA - 262K colours
Resolution: 320x240 - 16:9 aspect ratio
Connectivity:
GPRS/WAP
Bluetooth:
Yes, AD2P
Media:
Audio: MP3, AAC, WAV, AMR, Midi
Video: MP4, 3GP, 25FPS
Image: JPG, BMP, GIF
Camera:
2 Megapixel - JPEG
Battery:
3.7v 1800mAh built in rechargeable Li-On battery
Stand-by:
80-100 hours
Talk time:
4-5 hours
Weight:
125g
The CECT P168 A8+ is a mobile phone shaped and designed to resemble the iPhone, but don’t think this replaces the iPhone, nor comes close. It is however good for a mobile phone.
One nice feature of the P168 A8+ is that you can insert two SIM cards and use either of the two at any time and via the settings menu. A quick reboot is needed each time you change though, but it is quick. It’s too bad there’s no possible way of shortcutting this function so you will always need to bring up the menu and go to settings.
On the main screen, you see your general icons to show reception level, battery level, SIM card in use, and such. You then have some quick menus on the bottom which are: Main Menu, Keypad, SMS, Phonebook, and Music Player.
When in the main menu, you are greeted with a GUI similar to the iPhone; square coloured icons around the screen representing various options. Although they look nice, the icons can be confusing to get used to as not all of them, image-wise, represent what they do option-wise.
Background images can be changed just from shaking the A8+ to the next image, or previous also.
The home screen isn’t the only location with shortcuts; in camera mode, you also have shortcuts along the side for quick access to your settings such as white balance, quality, resolution, etc, without having to go into the menu.
When used during the day with good lighting exposure, there is little noise in the snapshots, but because there is no focus, images are all blurry. During times where light is lacking or you have artificial light, noise is very apparent. Using auto white balance isn’t the greatest option either, especially while using artificial light as it creates a yellow wash across the images. Luckily the white balance option is easily changed via the shortcuts where you can find a balance which better suits your surroundings.
Night mode helps clear the colour wash though a little though.
The highest resolution is 640x480, and you can only zoom at resolutions of 160x120 and 320 x 240 up to 4x.
The P168 A8+ can also record videos suffers from the same issues as the normal camera. Again, night mode does help when indoors where you’re not pointing to a strong light source, it makes the video unbearably laggy.
But with general recording, the frame rate is quite smooth. It is unfortunate for the small resolution and blurry quality.
Unfortunately the camera doesn’t capture the full vibrancy of shots and neither does the screen. The WQVGA screen is slightly dull in colour and watching movies isn’t the greatest on this device. Although the A8+ has a 3.2” widescreen, it only has a display resolution of 320x240. Videos only played smoothly on 176x144 resolution while not in fullscreen. When in fullscreen, the frames would skip a lot, and when at a higher resolution, video and audio lose sync quite a bit. The video player did provide 5 – 6 hours of playback which is quite good.
When using the tilt function, putting the A8+ to its size will automatically put the move player to full screen, and tilting back would pause the movie and bring up the menus.
Audio on the other hand is quite good, and that can be said for the MP3 player also. Music is loud and clear, and bass below average. However, the bass was strong enough to vibrate through the phone and cause rattling during some songs.
On the discussion of vibration, the vibrating function of the phone is very weak and you don’t really feel it; good thing the ringing is loud when someone is calling you.
There is an equaliser for users who wish to tune their player a little and the shake function enables users to change tracks without having to access the menu.
However, as the shaking can be quite sensitive at times, if you’re running or even just walking, you may want to turn off this feature of your tracks will be all over the place.
Oddly enough, I was only able to achieve up to 4 hours of music playback.
The CECT P168 A8+ comes with a few extra functions such as a health calculator, converter, calender, a game which utilises the tilt function or D-pad, etc, and whilst the sensitivity of the touch screen is sometimes too much and too little, the device works well for a mobile phone.
It won’t serve you well as a phone and personal media player combo, but for a phone with a bit of extra, it is a decent device great for anyone who needs a new mobile or looking for something to muck around with.
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