Smart Phones by stefan @ 2015-04-03
Omega is one of the latest smartphones of Blackview, featuring the established MT6592 SoC at 1.7GHz from Mediatek and is paired with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage. The selfie camera is 5MP, while the shooter from the back is powered by the Sony IMX135 13MP sensor and it does have a battery of 2100mAh.
At first we would like to thank Blackview for offering a sample of their Omega smartphone for testing and reviewing.
“Blackview was founded in March 2013 by serial entrepreneur Xu Ming(David Xu) ,who believes that high-quality technology doesn't need to cost a fortune. Blackview is the second largest independent brand subordinated to Blackview International Group.
Blackview advocates "quality and experience", imposing strict examination on each procedure from design to production. In terms of quality, all products of Blackview are subject to strict high standards and high-quality testing processes to ensure that every user has perfect experience. We incorporate user feedback into our product range, which currently includes Acme, Omega, Sigma, Ultra, v3, Crown, Arrow, DM550, JK600, JK606 and JK890, etc. We sell at low price to customers to keep our prices competitive, and our products launched in Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Laos and other place, we are ready to go global.
We hope that Blackview is a milestone-type industry brand—the essence, exquisite appearance and flexible operation of products endowed by designers convey to the user the hope and enjoyment of life.
We hope that in the entire industry Blackview is extraordinary refined—through the usage of Blackview products by users, the leisure time in life brings more happiness and affection, helps users harvest friendship and love, and creates memory and missing thoughts. Enjoyment of life is what Blackview products create for users. ”
Extremely upgraded performance
Running on 1.7GHz Octa-core processor from MediaTek at the heart of Omega, the device makes higher technology more accessible. Powered by 8 cores, plus runs independently and combines amazing performance with 2GB RAM for program running and 16GB ROM for memory storage, as well as capable for maximum extension to 32GB (T-flash or SD card), even the most demanding apps can run smoothly without slowing down the device, ascertains blazing-fast performance which are both intelligent and simplified.
Classic colors metallic frame, the 3rd generation Corning Gorilla Glass both in the front and rear of the body
Omega comes with 4 classic color options plus the 3rd generation Corning Gorilla Glass set both in the front and rear of the body, as well as the invisible function keys set on the panel so that it further enhances the minimalism aesthetics of Omega in layout to let the consumers choose the one that meets their favor, leading the business style into cool and elegant instead of heavy and ponderous.
Classic colors metallic frame in only 6.9mm thin body
Omega has an ultra-thin body in only 6.9mm, yet the metallic frame and Corning’s New Gorilla Glass 3 with Native Damage Resistance is an alkali-aluminosilicate thin sheet glass that is better able to survive the real-world events that most commonly cause glass failure. With its new core composition, this glass enables improved damage resistance and toughness by helping to prevent the deep chips and scratches that cause glass to break.
LTPS & OGS Full Lamination - Low temperature poly-silicon technology & one glass solution full lamination HD screen
Omega screen resolution is 1920x1080 Full HD, and it adopts the advanced LTPS (Low Temperature Poly-silicon) technology. The pixel density reaches as high as 440ppi, which is far beyond human eye identification. And it has superb performance in aspects of display exquisite degree, color rendition, color softness, and visual comfort. OGS (One Glass Solution) is a touchscreen technology which greatly reduces the thickness of display, by removing one of the layers of glass from the traditional capacitive touchscreen stack. Not only more integrated, but faster and more sensitive.
18M Pixels & 8M Pixels Dual Camera
A complete performance device, Omega supports 18M Pixels rear camera and 8M Pixels front camera, with 6 sets of special lens are delicately polished with F/2.0 large aperture, let this device captures wonderful moment of life comparable with Digital Single Lens Reflex. It will be too easy to take breathtaking pictures and instantly share them online for more "likes" than ever. Adding to the aesthetics of the device, the rear camera has metallic rim around it, which makes the camera stand out as another design element.
8M Pixels Front Camera
With the 8M Pixels camera set in the front panel of Omega, through a series of perfect blend of well performed hardware and software for a Beauty Mode process, like face sliming, skin smoothening and teeth whitening, this device can bring you more fun in helping you take amazing selfies.
Privacy Encryption - Keep your private information protected
Omega enables program encryption with app locking software to encrypt your photos, videos, messages, contact numbers, even the whole phone, etc. And it supports gesture customization to encrypt your privacy with security. Needless to say, the more we dependent on technology, the more desirable we need for privacy been protected.
Endurance - 2100mAh long-lasting battery life
Omega is powered by a rather large 2100mAh battery, this is one of the largest smartphone batteries used right now, successfully managed battery life from 8 to 10 hours of moderate use.
Built-in Hi-Fi Speaker
The well-built AAC 5 Sets of Magnet Hi-Fi speaker in Omega possesses excellent sound quality for a wonderful user experience when listening music or watching movies.
3 Fingers for Fast Screenshot
Take screenshots immediately at any moment, the Omega equipped with fast screenshot in using only 3 fingers slid on screen from up to down. This interesting gesture just made it so cool and fun if you want to take a screenshot occasionally.
Hotknot Data Transmission Technology
Hotknot wireless data transmission technology, no Wi-Fi required, with two pieces of smartphones overlap together which both have this function, making you easily transfer your favorite songs, videos & pictures to each other at a speed up to 54Mbps.
Smart Screen Gesture
Omega is not only a smartphone with cool layout. It also has an amazing cool smart “heart” inside. You can conveniently wake up a series of functions of your phone by hand drawing a certain gesture on the screen, like drawing “c” to access camera, drawing “m” to play music and an “e” for Browser, etc.
Double Tap Waking Up
Double tap on a turned off screen can easily wake up your phone
Smart Proximity Sensor
Use your Omega without even touching it, Omega can smartly feel what you want to do with a Proximity Sensor set inside. When there's an incoming call ringing, pick up the phone near to your ear, Omega will be sensitive to put you through the call immediately. Other smart sensors are swing to answer and flip over to mute, etc.
Quick Charge Technology
With quick charge technology, the smartphone Omega will save you 75% charging time. The charging of full power battery can be finished in only 125 minutes, so you can enjoy doing things you like with the saved charging time.
Powerful LED Flash
Omega incorporates a flashlight that can be used as a torch, since it’s 4-5 times more powerful than a normal flashlight, it can be used for prolonged periods of time.
The Chinese smartphone market is now a very crowded one and many manufacturers are trying to impress with a lot of features in order to attract customers and also to provide a good experience while keeping the costs low. Blackview aims to release products which have an interesting design, with mainstream specifications, which should be accessible for a wide range of users. Today we will take a peek on one of their latest releases, the Omega, or how Blackview likes to call it “Speed Terminator”. The product is shipped in a medium-sized box, which resembles the ones we have seen with the Xperia-series smartphones and on the front the manufacturer has placed some photos with the product in operation, along with some of the main features; we are seeing there the 8M + 18M Dual Camera specifications but these are in fact 5M + 13M, the back sensor being a Sony IMX135, which we could also find with the Samsung Galaxy S4:
If people are interested in more details about the product, they should switch on the bottom side of the box, since here the manufacturer has included a more detailed description of the product:
After removing the top cover, we will get to see an interesting product presentation, with the product logo on the left half and the actual smartphone on the right:
The bottom layer includes the rest of the bundle, which is quite consistent:
Speaking of the bundle, we will receive the power adapter, an OTG adapter, the USB cable but also a set of earphones with in-line remote:
The power adapter is rated on the output as 5V, 2A:
The earphones seem to imitate a bit the EarPods from apple, which were designed by the geometry of the ear, for a better fit:
Each piece has the channel written on it:
On the in-line remote, we will see the Blackview logo:
The other side presents itself with a small clickable button:
Let’s go first to the black envelope and see what we have inside:
Here we will get to see a bonus protective cover, a Quick Start Guide, the SIM eject PIN and, surprisingly another, smaller envelope:
Inside the Quick Start Guide we will find everything we need to get things started fast:
The smaller envelope tells us that Blackview is not joking around in terms of accessories and have also included a set of glass protective covers, for both back and front of the smartphone; these are joined by a set of wipes, one wet for initial application and the second dry in order to eliminate any smudges which might form:
The plastic back cover is matching the color of the Omega smartphone and is of decent quality:
Here are also some shots of it up close, but we will come back to it in a couple of minutes:
With design inspiration from the other well-known manufacturers, Blackview have succeeded to build a nice looking terminal, with an aluminum frame and a thin body of 6.9mm; on both back and front Blackview has used Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for additional durability, while the Full-HD 5’’ display adopts the advanced LTPS (Low Temperature Poly-silicon) technology. The plastic protective screen is pre-applied so we only have to remove the top layer, which eliminates a lot of hassle:
By the removal of the said layer, we can reveal a more detailed look of the Omega smartphone:
On the top we have the 5MP camera, along with the speaker and the smart proximity sensor:
The bottom side of the screen the manufacturer has placed the Menu, Home and Back capacitive buttons, which are only visible when the LED backlight turns on:
The aluminum frame of the Omega has been carefully processed by CNC in order to obtain a smooth finish; on the bottom area of the terminal we have the USB port along with the Mic port hole:
The right side comes with the dual-SIM tray and the small removal hole:
On the top we only have the headphone/microphone jack:
By looking on the left side, we will discover the Volume rocker, along with the Power/Standby button:
The back side of the terminal is initially covered by a matte plastic film, in order to avoid damages during transport; on this film, Blackview has also drawn the interfaces so we would know how to operate the SIM tray, but also used a small sticker in order to show the IMEI numbers:
Let’s remove this film too in order to expose the real beauty of the Omega:
On the top left side we have the camera lens plus the flash LED:
In the middle we have the company logo, along with their slogan “smartphone for everyone”:
The bottom area welcomes us with the speaker grill:
The protective case can be fit in a couple of seconds in order to save our investments from additional damages:
Now let’s take a closer look on the sides, in order to see how the interfaces are exposed:
On the right side, we do not have a cut-out for the SIM tray, so we would need to remove the protective case each time we will need to work with it:
The SIM tray can either accommodate two SIM cards or a SIM card and a TF card:
As we were saying before, the capacitive buttons are clearly visible when the LED backlight is turned on:
Blackview is proposing with the Omega a custom launcher with modified icons of the usual applications; the drawer icon is present in the bottom right corner and the clock along with Google Search widgets are available on-screen:
Let’s take a look at all available applications from the drawer:
Backup & Restore is a usual MTK application, and works properly when we have a microSDHC card installed:
Blackview Xender is a custom application which will permit us sending files between Android and iOS platforms:
Next we have the stock Android Browser, which works as expected:
The Calculator application is standard, without additional skinning:
We can say the same thing about the Calendar app:
Camera GUI is stock for a MTK phone, and will permit adjusting the settings by pressing the small Gear button:
Even if the software permits resolution selection up to 18MP, most people should be inclined on working with 12MP, since they should get about the same quality; 18MP is an interpolated value:
The Clock application is the stock one for the Android 4.4.2 release:
The Contacts application will allow us working with the available SIM/Google contacts:
The downloaded files will go straight to the Downloads folder and its shortcut can be accessed from the drawer:
If we are using a different email account besides Gmail (in which case we would recommend downloading and using the dedicated application), we are free to work with the Email stock application:
Blackview saw fit to pre-install Facebook on the Omega, since this is one of the widely used applications:
The File Manager application is also MTK stock and with it we will be able to browse and work with files in the internal storage but also with the attached/external one:
The FM Radio application works well only when we have the earphones connected:
Next, we could remind you of the stock Gallery Android application:
After an update of the “Local” application, this will transform into “Google Maps”, which is very handy for finding different places or for navigation purposes via the internal AGPS:
The Messaging application will permit sending simple SMS to our favorite contacts:
The Music application will index the suitable multimedia files from the storage and display it afterwards for immediate playback:
Next we have the dialer application, which has a slightly modified skin:
The Google Play store is pretty self-explanatory and will allow us to install dozens of free and paid apps:
Power Saving Management is another MTK-based application which we have seen in more recent releases and allows enabling some features in order to save battery life even more:
We can also modify the IMSI via the SIM Toolkit application:
Sound Recorder is another stock Android application:
ToDo is a scheduler application present on all MTK stock ROMs:
Same thing we can say about the Torch application:
Besides Facebook, Blackview have also installed the Twitter social application:
Videos stock Android application will index the video files and display them in order for immediate playback:
Let’s go back a bit to the usual Settings application, which besides the stock menus, contains some custom options we can work with:
From the SIM Management menu, we will be able to delegate functions like Voice Call, Video Call, Messaging and so on to different providers, but also work with the Roaming option:
The Wi-Fi menu shows the available wireless networks and allows connection if we have the necessary credentials:
The Bluetooth menu is pretty self-explanatory:
HotKnot is a data transfer technology by Mediatek which utilizes the physics of a capacitive touch-screen, such that the transmitting grid in the screen of one phone can interact with the receiving grid in the second when they are in close proximity (less than one centimeter):
From the Data Usage menu, we will be able to see the consumption on both Wi-Fi and Data connections:
The Wireless & Networks menu allows additional functionality, including Tethering & Portable hotspot:
From the Audio profiles menu, we will be able to work with the pre-defined ones, but also select some sound enhancement effects; we will also observe down below some text written in Spanish language, but this will be fixed in the future firmware release:
The options for customizing the current profile are pretty standard:
Next, we have the Display menu, for adjusting the ClearMotion MTK function, wallpaper, screen brightness and so on:
The Storage menu is classic to MTK devices and allows us to select the default write disk; Blackview were nice and defined the initial internal storage partition to 3GB, so installing lots of apps should not be an issue:
The second internal partition uses the space left of 10.55GB:
The Battery menu can enable the CPU Power Saving Mode and here we can also choose to display the Battery Percentage or see which apps consume most battery resources:
The Apps tool will allow us the currently installed and running application; this application can be also used as a file manager:
The interesting menus are starting to appear, with the Wake Gesture setting; here we will be able to enable tap-to-wake or enter standby, or the ability to navigate to certain applications directly (screen off) by drawing certain letters. For example, if you draw a “C”, Omega will go straight to Camera application:
Next, we have the additional Gestures menu, which contain two separate sections:
The first one allows us to enable Flip Mute function, Smart Answer, Answer by swinging the phone or the Intelligent Switching function:
System Gestures menu will enable screen lock when we click twice the capacitive Home button:
This is not all! We also have Movement and Gesture menu which enables Launcher and Gallery app navigation via screen waving near the top sensors:
The three-finger screenshot feature is quite useful and faster to perform than when pressing Volume Down + Power:
The Location menu will allow us starting up the hardware GPS and here we will be also able to set the amount of precision for each application which requires this function:
The Security menu is pretty standard and does not have added options:
The screen can be unlocked in two different ways:
Next, we could remind you of the regular Language & Input menu:
Backup & Reset menu will allow us to bring the smartphone to the factory defaults:
Date & Time menu is pretty self-explanatory:
The Schedule Power On & Off menu is another MTK-based option:
Next, we would like to mention the stock Accessibility and Printing menus:
The Developer Options menu will be mainly used when flashing new ROMs and the USB Debugging option needs to be enabled:
The About Phone menu is the area where we will perform OTA updates, view the current status of the terminal, model name, Android build, Baseband version and so on:
The Blackview Omega smartphone has at its core the already established 32-bit MTK MT6592 SoC at 1.7GHz which was built on the 28nm HPM technology, while the 3D component is taken care of the Mali 450MP at 700MHz; these are paired with a total of 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage:
The System tab will supply us more information regarding the board type, Android version, kernel, resolution, free memory and so on:
The Battery tab will show the current status; the battery sensor is operating properly, unlike some other terminals we have checked out previously:
The new Thermal tab will update us with the live temperatures in different areas:
The application also shows live data from the available sensors:
To test out the performances of the Blackview Omega smartphone in more detail, we have installed some freeware benchmark apps from the Google Play Store in the internal memory (did not transfer them to a 3rd party microSDHC card, in order not to influence the test results). Afterwards, the applications were ran one-by-one, and we recorded the final scores; the obtained results were also compared with the previously tested systems, in order to spot the performance differences.
As we have mentioned before, the 13MP camera on the rear side of the Omega smartphone is powered by a Sony IMX135 sensor; as we have seen from our tests, the camera is able to produce quite clear results in the focus area, but in its vicinity the details start to fade quite a bit, which is not optimal; we really hope that this is an issue the engineers can fix via a software update, if the problem is not generated by the lens too.
The Blackview Omega smartphone is equipped with a good quality LTPS Full HD display and we haven't experience discolorations or other artifacts when viewing the device from an angle.
It is finally time to draw a line and look at the conclusions regarding one of the latest smartphones from Blackview, the Omega. Right after we have got in contact with the product, we have seen that the manufacturer did not use poor quality materials and the overall look is of a premium product; the aluminum frame of the Omega was carefully milled in order to avoid imperfections and the paint should not peel off as easily as we have seen with plastic variants.
The front and back sides of the device are covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for additional durability and the front screen protector the company offers to the users made of plastic is pre-installed; speaking of the screen protector, we also have glass protectors bundled inside the box, which is not something we are seeing frequently bundled, not even at highly established brands. For added value, we are also offered extras like an OTG cable or the good quality earphones which seem to be created following Apples’ design scheme.
While Blackview mentions on the box that the cameras Omega uses are 8MP+18MP, this is not exactly true; the device is equipped with 5MP+13MP sensors (Sony IMX135 for the back) so even if we choose the 18MP value from the stock software, we won’t get extra benefits besides an interpolated resolution, so we should better stick with the lower value, which is 12MP. While the camera can produce quite good, clear results in the focused area, the rest of the details are a little bit washed out, so we guess that improvements can be had in this direction too.
Blackview continues to work on the software of this device; right now the version is 0.5 and we are promised that most of the misspellings in the menus will be eliminated and a much needed recording feature from the Call menu will also be introduced, without the need to press any button in order to start it up.
The GPS module does not have a stellar accuracy as we have seen with most MTK6592 smartphones, but the time to lock our position is quite decent. We are not getting GLONASS or Beidou support, so only US GPS satellites will be seen:
Regarding the battery life, in order to keep the smartphone as slim as possible, Blackview has decided to include a 2100mAh model, which is a little low by our standards and is only a bit higher than the iOCEAN X7S, which featured the same SoC. When stressed out, the MT6592 can eat quite a bit of battery resources so the smartphone should last about 12 hours with medium to high usage. However, if the usage has a light pattern, then we may expect it to last up to a day. In standby though, with the screen off, we have seen that the software is quite well optimized and the battery life drops very little.
Here are the test results we have obtained with the AnTuTu utility:
Initially, the Omega smartphone price was hovering around the $200 mark, which was a little higher than we would have expected, but the manufacturer has decided to make it more attractive, with a discount so now potential buyers can have it for $184.99. The price will be changed at CooliCool after a short while.
We would like to thank again to Blackview for making this review possible!