BenQ, a household name that’s famous for its PC monitors have resurfaced itself in the mobile industry which many may not have heard of its presence on phones back in the Windows Mobile era. Looking at its Taiwanese pals such as ASUS succeeding in the smartphone market, it’s no wonder that the company has decided to release smartphones with its best secret weapon – display technology. The BenQ F5 is a mid-range LTE capable smartphone that the company has decided to kick start its smartphone market once again.
BenQ F5 Video Review
BenQ F5 Hardware Specifications
Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.2GHz Quad Core
RAM/ROM: 2GB/16GB built-in with MicroSD expansion
Display: 5″ IPS (1280 x 720) with Low Blue Light technology
Camera: 13MP (main), 2MP (front)
Connectivity: WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, BT 4.0
Networks: LTE Cat 4/DC-HSPA+
Battery: 2520 mAh
Comfortable aesthetics and display
The BenQ F5 isn’t special in terms of design, its overall design resembles a mixture of HTC and Lenovo’s products, it has some nice rounded corners which makes the phone comfortable to hold and thanks to its nice matte textured back cover, you won’t slip the phone easily.
As we’ve mentioned at the very beginning of this review, all you really need to pay attention to the BenQ F5 is how comfortable the display is. If you are familiar with BenQ’s monitor products, you’d have known its Low Blue Light Technology, this reduces the Blue color element on the display that makes it more comfortable for the human eye. In our experience, we perceived the difference instantly after turning on the mode, however you might at times find colors slightly washed out or looking unnatural, it’s really good if you are reading web pages for long durations.
The BenQ F5 isn’t going to create a WOW factor in the smartphone market, but you really can’t deny that this is one of the most health conscious smartphone in the market, especially when you are working on your smartphone most of the time.
Software experience that isn’t trying hard to differentiate
BenQ has loaded its very own Q UI on the phone’s software experience based on Android 4.4 KitKat, the UI performs snappily and there isn’t a moment of lag despite having a slower processor, it has definitely made us happy in many ways, however those app icons are really the eye sore of the user experience, blame us for getting exposed to other phone UI such as MIUI, HTC Sense or even the heavy Samsung TouchWiz, the app icons looked extremely outdated, and the company has kept some parts of the user experience entirely in Vanilla theme.
It isn’t really bad, but we just wished that Q UI would have been a little more consistent in its software experience. Lastly, BenQ has removed the app drawer just like every other Chinese smartphone makers and replaced it with a ‘New Corner’ that will store your newly installed apps. Seriously, why can’t BenQ just stick back to the good old Vanilla Android UI?
BenQ has included a number of productivity apps on the phone’s software, depending on the user, they can be pretty useful or you can download better alternatives from Google Play. You have a note taking app called Qmemo, wireless transfer client called Qsora that works pretty well over WiFi, and Qmoney to track your daily expenses.
Good camera for the casual user
Having a high resolution camera on a mid-range smartphone isn’t something new, such as the case with Xiaomi’s Redmi Note. The BenQ F5’s camera is a pretty solid performer in taking day shots with accurate color saturation and decent auto focus and shutter performance, the camera app isn’t the most interesting software out there however it also features its SensEye technology that works similarly to ASUS’s PixelMaster and HTC’s Ultrapixel technology that compromises Megapixels for higher lighting exposure, despite of that the camera sadly isn’t great for low light photography. Check out the camera samples down below.
Video recording is supported up to 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second, which should be really sufficient for the average user who wants to do simple videography on the go.
Benchmarks, Battery Life and Network
Despite of its snappy performance, the BenQ F5 isn’t a solid performer in benchmarks, we wished BenQ could have used the faster 1.6GHz variant of the Snapdragon 400 SoC and that would’ve made the phone’s overall performance even better, the low score is probably caused by the Adreno 305 GPU that produces some choppy frame rates in 3D graphics test.
If you are the user that has been complaining poor battery life in mid-range smartphones, the BenQ F5 will satisfy you with that as the phone is able to last one full working day in our tests, we did lots of phone calls, received many group instant messages and even streamed music using Spotify. The phone charges fast too!
While we’re in some decent LTE coverage area, the phone occasionally drops to 3G and even EDGE data speeds at times when we were using the phone, we’ve tested it on other devices and we can certainly confirm this has something to do with the phone’s radio. Thankfully, voice calls made over the BenQ F5 is pretty good with callers reporting crisp and balanced volume.
Verdict – A good start off, but a long way to go
BenQ isn’t a company with lots of innovation when it comes to consumer electronics, the BenQ F5’s introduction to the already competitive smartphone market is certainly a daring effort, the phone now retails at RM699 and comes with a free cover case for the phone. We’d hope BenQ completed the phone with a set of health related features, since its display technology is the only unique feature in the product. Despite having commonly found features on most smartphones, the BenQ F5 is a reasonably priced LTE smartphone for the budget consumers.
The Good:
+ Comfortable aesthetics
+ Battery life
+ Snappy performance
+ Low Blue Light technology works well
+ Decent camera
The Not so Good:
– Boring software UI
– LTE connection isn’t stable (depending on coverage area)
Base on the score card above, the BenQ F5 gets a score of 7.5/10
