QMobile Noir Z6 Review

Qmobile, just after the release of its latest flagship device Qmobile Noir Z5 is all set to make a mark again with its latest smartphone which claims to be the world’s slimmest smartphone – Qmobile Z6. There was a time when Nokia was dominating the mobile market in Pakistan, but at the present time, Qmobile is gaining a major portion of mobile market shares in Pakistan. This is mainly because the company has successfully managed to launch smartphones with appealing looks and decent price tags that has attracted the masses. Moreover, Qmobile is also spending quite greatly on its marketing campaigns which is apparent from its latest Qmobile Z6 ad as well where top model and actress Sonam Kapoor can be seen flaunting the newly launched smartphone from Qmobile.

The phone is only 5.5 mm thick, defeating everything else presently on the market, but the slim design is not its only selling point. It comes with a 5 inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) full HD Super AMOLED touch screen display from Japan Display with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. On top of that, this slimmest smartphone is powered by a 1.7 GHz Octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor and runs on Android 4.2.2 with Amigo 2.0 UI. Let’s see what’s more this new smartphone has to offer us.

The Qmobile Z6 comes in a lofty bigger than usual set of accessories. Here is the list of accessories that you get with the Qmobile Z6 when you unbox it.

• Qmobile Z6 handset
• A Gold Flip Case that doubles as a stand
• A Wall Charger
• A USB Cable
• An In-Ear Headset
• A SIM Ejection Tool
• A MicroUSB to USB Adapter that enables USB OTG and USB Host
• Four Screen Protectors – two for each glass-covered side of the Z6
• Microfiber Cloths to clean screen protectors

When it comes to design, we can proudly say that the Qmobile Z6 is a truly stunning piece of design. The phone is made out of glass and the sides are made of metal that make it look extremely sleek and give it a killer look. Moreover, it is so thin that we have dropped it twice while trying to get used to that slimness. To be exact, the thickness of the handset measures 5.6mm (0.22 inches) which is way too much thinner than the Galaxy S5.

In general, Qmobile Z6 is on par with other 5-inch devices on the market, however, being the slimmest phone that it is, you can easily reach to its corner and once you get used to its thinness, it gets even more easier to handle the phone.

There is no doubt that it is the best looking phone we currently have in the market. The sheets of corning Gorilla Glass 3 cover the entire front and rear of the handset. Although, they are pressure-resistant however, with prolonged usage they can get scratched. For this reason the company has supplied it with glass protectors that you can find in the retail box.

Moving on towards its build quality, the frame of the Qmobile Z6 is molded out of magnesium alloy, light and strong. Qmobile successfully claimed the title of the world’s slimmest smartphone for its Qmobile Z6 because of the strong metallic frame and the thin Super AMOLED panel. In addition, the bold angular shape along with the flat sides are the perfect match for a body this slim.

The unibody has ruled out a removable battery. Moreover, the Qmobile Z6 with a 5.0” screen, is not at all, a small device, rather it is the ultra-slim phone that feels sophisticated and compact yet amazingly light in weight. All fragments fit flawlessly together in a practically seamless design and there are no cheap-looking accents of any kind.

The world’s slimmest smartphone has a 5" Super AMOLED screen with 1080p resolution and 441ppi. The panel used in this smartphone is the same as that in the Galaxy S4 in terms of visual qualities. With backlighting, low reflectivity and great contrast, the Qmobile Z6 display is bright. Furthermore, the color rendering is great, and since it is Super AMOLED screen, punchy colors rendering is typical of other AMOLED screens. With that, the sunlight legibility is also great, thanks to non-reflective screen.

There is one more similarity in its display and this is its PenTile matrix with a diamond arrangement that ensures no visible artifacts. Furthermore, with pixel density of 400ppi, its sharpness is also nothing to complain about.

A 2,300mAh battery is what the Qmobile Z6 comes with and offers 11h on 3G talk time and 490h on stand-by mode. Though, the talk-time rating comes as real but the stand-by didn’t turn out that great. When playing videos and surfing internet, the battery gives somewhat disappointing performance. However, on the whole, the battery gives an average performance and scoring a final endurance rating of 48 hours.

This clearly suggests that the world’s slimmest smartphone can last exactly two days without the need of charging battery, provided you do an hour of calls, an hour of video watching and an hour of web browsing.

The phone is well-equipped with all the connectivity options that you would expect in any smartphone. The Qmobile Z6 supports quad-band GSM and tri-band 3G with up to 42Mbps of download speed. Although, the phone does not have LTE connectivity, but the rest of the connectivity features are included in the Qmobile Z6 which include dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n and Wi-Fi Direct, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and GLONASS.

In addition to this, there is a microUSB 2.0 port that can be used for data connections as well as for charging. You can also access the phone’s built-in memory via USB connection for media transfer. The same port can also be used for USB on-the-go mode for connecting USB peripherals like pen drives, keyboards and real USB drives.

The Qmobile Z6 runs on Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean with Amigo OS 2.0 UI. Amigo OS 2.0 is another name for the company’s own heavily skinned version of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. It owns a custom skin on top of it. The interface is exceptionally flat with rounded icons, categorically different in terms of visual style. Since, it is all Android at its core, it can easily be customized and changed with the help of custom launchers.

The Qmobile’s launcher customizations run quite deep into the system keeping all Google apps and services and also bringing some of its own such as themes support, new lockscreen, homescreen and setting menu. This results in a very simple and interactive interface with no app drawer.

There are two non-customizable panes in the default lockscreen. The first one displays time and upward swipe will unlock the screen, whereas the second pane displays widget with four shortcuts i.e. camera, voice recorder, torch and fake call. Apart from that, there is a standard Android homescreen with four customizable shortcuts that can be expanded to five, and these shortcuts are docked at the bottom and are visible on all homescreen. At most, Qmobile Z6 allows you to have nine homescreen panes.

Moreover, themes are also available and you can also adjust homescreen transition effects and wallpapers according to your choice. Task switcher lets you swipe away unwanted app, whereas App Manager gives you full control of your apps be it uninstalling the apps or moving them to and from the system partition and so on.

The Qmobile Z6 is shipped with an octa-core MediaTek MT6592 processor clocked at 1.7GHz with GB RAM. It is the first true octa-core processor and is in news these days, so we were quite excited to test its performance. Though, the eight cores sound great on the paper but we noticed a very slight slowdown in menus and the interface. On the whole, we are sure that the phone is capable of handling the most demanding games as we consider the slowdown in menus and interface is a software issue.

The phone has a built-in memory of 16GB that unfortunately cannot be expanded due to the lack of microSD card support. For gaming purpose, this is the phone you need as it gives the best gaming experience.

The Qmobile Z6 comes with a 13 megapixel rear camera with autofocus that can shoot with a maximum resolution of 4208 x 3120 pixels, and there is a front shooter of 5 megapixel as well for video calling. Furthermore, LED flash is also there to help you with some low light photos.

The camera interface is pretty simple and hassle free. Three shortcuts are provided on the left for settings, front camera switch and flash, and three controls are provided on the right as well for switch to video, camera shutter and gallery. You can access its settings menu either via its dedicated shortcut or with a swipe form the top of the screen.

There are some nifty camera features that have been included in the Qmobile Z6 with the help of Charm Camera App which supports Make-up Shot, Beauty Face, Best Face, Stamps and Life Filters to let you have some fun.

Picture quality is nothing to write home about and we are quite disappointed with the image quality as it lacks details and even the colors are not quite accurate. Although, low light camera performance is acceptable with over saturation of colors particularly with flash. On the other hand, the exposure, contrast and colors are good, which makes for nice looking photos when you view them fitted on a FullHD monitor.

The 5 megapixel front facing camera is good for video calling and selfies, however, we doubt whether it works for video calling in poor lighting conditions or not. Moreover, the phone is also capable of recording 1080p videos at 24fps. The camcorder interface is same as that of the still camera interface and gives you all the standard features that you would expect in a camcorder.

The video quality is quite acceptable with plenty of details and smooth framerate. Furthermore, colors and contrast are also good as well. On the other hand, there are some weak points such as it stores in a 3GP file container and the bitrate is as low as 14Mbps.

Let’s start with its custom Gallery app that comes with predefined folder view of Albums, Wallpapers, Videos, Screenshots and Others. There is no option to change the view and to customize the default folders. However, it gives you all the standard features when you are viewing a single image such as setting it as wallpaper or contact image, sharing options, delete and more. Furthermore, various effects, tools and frames can also be accessed with the help of image editor, and on top of that you can make light adjustments that will allow you bring out the shadows or the highlights.

The music player is also nothing short of features. It has a simple and easy to use interface that is very similar to the Oppo’s latest music app. Using and navigating across the music player is a breeze. Furthermore, it supports customizable DTS audio customizations. When the player in on, the notification area allows you control the playback with the help of an expandable notification. In addition, lockscreen also provide music controls.

The handset also features an FM Radio, though with the lack of any RDS support. The FM Radio app provides stereo FM recording in the odd ogg format, and you can access the recorded files via the Sound Recorder app.

There is also a separate video app besides the Gallery app that lets you access all of your videos. This separate video app or video player can play 1080p files provided they are XviD or DivX AVI files or MP4 and MKV's.

Qmobile Z6 is unquestionably the most slimmest smartphone we have seen so far, however, it fails to impress us in the camera department. So, if you are someone who is more into taking high quality pictures and sharing it with others, then Qmobile Z6 is not made for you. However, despite having said that it is undoubtedly a gorgeous device with some excellent functionalities.

It has been made with attention to detail and, above all, having an easily marketable feature, its success can extend beyond the intended markets. There is so much to talk about this. The positive impressions started just when you opened the retail box. There is so much stuff in the box. These are the accessories that you will get for free here that otherwise will cost you some money.

Its 5" 1080p Super AMOLED screen is something that is one of its key selling points. Though, the downside here is that you do not have any option to tone things down like you can do in other smartphones. On the other hand, its user interface is quite easy to navigate and snappy enough as well. The Qmobile Z6 is a heavily-skinned Android Jelly Bean that works realistically well on the octa-core Cortex-A7. This MediaTek chipset is capable of running all eight cores at the same time.