Symphony Helio 80 Review

Today we have the good opportunity to review a very special smartphone which is released this very day. Symphony Helio 80, is a phone that is expected to reshape the smartphone market of Bangladesh. A phone packed with all kinds of great and strong features and leaves very little room for any kind of critic. We have already evaluated and compared its technical specifications, as well as watched a hands-on video review by a tech expert. So, let’s have a good look at the phone.

Design and Build

The design is more minimal and there is just one color called honey dew green. Well, maybe there will be other colors later, maybe a black and a white color as well but for now, you got to be satisfied with this one single color. A center-punch hole display and a slim 7.96 mm body complement it. The weight is 188 grams which is moderate as well.

The back part is made of glass and on the front, there is a 5th gen, Gorilla Glass. So, yes, it’s premium and solid. But we are missing a splash-resistant feature since a few phones around this price offer this feature. Apart from that, everything looks clean and nice.

Display

A 6.7 inches big Full HD+ display, plus 120Hz refresh rate, plus AMOLED, plus always-on feature. It’s just “wow” in one word. The color accuracy is excellent as well. However, there is no Widevine L1 support so you won’t get that max. pixels boost. There is Widevine L3 certification. But even without the L1 certification, it looked very crisp and comforting, so, we are not complaining here. The peak brightness is 500 nits and you may struggle a little under direct sunlight because of that lower max. brightness and this is a mentionable disadvantage or drawback of the phone. But there was no lower brightness issue while using the camera.

Camera

108 MP back camera. It should do some justice with that amount of Megapixels and guess what, it does. The photo qualities looked crystal clear, and sharp, with very good details, focus, and color reproduction. We are extremely satisfied to finally see a really admirable camera at a lower budget. You can easily compare it with a good mid-range camera. There is up to 2K video recording option as well as video stabilization for up to 1080p@30fps quality, another very admirable feature. The video quality looked excellent as well.

The 16 MP f/2.0 aperture front camera is more than satisfactory as well. Skin color tones looked natural. There is no aggressive tendency to make the skin softer. There were good details, colors looked nice, plus there is up to a 2K video recording option here as well.

Battery

The 5000 mAh battery comes with an 18W charger. It takes about one hour and 45 minutes to fully charge according to Symphony. But user experience can be slightly different and it can take about two hours which is still decent. You could expect a 33W charger which could probably take you about 1 hour and 15 minutes to fully charge. But it’s not a very big issue let’s say and 18W is still decent for the cost.

Performance & Storage

Well, well. Helio G99. There is no better chipset at this price in the official smartphone market in Bangladesh right now. Even if you find some unofficial phones with Helio G99 at a low price like this, their overall specs remain behind compared to Symphony Helio 80. Most phones will offer you a Helio G80 or maximum a Helio G88 chipset if it’s a really good offer such as Infinix Hot 30 or Tecno Spark 10 Pro.

Here is the rank of Helio G80, G88 and G99 according to Nanoreview:

Helio G99: Rank #81, score 43. CPU Performance 37, Gaming Performance 25, Battery life 84
Helio G88: Rank #110, score 31. CPU Performance 25, Gaming Performance 17, Battery life 63
Helio G80: Rank #118, score 30. CPU Performance 25, Gaming Performance 14, Battery life 63

As you can see the Helio G99 chipset is far better in terms of CPU, Gaming and Battery performance than the Helio G88 or lower. So, you are clearly a winner here. The phone has a satisfying AnTuTu score of 343995. There is also 6 GB RAM and a fast eMCP5 128 GB internal storage. Some of you may know that the uMCP5 is comparable to UFS 2.2 or even 3.1, so, it’s a very fast ROM. The MicroSD slot is shared with the second SIM slot.

Connectivity & Sensors

There is FM Radio, USB Type-C, Dual SIM etc. all connectivity features. The device is 4G supported and there is no 5G which isn’t expected at this price range anyway. We have Gyroscope and E-Compass sensors which are missing in many phones at lower cost.

Sound and others

The sound quality looks clear and loud. There are no fancy dual or stereo speakers, still pretty fine. A noise-cancellation microphone is included which we appreciate very much. There is a 3.5 mm Jack port and the fingerprint sensor is side-mounted.

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