CloudFone Thrill Power Review – Legit Big Battery On A Budget!

CloudFone Thrill Power Review – Legit Big Battery On A Budget!

After unboxing the CloudFone Thrill Power few weeks back, the handset immediately impressed us where it gave us a thought that it might do well in our review. Aesthetics is on point, the cameras looks decent, and the 5,000 mAh of juice is tempting. But of course, we have to verify our claims before jumping into conclusion. So here is it!

Here's our full review of the CloudFone Thrill Power!

Display Quality

It has a 5 inch HD screen!

Equipped with an 5 inch screen w/ HD resolution, the Thrill Power has one of the better screens we checked on a budget. At 294 pixels per inch, sharpness is fine and the display quality output is okay. It delivered images with nice white balance, color accuracy, and acceptable punch.

2 points of touch isn't enough

Viewing angles are also nice due to its 2.5D curved glass and it can go bright enough to be legible for outdoor use. Just don't expect it to perform like a higher-end display and you'll be fine.


Our only gripe it just have 2 points touch. Typing accuracy is alright, but it would have been better if there's more points of touch.

Audio Quality

There's a single loud speaker at the back

The phone has a single speaker behind. The output is good where it performed better than other much better than the other budget "audio-centric" phone we tested last year. Clarity and resolution is alright and it can produce decent mids and non-fatiguing highs. Bass response won't be that much present, but its tighter than most at its price. Loudness is acceptable as well. Distortion is minimal on max volume.


For the headphone audio out, sound quality is decent too. Output is flat and well balanced. It can produce well rounded bass response, clear mids w/ distinguishable layers, okayish highs. Highs could be piercing and has hiss on some tracks though. Soundstage is wide in presentation.


For the microphone, it did great for calls, but we wished it to better for recordings. Still decent as a whole though.

Battery Life

High battery life score!

Going to the main highlight of this phone, the HUGE 5,000 mAh CloudFone Thrill Power crushed our battery benchmark records. It got the highest score we ever recorded on a sub PHP 7K phone at PC Mark's work battery life test at over 18 hours!

Battery life is extremely impressive!

In real life scenario, we can still use of for more than 1 day even on heavy usage. That includes WiFi or 3G all the time, using the camera, and basic telephony. On top of that, it has a battery saving feature found in its Phone Assist app to further lengthen your battery usage.

Charging time isn't also slow considering that it has a 5,000 mAh battery using its 2A charger at around 3 hours.

Camera

The 8 MP Samsung sensor found at the back

The back camera of this device flaunts an 8 MP f/2.0 Samsung S5K4H8 w/ AF and LED flash. It has the consistent CloudFone camera app interface that has the face beauty, panorama, HDR, night, ans scene frame mode. It even has picture guides like grids and levels. Adjusting the exposure even before taking the photo is possible as well. Coming from the Next and Next Lite, only the pro mode is missing here.

Focusing is decent in speed and feels more stable and consistent than other budget devices. Close-ups is possible too with a distance of around 2 inches away from the subject. Shutter speed is fast on auto, but noticeably slower in HDR at 3 seconds.

Image quality is solid for the price!

Like what we stated in our first camera samples of Thrill Plus post, the picture quality taken from this device is SOLID for the price. Colors are fine with good hint of saturation and punch. Sharpness level is decent too and it doesn't produce grains on well lit conditions.

In lowlight, expect struggles in dynamic range, exposure, and sharpness. However, it has a decent type of night mode and flash to enable you take acceptable photos even in darker conditions.

Rear Camera Samples

Normal vs HDR mode w/ yellowish saturation

Creating background blur is possible

Grainy indoor shot, but still acceptable

Night mode shot

Flash test

For selfies, this device is packed with a 5 MP f/2.8 lens. It has several modes like face beauty and scene frame. At first, we speculated that the selfie camera might not fare well due to its not that bright f/2.8 lens.


But, we're wrong! The picture quality in front is very acceptable for the price. It has wide angle lens that can fit at least 4 people in a single frame and the quality is just fine. It nearly has close to accurate color profiles and decent sharpness and dynamic range. In lowlight, expect it to struggle. Fortunately, there's a screen flash mode to make you at least visible in the dark.

Selfie Camera Samples

Daylight selfie

Wide selfie

Indoor selfie

Lowlight selfie

For videos, the main camera can record up to 1080p at 30 frames per second in quality. Output is decent as long as you hands are steady. Picture quality is decent, but focus is a tad slower. In front, the selfie cam has the ability to shoot in 720p. Good enough for video calls on well lit conditions. However, steady hands or the use of a tripod is required for better stability.

Performance

Expected benchmark scores

There's nothing much to write about the specs of the Thrill Power as we've seen it with other phones at this price. It has an MT6580 chip clocked at 1.3 GHz paired with Mali 400 graphics and 1 GB of RAM.

Opening social media applications is doable, but multitasking isn't that great due to its lack of RAM. The storage capacity isn't big as well at 8 GB. It is expandable via micro SD card slot, but you won't be able to install many heavy apps.

Gaming performance for light games and Asphalt 8 on medium settings is good though. Thermal management is also decent.

The UI of the phone

In terms of UI, this is the first CloudFone handset that we saw in a long while that has an app drawer. Fortunately, it isn't just stock where the company was able to maintain its good camera app, phone assist app for maintenance, and has minimal minimal bloats. Most of them are uninstallable too.

For telephony, we never had a problem with our WiFi, 3G, and GSM signals for calls and SMS. Bluetooth connection also works well and GPS signal is usable for Waze and Google Maps even if it is far from being the most accurate. OTG connection w/ reverse charging or powerbank mode is also present.

Pros – Solid metal case, bright and sharp screen, legit 5,000 mAh of battery, good cameras on a budget, OTG support

Cons – 2 points of touch only, small storage, no LTE, no gestures for shortcuts, no LED keys backlight

No doubt, for its purpose of providing the longest battery life on a budget smartphone, the CloudFone Thrill Power is on point. With a score of over 18 hours, it managed to beat all the other sub PHP 5K handsets we tested in the past in terms of battery life.

The performance is quite okay too. It can load social media apps like Facebook and Instagram with ease and even play some heavy games like the Asphalt 8 on medium settings.

Yes, there are few shortcomings like the lack of LTE connectivity, small storage, and just 2 points of touch. But, let us remember that this is just a sub PHP 3.5K phone, you can't have it all at that price point.

Let's be happy that there's a device with this long battery life and decent cameras for the price.


Build / Design – 4
Display – 4
Audio – 4
Battery – 4.75
Camera – 4
Performance – 3.5
Average – 4 / 5

CloudFone Thrill Power Review – Legit Big Battery On A Budget!
CloudFone Thrill Power Review – Legit Big Battery On A Budget!