MyPhone My82 DTV Review

Finally got this phone after a week of going back to the malls and asking every MyPhone kiosks if the unit is already available.. no more long stories, let's go directly to the review (or I'll say a quick review as I just got this device yesterday).

Phone Specifications:

• 1.2 GHz Quadcore ARM Cortex-A7 CPU
• 512MB RAM
• Mali-400 MP GPU
• 5 inches LCD diplay (non-IPS) 480 x 854 pixels
• 2000mAh battery
• Dual SIM, 3G HSPA+
• Android 5.1 Lollipop
• Wifi, bluetooth
• LED notification (Yes, it has!)
• Digital TV (ISDBT)

Packaging:

I'll upload the picture of the box and its contents at a later time, but here's what inside the box (aside from the unit)

• 700mA charger (I noticed that the size of the charger is smaller than the usual)
• Earbuds with microphone (don't expect a good sounding earphone for a phone of this price range).
• Digital TV antenna.
• Screen Protector is already installed in the unit - but you'll just immediately remove it as it is very scratch prone and the phone looks messy with the attached screen protector. On the image below, I purchased a tempered glass (luckily I found one) and the phone looked far better than before.

Appearance:

• Phone doesn't look that cheap (just change the free screen protector)
• It's the first time I saw the MyPhone logo to be situated on the bottom of the screen.

Camera

Please click on each picture to see the original size.

• 5 megapixel main camera (720p video) with flash - no autofocus as expected.
• 2 megapixel front camera (480p video)

5 megapixel back camera

2 megapixel front camera

Back camera. Indoor shot

Sound Quality

The combination of the free earphones, phone's sound chipset and the default music player is really bad. I suggest buying a good pair of earphones and a superb music player. I tried to use a Philips headset and adjusted the my PowerAmp music player downloaded from Playstore and the sound quality somehow get improved.

Digital TV

and finally, my purpose in buying this phone - the digital TV. 

The phone's TV function simply does its purpose, it can receive digital TV signals through the mini antenna (which at first would be mistakenly identified as a stylus) that is being attached to the phone's earphone port.

MyPhone My82 Digital TV function

Since the digital TV antenna is attached to the earphone's handset, you can only watch TV with loud speakers on, or with a bluetooth headset.

And why on the image above I got both the antenna and the earphones connected at the same time?
Solution: Buy a 3.5mm audio jack splitter at an electronic shop. In my case, I bought mine at Deeco for only 17 pesos.

The TV reception is quite good. I can watch TV when I'm near in the window of our house.
It can accept any available digital TV channels depending on the area. As an additonal function, the phone's digital TV function can also record / capture TV broadcasts however it's on a file format that only the phone can play on the TV app - not in the media gallery.

Update:
If you're in a good location, you don't actually need an audio splitter to watch digital TV on earphones. The earphone also serves as the antenna.
In our house (near the window at the 2nd floor), I can watch ABS-CBN with no antenna. In our office in BGC Taguig, ABS-CBN, GMA, UNTV, and PTV 4 sometimes can be watched clearly with just earphones.
It's already my habit watching Umagang Kayganda during the start of my shift.

About the other channels, I don't think that it depends on the area. We also have a TV plus unit used in the house (Putatan, Muntinlupa City MM) with 25 channels being received. But when I connect our TV antenna's wire in the phone's extenal antenna, it can only receive just the same channels:
ABS-CBN
GMA
TV5
Aksyon TV
UNTV
Other Comments for this phone:
-There was a strange thing that happened during my first week with this phone. I was not able to install applications via Playstore. It seems that the device isn't being logged to the Google registered devices. Clearing Playstore data and cache or several reformatting of the device didn't work forcing me to use Mobogenie as a Playstore alternative.
Luckily, this issue got resolved exactly after a week. No problems with Playstore anymore.

-Bug in messaging app. When you open a message from a non cell number (ex. 8888, NTC, etc) in its default mesaging app, you always have to dismiss the error "Can't send message. Your message has no valid recipients". No problems in messaging aside from that.

I may conclude that this phone is indeed a bang for the buck for the asking price of 2,000 pesos. Specifications are good enough for daily use, add on the future proof digital TV function.

Update:
Sad to say that my MyPhone My82 DTV is already dead., but not phone's fault but my negligence. It got drowned in my bagpack during a heavy rain. I only noticed that it has been drown after checking my bag after 2 hours. Already tried to submerge it on a bag of rice for a week to let it dry but unfortunately, it didn't. Again, that's my fault and the incident isn't included in the waranty