Mstar, a subsidiary of Lihua International Group Limited, have just released the Mstar S100. The S100 is a budget device with decent specifications and the design of another popular, affordable Android phone *cough*Mlais M52*cough*. So what exactly does this new budget device offer?
The Mstar S100 is powered by the MTK6732 quad core 64-bit processor clocked at 1.5GHz, with 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal memory (only 5.56GB is usable). Up front, the phone offers a 5.5-inch HD IPS display, which should be adequate for daily usage. The rear camera is an 8MP unit with a single LED flash, while the front camera is a 5MP unit. The phone will have support for microSD cards and dual sim. 4G LTE is also available, though only for the supported bands (4G: FDD-LTE 800/1800/2100/2600MHz). All this will be kept running by a decently sized 2800mAh battery.
It’s obvious that the device is exactly the same as the Mlais M52 Red Note (which we reviewed not too long ago), only with lesser specifications. The devices both look exactly the same, from the Redmi Note inspired look to the 4G logo on the front. Thankfully, this isn’t a bad thing since the M52 Red Note has proven that the build quality of the device is well above what the price range would suggest. The device will come in four colors, including red, blue, white and black.
The device has already gone on sale on a few online retail stores for the price of $120, which is a pretty decent price considering the specifications. What do you feel about the Mstar S100? Is it a good budget phone? Do you like the design?
PHONEY (pun intended)
… Why is Ashe from League of Legends coming out of the phone in the ad? I highly doubt you can play it on the M52 Re- Mstar S100
exactly my thought
The same reason that so many manufacturers use shots of World of Warcraft on their phones: marketing.
Why would anyone on their mind buy this instead of paying $20 more for the amazing M52?
1gb o ram and 8 gb of memory should extinct, never again phones with this combo should be made!!!
1GB RAM and 8GB unified internal are fine, but not at this price point.
I’m still in love with the $78-80 dollars Cubot S168 with just 1GB of RAM, MT6582 and 8GB unified with a decent camera, the perfect phone for people that just need a social media machine with phone fuctions.
So it’s a copy of the M52 which is a copy of the Redmi Note.
Yep.
Mstar understands that a copy should be worse than the original not better(M52) so they fixed Mlais fuck up releasing this copy.
The M52 is very good but I would’t say its better than the original.
If the battery life is better than the M52 I would consider it.
The battery life in the M52 is okay, just avoid the official KK ROM that drains the battery really fast even with the phone on idle.
My battery stats using the Spaniard KK “Pol_Rom_M52” along with the 5GB app partition zip:
4:30 hours of screen time on 20 hours of usage.
8:00 hours of screen time playing video from 100% to 5%
For a $140 dollars phone I can’t really complain, the only truly disappointing spec it’s the AWFUL video recording quality, photos are pretty fine, video? hell I have seen better videos recorded with $15 dumb-phones, but it’s a software problem that will eventually be fixed, and not all videos look like crap, some look fine, and audio it’s easily fixed on engineer mode.
I can think of any $140 phone that It’s on par with the M52.
Just pointing out for those who don’t know MLais and MStar are both brand names of the same company. The batteries and back covers of these are identical and interchangeable.
As for it being a copy LOL it is the same phone with a quad core processor instead of an Octa core processor. And to the Miui freak the Redmi Note is not 64 bit so the M52 is better and faster… Maybe you should lean on the Miui devs to port Miui V6 to the M52 and that way you can fee more comfortable with it.