Reviewing Sprint and Kyocera’s Team Up for Hydro Vibe

Introduce The Reviewing Sprint and Kyocera’s Team Up for Hydro Vibe

Sprint and Kyocera’s latest team up is expected to bring yet another notable mid-range device that people will love.

 

1

 

A mid-range device

  • The Sprint Kyocera Hydro Vibe can be purchased under no contracts whatsoever for $229
  • If you want to subscribe to the Spark LTE network of Sprint, the company offers an on-contract for only $29

 

Design and build quality

The basics:

  • Hydro Vibe has a plastic rim with a textured back cover. The power button is found on top of the device and is made of a glossy chrome material. The volume keys can be found on the left side of the device and the camera button is on the lower right side
  • Dimensions of the device are as follows: 5.01” x 2.5” x 0.43”. The Hydro Vibe weights 5.9 ounces

 

2

 

The good points:

  • Build quality of the Kyocera Hydro Vibe is sturdy
  • The phone is IP57 dust and water resistant. This rating means that the Kyocera Hydro Vibe can survive being submerged in water 3 and a half feet high for a maximum of half an hour.
  • The battery and ports are protected by a back panel that is covered with rubber gasket
  • Despite this dust and water resistance capabilities, the ports for charging and headphones, etc. are not covered. Samsung could get a page out of Kyocera’s book for this one.

The points to improve:

  • Design-wise, the Hydro Vibe – or any device made by Kyocera, for that matter – is not extremely appealing.
  • The phone is slightly thicker than usual, and this is counted as something to improve because more and more people are now starting to prefer thin, sleek phones
  • The Hydro Vibe is a small device that uses a lot of plastic and various other textures to give it an overall elegant finish, but instead ends up looking crummy
  • The device has no speaker grille as it utilizes a bone-conducting speaker

 

Display

 

3

 

The good points:

  • Kyocera Hydro Vibe comes with a 4.5” IPS LCD display
  • Color reproduction and viewing angles are okay
  • There is a remarkable improvement in terms of the display gap and the grainy display texture

The points to improve:

  • Resolution is only 960×540 that has only 244 ppi. This low resolution is painstakingly obvious when you look at the images and texts on the screen
  • Brightness is not as good as other phones

 

Performance and network

 

4

 

The good points:

  • The Sprint Kyocera Hydro Vibe runs on a quad core processor with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean OS
  • The device runs on 1.5gb RAM, which is fairly decent given that it is a mid-range phone
  • Responsiveness of single apps are okay but it lacks snappiness

The points to improve:

  • Given the poor display quality of the Kyocera Hydro Vibe, the performance of the device is a bit disappointing as there are some noticeable stutters and lags.
  • Switching between apps is slow and buggy
  • Performance of Sprint’s LTE is also something to consider, which is still terrible despite the upgrades that the network has done. The speed of the network barely exceeds 1 mbps. Signal is good only in some locations such as the SeaTac airport, which can provide as much as 30mbps for downloads.

 

5

 

Other features

The good points:

  • It has an 8mp rear camera and a 2mp front camera.
  • The camera app has a basic interface that lets you perform simple actions such as taking quick shots and videos in just a single click.
  • The camera’s responsiveness is quite remarkable as it focuses fast and also takes photos instantly
  • The quality of the photos from Kyocera Hydro Vibe’s camera is unexpectedly remarkable, given the right light condition and the appropriate settings.
  • The Kyocera Hydro Vibe has an 8gb internal storage and an expandable storage of as much as 32gb

The points to improve:

  • The HDR setting of the camera seems to give a lot of light

 

The verdict

The Sprint Kyocera Hydro Vibe is a decent mid-range phone that can easily be compared with high-end phones like Samsung and HTC’s products.

 

6

 

Kyocera obviously decreased the price of the device by saving a lot on the display. Performance-wise, the device is a bit disappointing because even with the low-resolution display, there are still some lags and slowness that are not present in other devices with much lower specs. But despite these things, Kyocera still has to be lauded for effort because it has significantly improved the quality of other things such as the screen and the overall specs of the device. The 2,000mAh battery capacity of the Kyocera Hydro Vibe is also remarkable, as is the camera. If you are looking for a device with good specs, a decent performance and display, and notable camera, then the Sprint Kyocera Hydro Vibe is something for you to try. It is perfect for people who are looking for good alternative devices so that they won’t have to bring out large amounts of money for one smartphone.

 

What do you think of the Sprint Kyocera Hydro Vibe?

Are mid-range phones something that you would try?

 

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