O+ 8.12 - 4.5-inch qHD smartphone with 1 GB of RAM

Looking to do some last minute Christmas smartphone shopping. O+ (Oplus) has a new interesting offering.  You probably have seen the O+ adds on TV, but I have not featured their phones on this blog, as after taking a look at the specifications O+'s offerings were outdated in terms of software (Gingerbread) or hardware (single core processors). O+'s latest offering is interesting though: the O+ 8.12. 

The O+ 8.12 is a 4.5-inch Android smartphone with a  4.5-inch qHD display (540 x 960). It comes with a 1GHz dual core processor on a Mediatek MT6577 chipset. Priced at Php11,995 the O+ 8.12 is on the expensive side given that you can get a phone with 4.5-inch qHD or a  Mediatek MT6577 for almost half the price of the O+ 8.12. What the O+ 8.12 adds to the equation is that it comes with 1 GB of RAM while its less expensive competition comes with 512 MB to 768 MB of RAM.

While the O+ 8.12 comes with Android 4.04 Ice Cream Sandwich out of the box. it is upgradeable to 4.1 Jelly Bean, giving it another leg up over most of its lower cost competition.

The other specifications are typical of what you get in the lower cost Androids from Cherry Mobile, Cloudfone and ZTE. You get Dual SIM capability, 4GB internal storage expandable via a MicroSD card slot, a 8-megapixel autofocus rear camera with LED flash, a front camera and a 1850mAh battery.

The O+ 8.12 also features Air Shuffle (similar to Sony's floating touch) which allows you to manipulate the FM radio, gallery, camera and music player without actually touching the display. I really do not see any practical use of this kind of technology on a smartphone.

Looking at its direct competition, the O+ 8.12 at Php11,995 is not a bang for the buck deal. You have the Cherry Mobile Flame coming in at Php6,299, Cloudfone Thrill 430x at Php7,777 and the ZTE Grand X V970M at Php9,995. Still this is the only one among the three with 1 GB of RAM.