The other day we received a question on the forum regarding a brand-new kid on the block, the Star S5. I also had taken a look at the phone earlier in the day. The specs are interesting, but let’s take a closer look at what the Star S5 has going for it and where it falls short.
Looks and Design – First off, I’m not a fan of the red stripe. This was a very bold, but strange decision by Star. Perhaps it was meant to attract some of the youth market? I think it would of been much slicker and a more popular model had they used a silver, or if they wanted to stick with bold – a yellow side stripe. Regardless, just because it’s not my style, doesn’t mean it’s not yours. So this is maybe a moot point, but one that I had to get out there. The Star is more square and I like square, but the h7500 isn’t what you call rounded or soft. I like the silver bezel around the Hero as well. What I don’t like about the Hero h7500+ is it’s glossy fingerprint magnet back, though most will likely be using a silicon or flip case. The silicon case for the h7500+ has a nice matte finish. I would have to call the Hero the winner here, but this is solely because of Star’s red stripe and again this is a matter of taste.
LCD – The same spec wise, weighing in at 5″ and 720p. The h7500+ has a fine screen that may or may not be IPS, but if it isn’t IPS, it’s about as good as TFT gets. This category is at a standstill regarding a winner because we don’t have the Star S5 yet to compare.
CPU – They both use the MTK6589 chipset, so expect similar performance levels.
ROM and Storage – What the MTK6589 Star S5 has going for at first glance with it’s 8GB ROM compared to the MTK6589 Hero h7500+’s 4GB is hugely misleading. The stock data partitions of both phones are both the same at 1.5GB. The extra memory in the Star is in the phone’s emmc storage. The S5’s seeming advantage here is a myth, as we can put 32GB and some users reporting successfully using 64GB external SD cards in the h7500+.
What’s more, the h7500+ has a mod available for it that allows you to easily convert the data partition to 2, 2.5 or 3.0GB. So unless the Star community comes out with a similar mod, the Hero actually holds the advantage in this department. Of course, to take it a step further, the Star could end up with an EBR mod that would allow it up to 6 or 7GB of system data thus the Star S5 would have the big advantage. As things stand now though, the Hero h7500+ is at a closer glance, the current leader because of it’s EBR mod allowing it 2.5GB.
Part 2 coming up tomorrow, where we’ll take a look at the camera category and some other finer points that may help you make a decision.
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