Starmobile Knight Spectra Review – The King of Local Android Phones

The Starmobile Knight Spectra is the latest foray of HappyMan into the mid-range and more premium category of Android. In papers along, the Knight Spectra looks a highly capable local Android and beating even Cherry Mobile’s Cosmos offering. But the Knight Spectra attractive hardware comes with a price though as it retails for exactly Php 14,990 as the official price.

In this comprehensive review, we find out if the Starmobile Knight Spectra is worth for its price or just an overpriced locally branded Android phone.

More comparisons!

• Knight Spectra vs Sony Xperia C5 Ultra
• Zenfone Selfie vs Cherry Mobile Flare Selfie
• Mi Redmi Note 3 vs iPhone 6s

Unboxing: What’s in the retail box of Knight Spectra?

• 1.5A power adapter or wall charger
• Knight Spectra with built-in 3500mAh battery
• Pin ejector tool key for SIM tray
• Papers
• MicroUSB data cable
• Cleaning cloth
• Transparent plastic case
• Tempered glass
• Scratch resistant glass

Design

It’s no contest for Starmobile Knight Spectra in design. Not even some phones such as from Xiaomi or Meizu come close to the craftsmanship and style I saw on the Spectra. It’s beautifully crafted with rounded aluminum frame with chamfered edges and flat glass. There’s a protective lip that slightly protrudes around the glass to keep it safe from scratching rough surfaces.

The array of buttons are placed on the right side that is evenly separated. So at first it was confusing which was the right button for volume or power. These are made out of metal too. The bottom side houses rounded speaker cutouts similar to iPhone 6s, Galaxy and other premium phones. The 3.5mm audio jack is located on the top.

The dual-camera setup is positioned on the top area of the back, sandwiching the single LED flash. The main camera is a 13MP snapper while the back-up is 2MP. This setup provides more accurate focusing and adds softer background similar to SLR with wider aperture lens.

Unlike the oleophobic coating we saw from recent Sony Xperia Z5 phones and iPhone 6s, the glass on Knight Spectra easily magnets dirt and smudges.

One of the well-built, solid phones I’ve held was the Knight Spectra. Despite the wide profile, one-handed operation was still possible. The weight and dimensions are more fitting for two-handed use.

Display

Starmobile is one of the first local brands to offer AMOLED screens. The Knight Spectra is rocking with 5.5-inch 1080p FHD AMOLED with a measured 441 ppi density. There’s NO mention of Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail though.

Quality is what you’d expect from those high-calibre screens you see from mid-range to flagship phones of other major brands. Contrast and saturation are top-notch. The black level has inky pitch and screen produces blinding brightness level with the maximum setup. Finally, you don’t need to go for more expensive phones in order to experience AMOLED screen.

Camera

Behind the Knight Spectra is a duo camera setup with the 13MP as main sensor and 2MP as the secondary. The latter serves and provides more accurate and bokeh-effect shots like on the DSLR with wide aperture lens.

Image quality and detail preservation are both impressive for a mid-range. It pars with the best shooters we tested on the said category especially in the daylight shooting. The color reproduction is accurate with very good amount of exposure level and dynamic range control.

The camera only struggles in the night or low light scenarios. The details become rough or grainy.

Aside from the dual camera setup on the back, there’s an 8MP selfie front-facing camera too. The selfie snapper produces pleasing shots and the beauty mode has right amount of skin smoothening and brightening.

The video recording is up to 1080p. The quality and color are on matched to the still image prowess. But focusing is somewhat slower when compare to other mid-ranger shooters such as the Sony Xperia C5 Ultra.

You can watch the sample Full HD video in the embedded video comparison below.

Performance

The Knight Spectra managed to run most of the demanding tasks we throw at. Under the hood is a Snapdragon 615 chipset paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage with microSD card expansion up to 64GB.

Most of the tasks are handled swiftly and smoothly, but there is really a noticeable delays or lags when swiping to another home screen or jumping to another app. Opening and running games with intensive graphics is still on the average computing speed with a second late than the Xperia C5 Ultra. Expect to run Asphalt 8 Airborne, NBA 2K16, and Clash of Clans.

Starmobile Knight Spectra benchmarks

• Antutu: 33531
• Geekbench single core: 817
• Geekbench multi-cores: 4481
• Basemark OS II: 849

Software

What we liked about the Knight Spectra is the close integration and software experience to a stock Android. It is not 100% vanilla experience as there are few customizations that Starmobile made including the poor selection of proprietary wallpapers. But at least, we can easily customized the Knight Spectra with other launcher such as Google Now.

The Knight Spectra runs Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box. We haven’t heard yet if Star is going to upgrade the Spectra to Android 6.0 Marshmallow soon.

Battery

Battery life on the Knight Spectra is above average, which is good considering its display is high resolution. Inside is a 3500mAh built-in battery that lasts up to 16h of HD movie playback. Expect up to 2 days battery life on moderate use of the Spectra.

Starmobile Knight Spectra battery life

• Video: 16h 40min
• Moderate: 2 days
• On-screen: 5 hours
• Charge time: 2h 30min

Speaker

The beautifully rounded cutout on the bottom-facing speaker of the Starmobile Knight Spectra didn’t produce satisfying audio output. Quality is acceptable with a bit tinny effect on it max volume. Loudness is average with relative so so bass and vocal controls.

Price and Verdict

The Starmobile Knight Spectra is steeply priced for Php 14,990. It is quite an expensive offer given that Asus Zenfone 2, Mi Redmi Note 3 and other mid-range Androids are on more aggressive pricing. There are bunch of budget phones that sport the same internal hardware as the Knight Spectra too.

But what makes the Knight Spectra more valuable and worth trying out is the premium design and sharp camera it offers more than better than the rest of local phones in the Philippines. There’s no question, the Starmobile Knight Spectra is definitely the King of local Android phones here in the Philippines.

Starmobile Knight Spectra Pros

• AMOLED display
• Large battery
• Solid build
• Dual camera setup
• Expandable storage

Starmobile Knight Spectra Cons

• No fingerprint scanner
• Non-replaceable battery
• Mediocre speaker

Starmobile Knight Spectra Price, Full Specs

Knight Spectra vs Xperia C5 Ultra Comparison Video