With the pandemic still going on, students are still looking for ways to attend their online classes to comply with their requirements for the current academic year. Not all are capable to shell out money to purchase a new PC or even a new smartphone to access the internet. These days, the Facebook marketplace is littered with second hand devices that come with the bare unit and priced cheaply. So we bought one up and for test to see if these devices are up to the mark!

We bought a 360 N6 Pro from a reseller on Facebook. It costed us PHP 3,500 to purchase the device. Do note that always check if the seller has good reviews online before purchasing to prevent getting scammed.

The unit arrived in a styrofoam film, no charger nor box.

Build Quality/Design

The device has a glass sandwich form factor and a matte aluminum frame which tapers along the sides.

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At 182 grams, maneuvering the handset is light yet grippy with its matte frame. The overall feel is solid with the glass on the front and back. Though, it is a attracts a lot of fingerprint smudges and is slippery with the glass. 

At the top center of the  rear is where the camera module is situated. Below that is a circle cutout where the flash is. Beneath the module and the flash is the circular fingerprint scanner.
The bottom of the rear shows the branding and other details including the model number of the device. 

The right  portion of the frame is where the power and volume button resides. To the left is where the sim card tray is located. The buttons feel firm and tactile despite being a used device. It supports two sim cards, though the second sim shares the slot with the micro SD card so you can only have one sim and a TF card or two sims at the same time.

The top has the headphone port, antenna bands, and pinhole microphone are located.

Moving to the bottom is the home of the micro USB charging port and two sets of holes, in which one is assigned for the speaker and the other for the microphone.

Sound quality of the speaker is poor, it distorts at maximum volume and tinny at all times. It’s loudness is average enough and audible.

The front will greet the user with an 18:9 Full HD IPS LCD screen measuring at 6 inches diagonal. The top and bottom bezels are symmetrical. Its 8MP selfie camera, earpiece and proximity sensor are on the top bezel while the bottom is left barred from any features.

Display

The display is at 5.99 inches diagonally, Full HD resolution, IPS technology and capped at 60Hz refresh rate. Colors look all right, a little bluish overall, but has adequate saturation and still color accurate for media consumption. On direct sunlight it gives serviceable enough brightness to be able to see the screen. Sensitivity is okay and only a few incidents did it had touch input lag.

Performance

360 picked the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 with the N6 Pro. The chip maybe approaching 4 years old and built on a 14nm node, it still packs a punch and spits out serviceable amount of firepower to do social media browsing, emails and even performing on light titles.

We tested Genshin Impact on this device and is surprisingly playable, but not at an enjoyable framerate at the fps counter at the low 20s.

Here are some benchmark scores of the 360 N6 Pro.

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In heavy gaming and multitasking, the device heats up but does not overheat and throttle. It goes around 43°C after two hours of continuous gaming.
For the price that we have paid for, it definitely punches above its weight. This is the strongest trait of this device.

Cameras

Its main shooters and selfie shooter are something left to be desired. On paper there are two rear cameras, leading the duo is a 16MP shooter and assisting it is a 2MP camera for depth information. For selfies, 360 managed to put a 8MP snapper at f/2.2 aperture.

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How are the shots? Well, it’s usable but not good. 
Daylight shots appear dark with the highlights blown out of proportions. The colors appear muted and the image usually has a bluish cast to it. HDR does fix some issues on dynamic range. 

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Overall details on the taken shots appear mediocre to decent at best. Though, the device can shoot decent photos with a steady hand.

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Well lit indoor shots appear decent as well with color reproduction and accuracy.

As for video capabilities, the device does not show any promise at all. On 4K at night, it is having problems on maintaining focus and no image stabilization is present at all so the video recording appears really shaky. Unfortunately, this is the same case even dialling down to 1080p resolution.

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Selfies appear very soft most of the times even on well lit environments.

Software 

The device boots up on 360’s flavor of Android Oreo, 360 OS v2.0. Fully reset, it came with pre-installed Chinese applications or bloatware that can be uninstalled. Though there are some stock applications that can’t be removed. 

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The skin lacks an app drawer just like any Chinese Android skin. Weirdly enough, the device does not let us choose a default launcher as it lacks the option in the settings, so you’re pretty much stuck to the 360 OS. 

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Something noteworthy to remember that enabling anything on the Magazine Unlock on the settings options may spark up soft crashes to the device when it is locked so it is better to switch it off at all times. 

Surprisingly,  it comes Google Mobile Services installed on the Developer Settings. Waiting to be enabled, even though this device boots up on a Chinese ROM. This is convenient to access the suite of Google services at a pinch.

Battery Performance

It has a 4000mAh battery inside and charges via Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 at 18W. This may not sound as large as today’s standards with budget devices load up as high as upwards of 4500mAh, but the experience was very good. 

On heavy usage, it squeezes out 5 hours of screen on time with 9% to spare. It also charges quick with the battery not that very large. From 33% to 97%, it manages to charge the device for just about 1 hour and 20 minutes.

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Worth to note that the device does experience moderate amounts of heating when charging via Qualcomm Quick Charge, though not at concerning levels.
On lighter usage, it dishes out 7-8 hours of screen on time. This includes social media viewing, checking emails and occasional YouTube sessions.

Connectivity 

Data connection is very good with the device maintaining reception to areas that are usually have weak reception. On our testing, it can reach as high as 30Mb/s download speeds. WiFi connectivity is no different, we have experienced no issues when connected to our network and able to perform YouTube streaming and online gaming with ease. 
Call quality and sms are working with no issues.

Others

Speaker quality is okay but not amazing lacking with bass and loudness compared to others. Meanwhile the audio quality coming out from the 3.5mm headphone port is very good for the price. The vibration motor offers a mushy feel to it which is common even devices upwards of PHP 8,000 so it is not surprising to have this.

Verdict

So is this device worthy for the price we paid for? It is an impeccable offering for just PHP 3500. It has great battery performance, performance that punches above its weight, desirable build quality and a good display. The only disadvantage here is the obvious lack of software updates since this is a dated device from a less known Chinese phonemaker and the cameras are serviceable at best. 

This is a good offering for those whose budget is a pinch and  just looking a device that just works. Suitable for students for their online classes.

Always be careful when transacting online, as much as possible do check some reviews and legitimacy check from communities before purchasing anything from a reseller.