Kata F1s Review — One Stop Multimedia Smartphone

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    Kata F1s Review — One Stop Multimedia Smartphone

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    Kata F1s is the upgraded version of the Kata F1, a higher Internal storage and RAM but has the same build and look. Kata is known for its budget friendly phone that has premium quality that I myself totally love the Kata products they never missed to amazed me in terms of performance and quality.

    [section label=”Build and Design” anchor=”build”]

    Build and Design

    Small, Sleek and Unique. The Design of the Kata F1s is like a car with some sexy bumps at first you will say quite weird design because of the curvy edge of the screen. But looking closely you will notice there’s a carbon fiber texture inside the screen and also with the back cover which make it looks futuristic and funky.

    F1s dimension is 68.5mm x 134.8mm x 8.9mm not the slimmest smartphone out there but feels very compact and easy to hold in one hand, thanks to that carbon fiber texture at the back and the curve edge display. Looking at the front is the 5-megapixel with the earpiece at the top and the Kata logo below. The bottom part is the 3 capacitive buttons (menu,home,back) and thankfully it has a backlit.

    Available in 3 different colors the Black , White and Yellow that I have, the material used in the F1s really feels solid and sturdy you will not hear any creak even if you bend the phone. Position of the buttons are relatively ok for its size, the power button is on the right side while the volume rocker is on the left side easy to access even in one hand navigation.

    At the top is the 3.5mm headphone jack and the Micro USB port but its not a OTG capable. Design is not the usual flat rectangular shape, It has this silver lining around the body but it stops in the bottom part near the notch of the back cover.

    The back part has the 8-megapixel camera in the top center with a single LED flash below it. the logo noticeably changed in the center, now with a fish icon which from the previous F1 its a text base logo but it still has “Kata” name at the bottom with the speaker grill at the lower right corner.

    My only complain for the Design is the back cover, it’s really hard to open since the volume rocker is near at the top, once popping out the cover it usually stock on that part and i’m really glad I didn’t break the back cover when opening. the carbon fiber is a nice touch for the phone it adds a depth to it.

    [section label=”Display” anchor=”display”]

    Display

    Having a 4.5-inch with a qHD IPS Display (540×960) 16:9 aspect ratio is one thing I love about the F1s. Because typically with this screen size usually manufacturer also lower the resolution and that is not the case with F1s it has high density display with 240ppi which makes the quality of the text sharp and crisp, even viewing in different angle is superb. Although the gap between the glass and panel is radically thick that makes the viewing angle shift its brightness just a little and it only supports 2 multi-touch.


    Speaking of Multi touch since it only have 2 touch point, it does have this collide bug issue that when you put your finger together in a horizontal orientation it recognize as one touch point which is a bug usually for 2 touch point smartphones but for a vertical orientation it just works fine.

    Even it’s not an OGS Display it still have a decent quality of display with a high refresh rate of 56.72Hz.

    [section label=”CPU Performance” anchor=”CPU”]

    CPU Performance

    F1s is equipped with a MediaTek MTK6582M Quad Core 1.3GHz (32-bit) having a clockspeed of 598Mhz using the Mali-400MP GPU. Running on Android 4.4.2 KitKat it can handle almost any graphic intensive games without huge lag. for casual games it’s really smooth thanks to combination of MT6582 SoC and Mali-400 GPU. Having a 961MB of usable RAM did run almost all of my benchmark tools.

    Base on the Benchmark it’s just on an average results but thus have a great advantage in terms of browsing. Basically F1s is has great performance in terms of managing multi tasking didn’t have any issues of huge lag in overall user experience but thus have a minor heat at the back when using the phone in a long hours of usage but I think that will just happen occasionally.

    [section label=”Camera, Video and Sound” anchor=”camera”]

    Camera , Video and Sound

    Rear Camera is a 8-megapixel with f2/8 aperture, 3.5mm focal length with a max resolution of 3584 x 2016. Pictures are way better on HDR Mode it pushes the depth of the black colors and brightens the photo but it takes a few seconds for you to fire again another shot, shutter is so slow you can’t use it for a fast-moving object it takes around 1–2 seconds before you can take a shot again.

    Full Resolution and Album Click here

    Interface of the camera is the generic MediaTek Camera UI with added features. It has Continuous mode upto 40 shots , HDR Mode , Smile Shot, Panorama, Voice Capture, Face Detection, Motion Track mode, Live Photo Mode.

    ISO can set from Auto, 100 upto 1600, exposure is also (+/-3) comparing it from other MediaTek Camera UI it doesn’t have the preview mode which means it’s automatically in full preview mode. Self timer can be set 2–10 secs, while in the video settings it has the Time lapse interval from 1–10secs, EIS is working smoothly if you want a stable video shot.

    Even having 8-megapixel camera it’s still not great in a low light environment there is color noise but can take 1080p video with 24fps which is not bad at all I just hope the shutter was faster in terms of taking multiple shots. Recording a video activates the led light which thankfully bright enough to help you capture the moments, but while recording you cannot take a snapshot it only focus on the subject you’re pointing on the screen.

    [section label=”Interface UI/UX” anchor=”UI”]

    Interface UI/UX and Features

    It’s using a MediaTek Stock Vanilla Android with a some Kata built-in apps like Kata Cloud, Hotspot, Wipe out that let’s you clear away running apps in the background. Fishmarket which is similar with the Google Play Store and the Owtel 3G, all the built-in apps are on the system apps so it won’t be able to uninstall unless you root the device.

    The UI is fluid and responsive even just using the stock launcher but since it’s a KitKat version I highly recommend using other launcher to take advantage of the Software performance. Under the hood it has accelerometer, light and proximity sensors sadly it doesn’t have a magnetic and Gyroscope sensor.

    Settings has Wi-Fi hotspot but you can use the Hotspot app that lessen the steps in configuration. It also has USB and Bluetooth tethering, in the Audio Profile it has the Audio enhancer.

    Kata F1s has 8GB of ROM but since it’s using a MediaTek only 4.18GB is available for the Internal Storage and 1.97GB for the Phone Storage. Although expandable via Micro SD Card it still can’t install app in the external memory, root is required if you want to take advantage of large storage. I manage to install 2 large file games and other than that you can only save images and video in the SD Card.

    [section label=”Connectivity and Communication” anchor=”connectivity”]

    Connectivity and Communication

    Kata F1s is also a Dual SIM with both SIM 1 and SIM 2 has 3G Connectivity that you can switch on/off without even swapping your SIM cards. Wi-Fi is stable with wide reception of coverage. Call quality listening using the earpiece is a bit low in terms of sound even on a full volume I usually use a headset in order to have better quality.

    [section label=”Audio and Video” anchor=”audio”]

    Audio and Video

    Using Kata F1s for Audio streaming like Spotify is superb few among the local brands provide a CTIA compliant with a Php4,000 price range I’m glad Kata is one them, New headsets with mic button will just fine. Sound quality is great using the Mi Piston II earphone works well even the buttons are all functioning.

    Video quality is stunning with this device even just having a 4.5-inch display you will still enjoy watching because of the vivid and bright colors it give. didn’t encounter any drop frames from playing a 720p HD video while doing my video looping stress test.

    [section label=”Battery Life” anchor=”battery”]

    Battery Life

    Since F1s only have 1,550mAh Battery it only took 4 hours for a 720p looping video playback before it shutdown. While on a 3D Gaming Stress test it took 2 hours and 2 mins. My settings are on a full brightness , 50% audio and Wi-Fi is on all throughout the test.

    But standby time can last a day since it doesn’t run bloatware in the background.

    [section label=”Verdict” anchor=”verdict”]

    Verdict

    Kata F1s still didn’t disappoint me in terms of performance it can run all major apps and games without any hiccups the only thing I wish if it can be fixed is the touch issue it affects the typing experience and even in some games that uses multi-touch points. but other than that it’s a Premium quality build with decent display, if you want a device with great multimedia experience but don’t want a large phablet build you can add Kata F1s to that list.

    We will be happy to hear your thoughts

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