Last time we met, QMobile had quite a flagship to show off
with the Z6. Looking extra sharp and more than decently equipped, QMobile has
toned some of the specs down but their next phone is looking even more
impressive.
The QMobile Noir Z7 may have lost some screen and camera
resolution but it managed to shed some grams and millimeters off the waistline
along the way too. It briefly held the world's slimmest smartphone title until
Oppo slipped a note under the door, in the form of an R5.
But even without a world title on its resume, the QMobile
Noir Z7 makes a fantastic first impression. An AMOLED screen within an
all-glass shell reinforced by a metal frame - a premium combo and a weight of
the unbelievable sub-100g.
On the inside, the QMobile Noir Z7 is powered by the same
Mediatek chipset as the z6, with an octa-core processor and a quad-core
graphics accelerator. The camera department is more than reasonable too - an
8MP rear and a 5MP selfie cam. Unlike its premium predecessor, the Noir Z7 launches
straight on Android KitKat, skinned with the Amigo launcher we've already seen.
The Noir Z7 is certain to impress at the very first touch.
The feel in hand is unique - never mind the slim profile, you just expect a
certain heft to that handset. And you can't help but be amazed at just how
light it is.
The slim profile forced a few compromises though. The
non-expandable storage is something many users have gotten used to but the
single storage option being 16GB may as well be a deal-breaker to some. The
non-exchangeable battery is quite common nowadays, and the capacity is actually
decent for a phone this slim. 2050mAh isn't a bad achievement compared to the
1860mAh of the Samsung Galaxy Alpha - which is quite slim on its own but not
nearly as slim as the QMobile Noir Z7.
The missing LTE connectivity isn't a big deal perhaps
considering the main target markets. The thing that raises the biggest question
is the amount of RAM and we'll be exploring this in the performance chapter for
sure.
Lets talk about Design and build quality
The two do look very much alike with dual sheets of glass,
each covered by Gorilla Glass 3, front and rear, a metal frame holding the
whole thing together.The gold and white color combination works great for the QMobile
Noir Z7, but it's not just the successful mixture that's making it a memorable,
beautiful phone. Certainly an attention grabber, the QMobile Noir Z7 has a near
unique feel in hand too.The phone is of solid build and its golden frame
successfully hides all signs of the assembly process. Of course, the glass
design means you'll have to handle the Noir Z7 with extra care - just one drop
may cost you a lot and we don't mean just money.
The QMobile Noir Z7 is a pleasure to handle, perfectly
fitting in both hand and pocket. The glass panels may become slippery and
compromise the handling, but the sturdy metal frame with tapered edges will
compensate for this inconvenience. Solid, light, and beautiful - it's a design
that stands out.
Above the 4.8" Super AMOLED screen we find the usual
combination of an ambient light sensor, a proximity sensor and a wide-angle 5MP
front-facing camera, either side of the earpiece.
The control deck of three capacitive keys is below the
display using the old-school layout - Menu, Home, Back.
As for the hardware controls, they are all on the right side
of the phone - you get a Power/Lock key and a volume rocker - both made out of
metal.The microSIM compartment is the only thing of interest on the left and
you'll need the pin to eject it.
The QMobile Noir Z7 has a 4.8" Super AMOLED screen of
720p resolution and 306ppi. It's nicely saturated, it's bright and contrasty,
and has low reflectivity.
The color rendering is great, with punchy colors typical of
AMOLED screens. There are no dedicated color presets like on the Galaxy
flagships.
The Noir Z7 screen proved slightly brighter than the z6
screen, on par with the Galaxy S5 mini and Galaxy Alpha display performances.
Outdoors in the summer sun, the brightness comes a bit short though. Since it's
a Super AMOLED display, the stellar contrast should hardly surprise. The
sunlight legibility is great too, helped by the non-reflective screen, but as
we said, it isn't as impressive as the Galaxy Alpha and the Galaxy S5 mini.
Now I am going to tell you about this phone's Battery life
The QMobile Noir Z7 features a 2,050mAh battery QMobile Noir
Z7 couldn't match the performance of its predecessor when it comes on 3G calls,
but it did better on the web browsing test and the same on the looped video playback.
The Noir Z7 standby endurance is outstanding though, even
without any battery saving enhancements turned on. It could last you nearly a
month on a single charge, which is amazing. This surely helped for a better
endurance rating.
Now I am going to tell you Performance of the phone
QMobile Noir Z7 is
powered by the mid-range MediaTek MT6592 chipset, which translates into an
octa-core Cortex-A7 processor at 1.7GHz, Mali-450MP4 GPU and 1GB of RAM. We've
already seen the same chip ticking inside the bigger z6 and it offered quite uninspiring performance
in the graphics department, mostly because of the higher resolution display.
Now that the QMobile Noir Z7 uses a lower-res 720p display (as opposed to
1080p), we hope things will be fine this time around. The 1GB RAM is still a
concern and we'll explore thoroughly if this is a problem or not.
Now, our first test is GeekBench 3, which gauges the overall
processor performance. Even with eight cores inside, the Cortex-A7 isn't a
powerful CPU core, so we didn't expect much. The noir z7 did better than the
HTC Desire 816, which also runs on MT6592, but its score is behind the rest of
the MT6592 gang.
The AnTuTu 5 also takes in consideration GPU and memory
performance. The QMobile Noir Z7 posted a good score by the AnTuTu charts, but
it's once again uninspiring when compared to other smartphones powered by the
same MT6592 chip.
QMobile Noir Z7 isn't doing well in all departments and we
guess the insufficient RAM might be an issue at some occasions. The interface
experience is smooth in the beginning, but once you start opening apps and
using it on a daily basis, the QAmigo 2.0 OS,
becomes clumsy and there is this really annoying stuttering when scrolling
panes or menus.
The smartphone did well as far as handling apps is concerned
- it packed enough processing power to do properly in running office apps,
cloud services and popular games. 3D games run OK too, but some more demanding
eventually eat all the resources and the result is good ol' lag.
Overall, the QMobile Noir Z7 is good enough for its class
but either because insufficient RAM or because of improper optimizations, the
performance isn't on par with the competition.
so now I am going to discuss camera performance 8MP camera
does OK
The QMobile Noir Z7 S5.1 camera uses an 8MP camera that
shoots in a maximum resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. There is also a LED flash
to help you with some low-light photos.
The settings menu can be accessed either via its dedicated
shortcut or with a swipe from the top of the screen. It gives you access to HDR
mode, Auto scene, geo-tagging, resolution settings, anti-banding, among others.
QMobile has included some nifty camera features in the noir z7 via the Charm
Camera app. It supports Beauty Face, Live filters, Stamps and PPT (for
presentations). It could have been better of all those modes were included in
the standard camera app though. The QMobile Noir Z7 camera samples have an
average level of resolved detail when viewed at 1:1 magnification - the noise
reduction algorithm has taken its toll on the fine detail. The dynamic range is
low, which is really annoying in those sunny pictures. The exposure, contrast
and colors are good, which makes for nice looking photos when you view them
fitted on HD or Full HD monitor.
Conclusion
The QMobile Noir Z7 is a phone you'll want to pick up as
soon as you lay eyes on it. Once you've had it in your hand, we think you'll
want to keep it. Long story short, the Noir z7 hot looks and unique hand feel
can make even semi-geeks forget about performance and software package and
otherwise sensible buyers may take the plunge not thinking for once about
after-market support and resale value. Qmobile has come up with a smartpohone,
which looks more premium than most flagships today.
Speaking of, the QMobile Noir Z7 isn't a flagship, far from
it, but it doesn't cost a fortune either. And, for the most part, it sounds
pretty good on paper: an octa-core processor that's known to behave, a Super
AMOLED screen, a high-res selfie camera, and Android KitKat right out of the
box. A solid checklist for a midrange device.
The noir z7 performance as we measured it turned out
acceptable but hardly a match for the looks. We soon found a single gig of RAM
was doing the MediaTek MT6592 chipset and its octa-core processor no favor,
even with all the management tools and Kit Kat optimizations available. The
graphics chip isn't doing any better either.
Our initial excitement took another hit with the quiet
loudspeaker and disappointing camera performance. On a positive note, the
smartphone offers a pretty good quality screen, decent battery life and comes
bundled with a rich set of accessories.
