Their death was… greatly exaggerated
With Cherry Mobile effectively changing its name to “Cherry Philippines” and what appears to be disappointing smartphone sales from the Aqua S10 series, everyone thought that it’s over and the company has given up. After all, they haven’t released a new phone in over two years and they are still reselling their older models, even those with just Android 9.0 “Pie” in them. That’s when you know they have a surplus.
However, it seems that the rumors are false. A leak showed up in the Cherry Mobile Community Group on Facebook boasting two new phones. Finally! We’re happy to see Cherry has not given up yet although we did notice they really rounded down to how many smartphones they line up in a year.
When Cherry first began, they normally would announce three or four new phones, and another 1 or 2 in the next few months. During the Flare S8 series, five phones were announced, each sold at an adjacent day. (These phones include the Flare S8 Lite, Flare S8, Flare S8 Pro, Flare S8 Max, and Flare S8 Plus). When the Aqua S9 was first announced, there were four in the lineup which includes the Aqua S9 Lite, Aqua S9, Aqua Infinity (yes this is counted), and Aqua S9 Max. The latter of which looks quite similar to the Redmi Note 8 Pro, it even has the same cameras and chipset.
These numbers go down and down, one at a time. We’re hoping to see Cherry go back to its toes because they are releasing phones with good value for money. Their main downside is that these phones are an ODM product, so there’s nothing much they can do to alter the software.
The first phone, the Aqua S11 Pro, is pretty unique. We haven’t seen an ODM phone like this in other brands. Also, for its price of PHP 7,999, it gives you surprisingly good hardware that’s only found at PHP10K phones. These include the Helio G99 chipset, a 64MP Primary Camera, 33W fast charging, 8/256 configuration, and a 6.7″ FHD+ screen. We confirmed with Cherry Philippines that the Aqua S11 Pro uses an AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate, again very rarely seen at this price.
Next is the Cherry Aqua GR which does not stand for “Gazoo Racing”. We’re still yet to confirm what it means. If you can recall, Cherry released the Aqua SV, “SV” standing for “Super Velocity” as it focused on performance. The GR is the successor to it and it’s most likely their flagship product.
It also has a pretty good price tag. At PHP 11,999, you’re getting a MediaTek Dimensity 1080 chip (now known as the Dimensity 7050) with 8GB RAM and 256GB ROM, a 108MP primary camera like the SV, a curved 6.8″ AMOLED screen (for real this time, there’s no curved IPS LCDs in the industry) now with 120Hz fast refresh rate. 66W fast charging, in-display fingerprint scanner, and of course, 5G connectivity. It does not mention battery capacity but we’re going to wait until Cherry releases a video showcasing them.
The design for the GR heavily reminds us of the Vivo X80, it even has that blue Zeiss-like logo at the top left corner although we greatly doubt if these lenses are Zeiss-coated. Those things are expensive and improbable to sell at a sub-15K price point.
There is no release date yet but because it has been leaked now, it should be released early or late December, just in time for Christmas.
Stay updated on Cherry’s latest releases by visiting their Facebook page and joining their Facebook group!
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