Hello! Today we will talk about the smartphone
Vertex Impress Nero , which can be purchased for 6,990 rubles. On the one hand, from the model for the money you do not expect any special revelations. On the other hand, budget smartphones are also different - both successful and not so good. Looking ahead, I note that Vertex Impress Nero, in my opinion, belongs rather to the first category - the category of successful ones.
The model boasts a metal "back" and a screen with a fashionable 18: 9 aspect ratio - this combination makes it interesting. In my memory, Vertex Impress Nero is the first device for such money with such a combination. Not without other interesting points, and I will talk about them, but this one (metal + “stretched” screen) is the key.
About Vertex on Habré has already been a
post , so I will not repeat. You can click on the link and read about the attitude of the brand to technological chips, design, the catch of marriage and other nuances of work in the smartphone market. I recommend to get acquainted, it is very interesting there. Well, my business is small - to test a specific model - Vertex Impress Nero. What I will do.
Case, buttons, design, assembly
Let's start with the exterior. Just because design is a key feature of Vertex Impress Nero. Smartphones up to 10 thousand rubles are usually difficult to “blame” for their special refinement, and this model looks quite noticeable against the general background.
There are several reasons for such statements. The first is a combination of an 18: 9 screen with a metal back panel. Metal for such a price - 6,990 rubles - is not typical in principle. As for the "narrow and long" displays, they are also found in cheaper devices. But - plastic. And so that the metal is combined with a display of 18: 9 in the device for 7 thousand - I don’t remember something like that. Probably, someone experienced and will say: “I, too, am an achievement!” Well, yes, if you have a budget for buying a smartphone of 15-20 thousand rubles and more, then you will not be impressed with such achievements. But thrifty people who are ready to back off for a smartphone are much less than 10 thousand rubles, the combination of metal and a display of a modern format will most likely rejoice.
However, without a spoon of tar was not. The back panel is metal, but the frame around the perimeter of the body is made of glossy black plastic. In general, it retains its original appearance for quite a long time - read it is not scratched. Specially a week wore a device with a bunch of keys, which I usually never do. I did not find any pronounced damage on the plastic (and on the screen, by the way, either) after that. But if for a long time - six months, say - and stubbornly dragging Vertex Impress Nero together with metal objects, then the plastic, I am sure, will rub.
Another important point associated with the design - a screen with rounded corners. Such angles make the device ... cozier or something. And prettier. Functional load, especially emphasize, rounded corners do not carry any. The impact is solely on the design. But the effect is pleasant.
The display occupies a tangible part of the front panel of the Vertex Impress Nero. It is clear that for the complete destruction of the frames around the screen in the model for 7 thousand rubles, no one fought, and yet they are quite narrow. As a result, the device turned out small and elegant. Purely it feels like an iPhone 6, iPhone 6s, iPhone 7 and other 4.7-inch Apple smartphones.
True, the screen diagonal of the Vertex Impress Nero is noticeably larger - 5.5 inches. This was achieved just at the expense of the 18: 9 format. The screen is a bit narrower and a little longer than the more familiar 5.5-inch 16: 9 displays. Plus, the latter usually occupy a much smaller part of the area of the front panels. The photo below is a comparison of the dimensions of 5.5-inch Vertex Impress Nero smartphones (18: 9) and Xiaomi Mi A1 (16: 9). As you can see, the Vertex Impress Nero is noticeably leaner. Offering about the same display area.
The back panel, as I said, is metal. Hand cool, durable, pleasant to the touch - all of these surveillance stamps are applicable to Vertex Impress Nero. Top and bottom, however, there are plastic inserts. Below them are the antennas of wireless modules. Some expensive smartphones have learned to mask them, but Vertex Impress Nero is inexpensive. So that's it.
What is somewhat puzzled is the location of the keys. They are on the left side of the case, that is, the power button and the volume button. Usually they are located on the right or at least spread: the volume is on the left, the inclusion is on the right. But Vertex Impress Nero, apparently designed a left-hander. But to say that this is a big drawback, I can not. You get used to the keys on the left side almost immediately. Yet it was impossible not to emphasize this moment.
The Vertex Impress Nero has a non-separable design, and therefore the back cover cannot be removed, the battery is also removed. Simka and flash drive is proposed to insert into the tray on the right side of the case. Slots, unfortunately, combined. Or two SIM cards, or a SIM card + MicroSD.
Above the screen is a standard set of sensors: light and proximity. They work fine. There is also a voice speaker and a 5 megapixel camera. The speaker transmits speech without distortion, the camera successfully makes self-arrows. I will return to them later.
Behind on a small metal “pedestal” the main camera is 13 megapixels with flash. The lens is enclosed in a metal oval. Just for beauty, I suppose. However, there is another version - the unification of components. In more expensive devices, an “hole” can be made in the inset for a fingerprint scanner, but Vertex Impress Nero doesn’t have one.
The headphone jack is on top. Normal 3.5mm jack. The sound in the headphones is typical for budget smartphones. For audiophiles without complaints, it will be enough, but if there is at least a little audiophile in you - no. The sound is rather flat, there is little bass, there are no upper ones, mostly “middle”.
Below are microUSB and speaker with microphone. Both the speaker and the microphone are hidden under the perforations - this is the fashion now. The symmetrical transformation is also, apparently, for beauty. The speaker gives a fairly clear sound of medium volume. To “not transmit” calls, when the smartphone is in the pocket of jeans, the speaker’s vocality is enough.
I have no complaints about the assembly, and indeed, if viewed objectively, it is quite difficult to assemble a smart phone with a fixed back panel. Dangling in devices with this design is nothing special. Well, except that the buttons. But in Vertex Impress Nero, they do not hang out and do not rattle (I met this in a number of budget smartphones).
Screen, image, picture settings
As I said before, the Vertex Impress Nero uses a 5.5-inch screen with an 18: 9 aspect ratio. Matrix - IPS with a resolution of 640 x 1280 pixels. True, inexpensive. What is, for example, in not very accurate color reproduction. The image is noticeably warm. Does it interfere? It seems to me that only observers and other experts bother with such moments, but the average user doesn't care about them.
But if this or that user doesn’t care, he can go to the screen settings and find a toolbox called MiraVision. This is a bunch of different options that most smartphones on MediaTek chipsets have. And with the help of these options you can “pull up” the image to the level that you personally like. Including adjust the color temperature, making the transfer of shades more accurate.
In general, a good screen. Among its advantages, I will note wide viewing angles and fairly accurate black color reproduction. In any case, it does not seem dark gray.
The cover of the Vertex Impress Nero screen is glass but nameless. That is, it is not a top Gorilla Glass or Dragontrail, but something simpler. What exactly - alas, I do not know. But thank you for not plastic. The coating is smooth, fingers are not annoying. There is an oleophobic layer - the glass practically does not get dirty.
But with multitouch all so-so - the display is able to simultaneously handle only two touches. I personally do not need more, but I heard that in some games it takes more screen touches. So Vertex Impress Nero for these games is not suitable.
Iron, communication, wireless modules
It would be short-sighted to expect anything different from a MediaTek chipset from a smartphone of this class for 7 thousand rubles. (Qualcomm in such devices is found, but very rarely.) So it turns out - Vertex Impress Nero is based on MediaTek MT6737.
This is a quad-core solution (AMR Cortex-A53, up to 1.3 GHz) with ARM Mali-T720 MP2 graphics. Smartphones on this platform are a dime a dozen, and its minuses and advantages have long been known. Cons - it is 28-nanometer, that is not very economical. Advantages - as for the quad-core chipset, the MT6737 is quite powerful, you can quite comfortably play Tanchiki or Asphalt 8 with average graphics settings and quite acceptable FPS levels.
RAM in Vertex Impress Nero 2 GB, internal memory - 16. About 8 of them are available. You can also insert a 32 GB memory card. I tried to insert interest for 64, but it did not work.
Vertex Impress Nero supports LTE Cat. 4 and VoLTE. The last trick related to improving the quality of voice transmission and connection speed is a reserve for the future, as long as VoLTE really works except for MegaFon and not on all devices. Vertex is among them, but another model.
The quality of communication and voice transmission is absolutely standard. The interlocutor is heard normally, he is yours too, and the connection is lost only where other devices lose it (that is, the operator is to blame).
With navigation in Vertex Impress Nero, everything is within the normal range. In the sense that smartphones on budget MediaTek chipsets are not always able to find any satellites at all and then navigate them normally without losing them in the process. Vertex Impress Nero on this background looks, I repeat, sanity. He finds not very many GPS satellites (and only GPS, without GLONASS) compared to more expensive devices and models on Qualcomm chipsets. But, nevertheless, he finds them and does without sudden loss of signal.
With Wi-Fi, everything is simple - one range, Wi-Fi 802.11n, tenacity is normal, but without feats. With Bluetooth 4.0 too - throws files, does not lose the headset.
Cameras, photo and video
There are two cameras in the smartphone - in front of 5 megapixels, at the back at 13.
Rear camera with autofocus and flash. Photographs approximately as you would expect from a smartphone for 7 thousand rubles. With even lighting - read, early in the morning or afternoon closer to evening - you get quite nice shots with preserving key details. In sunny weather, overexposed fragments may appear in frames. In the evening snapshots, something can be distinguished, at nighttime - no longer. In short, the camera does not carry any revelations; it is typical for devices of this class.
A few examples of photos: Here are some examples of photos from a 5 megapixel front camera:
Videos Vertex Impress Nero records in a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. Here the situation is exactly the same as with the pictures - you should not wait for the masterpieces, but this is explained by the price.
The shooting interface is exactly the same as that of most inexpensive models on MediaTek chipsets. It does not differ in special logic and convenience, but, according to my observations, 99% of users use tinctures and do not dig, but click on the machine. If so, then there are no complaints about the interface, since the keys for shooting are large, the main modes are before your eyes.
Battery and battery life
To begin with - a couple of words about measurements in specific modes.
1. Playing HD-video in MX Player (screen brightness at 75%, sound is output to the headphones, Wi-Fi is turned off, work in 4G-network) - about 7 hours and 45 minutes.
2. The game in Asphalt 8 (the screen brightness is 75%, the sound is output to the speaker, Wi-Fi is on, work in 4G networks) - about 6 hours.
Indicators, let's say, expected for a smartphone with a 28-nanometer chipset and a 3300 mAh battery. The main thing for me was to make sure that the results of Vertex Impress Nero are not below the average for the hospital. And the device, in principle, did not disappoint.
Well, add that in my personal mode - a couple of hours of talking, about a hundred emails per day in Gmail, screen brightness by 50%, a dozen photos and a couple of races in Asphalt 8 before going to bed - the device lives for about two days. Sometimes a little less, sometimes a little more. This is a good level for smartphones for 7 thousand. Which speaks not so much about a good battery capacity (for this money, there are 3000 mAh and 2500 mAh), but a good optimization of the firmware.
Software
Vertex Impress Nero is running Android 7.0 Nougat with a virtually clean interface. There are no improvements and other lanchers from the manufacturer, which means there are no extra glitches.
Yes, there are a number of pre-installed applications from Mail.ru and other similar services. But they can be removed, they are not built into the firmware.
To say something special about the software, except that it is not buggy for no reason, is difficult. Well, except for the wireless update I will mention, but in 2018 this is far from a unique feature.
Equipment
Short and list:
• instruction;
• warranty card;
• USB-MicroUSB cable of quite good quality;
• Charging unit for 2 A. And now this is not bad - the smartphone charges in about two hours. I know that manufacturers of low-cost smartphones sometimes get greedy and still put less powerful 1 A blocks in boxes with their devices.
Total
In short, the situation is this: the insides of the Vertex Impress Nero are pretty mundane for this class of devices. Chipset MediaTek mediocre, ordinary cameras, memory size - that's what I’m talking about. The battery is a bit more powerful than the “average hospital” - it’s here at 3,300 mAh. The screen stands out mostly not for its quality (although I can’t call this quality low), but the format is 18: 9 versus the typical and still more widespread 16: 9.
And the combination of this format, 18: 9, and the metal backdrop makes
Vertex Impress Nero what it is. Namely: inexpensive (6 990 rubles), but at the same time elegant and relevant externally apparatus. What happens in the budget segment is not at all often. So buy Vertex Impress Nero is primarily design for the sake of. He is nice. But functional "victories" should not be expected from him. Everything is at a decent level, but without revelations. Simple inexpensive working option with a pleasant exterior. No more.