Himax Pure III borrows ideas from Xiaomi and Oppo (REVIEW)

Indonesia’s gadget market is very hot. It’s not only foreign smartphone manufacturers making their mark in the country; local phone brands are also turning up their “A” game in the face of serious competition. One of them is Himax.

Himax is gaining strong traction in its native Indonesia because it’s emulating Xiaomi’s tactics – making good quality products at prices that a bit lower than you might expect. And it’s also using Xiaomi-style online flash sales.

A couple of months ago, we reviewed one of Himax’s most popular smartphones, the Polymer (see the review here). The phone looks to be the closest rival to the Xiaomi Redmi Note, with almost identical specifications and price. And now we’ve got our hands on another Himax phone. Meet the Pure III. At a glance, it looks similar to an Oppo N1 Mini. Both phones have a 200-degree rotating camera. But that’s where the resemblance ends, as the Himax Pure III is sold at Rp 2.4 million (US$195), less than half the price of the Oppo N1 Mini at Rp 5 million (US$407).

The Himax Pure III has a 1.7GHz octa-core MediaTek processor complemented by 1GB RAM, Mali-450 GPU, 4.7-inch 720p screen, and a 13MP rotating camera. The phone uses the company’s Amigo OS (version 4) running on top of Android 4.2 Jelly Bean.

Design and hardware

The Pure III’s body feels sturdy and premium thanks to its polycarbonate body. The company emphasizes that the material originates from a Finnish company called Perlos. When getting my hands on the Pure III for the first time, I thought it was one of Himax’s pricier models, but it turns out the phone is aimed at mid-level consumers.

The polycarbonate unibody looks elegant and premium. You won’t feel any plastic rubbing or moving when you put pressure on it. Its bezel is not too big nor small.

The phone’s dimensions feel good in my hand – although I have a bigger-than-average hands. Weighing in at 149 grams and 8.6mm thick, the Pure III doesn’t feel too heavy for a 4.7-inch-screened phone.

You’ll find speakers on the front and back side of the rotating camera module – which is different than Oppo’s speakerless rotating camera – as well as a flashlight and the camera itself. Pure III can detect which side is looking at the front and will automatically adjust the speaker function between loudspeaker and phone speaker. You won’t need to worry about answering a call when the camera is facing frontward after taking selfies.

Along the bottom of the front side, you will find three soft keys: menu on the left, home in the center, and back on the right. Unfortunately, these soft keys will only light up after you press them, which is different than the Redmi Note’s soft keys that light up whenever the screen is on. You will find the power/wake/standby button and volume buttons on the phone’s right edge. As for the headphone jack and battery port, Himax puts them on the phone’s bottom edge. This placing is a bit awkward because when you’re charging, it can be difficult to connect to the adjacent headphone jack.

There’s a SIM slot on the phone’s left side. To open it, you must stick a needle or paperclip in it, and you will find two micro SIM slots on the tray. Unfortunately, Pure III doesn’t have any expandable storage slots for a MicroSD card, leaving you with just 16GB of internal memory.

Himax Pure III uses an octa-core MediaTek processor, which is roughly equal to a quad-core Qualcomm processor. Pure III can hold its own when used to play light games, but playing heavier games like Despicable Me: Minion Rush or Spider-Man Unlimited makes the phone lag a bit when a lot of things are happening on the screen. Batman Arkham performed very well without any significant lags.

See: Oppo R5 is one of the world’s thinnest smartphones, but makes compromises to stay slim (REVIEW)

Screen and sound

The Himax Pure III has a 294ppi (pixels per inch) screen. Though it’s only 720p HD, the phone can produce sharp-looking pictures, even when watching HD and 3D videos. Pure III has speakers at the top and back bottom side, which help produce stereo sound. However, the placement of the bottom speakers is a bit weird because your hand tends to cover up the back speakers when watching movies in landscape orientation.

When the smartphone is laid face down on a flat surface, the sound is amplified to produce audio at a higher volume. Sadly, the higher-pitched audio doesn’t sound very clear.

The screen’s sensitivity bugs me a bit. I constantly mistyped when using the touchscreen keyboard, and even the slightest touch from my palm can open an app; this issue happens for both the screen and soft keys. Even worse, the phone sometimes dials a call on its own while in my pocket. Because of this, I always have to make sure I lock the phone beforehand. As a person who rarely locks my phone manually, this gets aggravating. Most phones are smart enough to avoid these kinds of accidental inputs.

Pure III’s native keyboard is flat out annoying. I constantly double typed characters when using it. I tried solving this issue by installing third-party keyboard apps like Flexy, but I still constantly double typed things.

Software – outdated and stuck in the past

Himax Pure III runs Android 4.2 (yes, not 4.4) with a skin called Amigo OS. Not only is Himax’s online sales system and packaging very similar to Xiaomi’s, but its Android skin appears to be mimicking Xiaomi’s MIUI as well.

Amigo has the same feel as MIUI, which is influenced by iOS. So you won’t find an app drawer. Amigo has easily customizable themes, just like MIUI, but there are only four themes available, and you can’t find any more themes in the app store. This might change over the course of time, but don’t bank on it. Himax could create an app and theme ecosystem just like MIUI in the future. But for now, this limitation irks me more than it impresses.

To open task manager and switch between apps, you need to double tap the home button. The card-like display reminds me of the task manager used on iOS 7. Fortunately, Himax executes this concept quite well; I enjoy the animation and functions.

I was excited to experiment with Himax’s new Android skin, but that excitement went to dust when I learned that Amigo OS doesn’t have an update feature. This means that you will be stuck with that skin without any updates from Himax.

Without the ability to update its OS, you will be stuck on Android 4.2 OS with no hope of upgrading to Lollipop 5.0 – unless you root the phone and flash a new OS manually, which few people are going to do.

Another feature that looks similar to MIUI is its privacy and security app. With it, you can set the permissions for each app, like whether the app can use the phone’s location, send SMS and calls, or access your storage. So you will have full control of what each app can do on your phone.

See: Here comes Android One: Micromax Canvas A1 arrives to challenge Motorola and Xiaomi (REVIEW)

Camera

The camera is arguably Pure III’s most powerful weapon, and you won’t be disappointed with it. The camera can take sharp pictures even in dim lighting. A few camera adjustments are at your disposal, like photo size and HDR.

The camera’s autofocus works well and snapping is quite quick when hitting the shutter button. The colors on the camera’s default mode may not look quite accurate though, as it tends to favor deeper colors. When taking photos directly in front of the sun, some of the white still spills out to the foreground.

Thanks to its rotating camera, you won’t need to worry about taking selfies with an front inferior camera. To take a selfie, you just need to rotate the camera to the front and the Pure III will automatically open the camera app, ready to snap away.

Pure III’s camera also takes solid 1080p HD videos. Although the quality is decent, Himax doesn’t offer additional video features like iPhone’s slow motion or hyperlapse.

Here are some photos taken using the Himax Pure III:

Battery

The Himax Pure III delivers enough juice for my daily use. Even with above-average usage like actively using social media apps, chatting, and opening emails, I could still rely on Pure III for one full day.

But when playing a lot of games, the Pure III can only give me about six hours of battery. The same thing happens when I shoot a lot of photos and video.

Alternatives

In the same price range, the Himax Pure III is competing head to head with phones like the Xiaomi Redmi Note (2013), Motorola Moto G (2013), K-Touch Octa, and Huawei Honor 3C. Here is the comparison table for all five phones:

	Himax Pure III	Xiaomi Redmi Note (2013)	Motorola Moto G (2013)	K-Touch Octa	Huawei Honor 3C
Screen size	4.7 inch	5.5 inch	5 inch	5 inch	5 inch
Screen resolution	1280 x 720	1280 x 720	1280 x 720	1920 x 1080	1280 x 720
Rear camera	13MP (rotating camera)	13MP	8MP	13MP	8MP
Front camera	13MP (rotating camera)	5MP	2MP	5MP	5MP
Processor	1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 (octa-core)	1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 (octa-core)	1.2GHz Snapdragon 400 (quad-core)	1.7GHz MediaTek MT6592 (octa-core)	1.3GHz MediaTek MT6582 (quad-core)
RAM	1GB	2GB	1GB	2GB	2GB
GPU	Mali-450	Mali-450	Adreno 305	Mali-450	Mali-400
Battery	2200mAh	3100mAh	2070mAh	2000mAh	2300mAh
Android version	Android 4.2	Android 4.2	Android 4.4	Android 4.2	Android 4.2
Price in Indonesia	Rp 2,400,000	Rp 2,000,000	Rp 2,300,000	Rp 2,300,000	Rp 2,200,000

When looking purely at the specifications, the Pure III has the best camera than the other four phones. Xiaomi Redmi Note looks very appealing with its affordable pricing and strong performance. Bear in mind that the Moto G is the best bet in terms of timely Android updates.

K-Touch Octa has the sharpest screen out of the bunch. While Huawei Honor 3C may not look too appealing among its rivals on the table.

Conclusion

The Pure III is a decent smartphone with nice specifications and a solid camera. But the touchy touchscreen threw us off, and the non-upgradable software is a big disappointment. A smartphone is supposed to get updates – it’s not rocket science. We wouldn’t recommend this phone.

Pros & cons

Pros

• Sturdy and solid design


• Very good camera


• Good battery life

Cons

• OS can’t be updated


• The screen’s too sensitive


• Amigo OS has too few customization options

See: Inspired by Xiaomi, the budget Himax Polymer is ready to shake up the market (REVIEW)

This post Himax Pure III borrows ideas from Xiaomi and Oppo (REVIEW) appeared first on Tech in Asia.

Himax Pure III borrows ideas from Xiaomi and Oppo (REVIEW)