You might have heard about the rising star in the Chinese smartphone arena, Qihoo 360 and if you haven’t, you should definitely keep an eye on them as they are dubbed “The New Xiaomi”. They’ve started off well this year, with the launch of the new phone model N5 with 6GB of RAM, the successor to last year’s 360 N4 model. Qihoo 360 is popular for their anti-malware business, browser and more recently, by entering the smartphone market. We know you guys have been wanting to see the 360 N5 Review for some time now and as promised, here it is!

Airplane and 360 N5
Fast as an airplane 360 N5

We were so excited about the 6GB RAM that we took it to Thailand and made a 360 N5 video review titled ”Super Fast Phone 360 N5”. With 5.5 inch display, metal back case and availability in gold or black, the phone feels sturdy and well built. The screen is full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and supports multi-touch.

 

360 N5 Review: Unboxing

The red box includes all the standard contents – product manual, warranty card, the plug, USB 2.0 charging cable. The available versions are 6GB of RAM with 32 GB or 64 GB internal storage. It has 2 card slots, 1 nano, and 1 micro slot, so you can either use 2 SIM cards or 1 SIM and 1 SD card.

 

360 N5 Review: Design & Display

The metal back case feels great in the hand and because it’s not sand blasted, you definitely have a better grip. The phone is available in 2 colours – gold, which is very discreet gold colour and black with some golden elements.  The fingerprint sensor is at the back and runs pretty fast to unlock your phone. The 5.5-inch display is in Full HD IPS LCD Capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels. Pixel density is 401 ppi, which gives pretty good colours in environments with less light. It is quite reflexive in full light, but scrolling the bar on your phone to full brightness will save you the trouble.

 

360 N5 Review: Specs

It is powered by Qualcomm’s 64-bit Snapdragon 653 MSM8976 Pro octa-core processor, which consists of four Cortex A72 cores, four Cortex A53 cores and Adreno 510 GPU. The 360’s N5 runs on OS UI base Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) out of the box, but you can update it to a newer version.

360 N5 phone review
Sunburned box of 360 N5

 

360 N5 Review: User Interface

The first thing we’ve noticed is that the phone defaulted with a bunch of apps that are really useful for Asia. If you are not a big fan of them, most of them can be uninstalled and if you find any persistent ones, you can put them in the ‘Freezer’ to speed up your phone. There are also Themes that you can get for free or very small amounts to style up your interface – Manga, Panda, Space, Ink Painting and more.

 

themes on 360 N5 smartphone
Interface themes for 360 N5

There are also some pretty nice functions like the “FastZone” shortcutting you to your favorite apps. “Transform” that helps you multitask and “Infinity” that lets you clone apps as well as open up an infinite number of apps without any lag. Just as an example, you can clone WeChat app and log in with multiple accounts, which is an amazing feature for us living in China, as we are almost life-dependent on it.

READ MORE: New 360 F5 with Budget Specs Listed on 360’s Mobile Website

360 N5 Review: Camera

Rear camera with 13MP is capable of taking some pretty good photos, with a lot of colors and texture to it. The Macro function takes photos close to the object, but not with much crisp and clear details, but still very good in comparison to the similar phones with that price tag. The 8MP selfie camera is doing a good job, especially with the beautify function that we’ve shown in the video.

Gold back case of 360 N5
Gold version of 360 N5

 

The photo colours and contrasts are great, in full light or in almost complete darkness with the maximum resolution is 4160 x 3120 and supports HDR. The video is not so great, it doesn’t produce as much details as photos do. Overall, great performance of the camera if you are not looking for a great video recording performance.

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360 N5 Review: Battery

The battery is non-removable one with the capacity of 4,000 mAh, which will run a whole day for an average user.  It supports Quick Charge 3.0 and it took us less than 85 minutes to fully charge the battery, which is fantastic!

The only downside with 360 phones is that they don’t support Global ROM yet, but the word is going around town that it will happen and that it will happen soon!

 

To find out more about the phone or purchase the 360 N5, head out to Giztop.

 

Manufacturer 360 Mobiles
Model 360 Mobile N5
Color Black, Gold
OS 360 OS UI base on Android
Network GSM, WCDMA, TD-LTE, LTE-FDD
Band GSM: 850/900/1800/1900MHz, WCDMA: Bands: B1/2/5/8, LTE FDD: Bands: B1/3/5/7/8
Carrier Unlocked
Language English, Chinese
Google Play Yes
Screen 5.5 inch full HD screen, 1920×1080 pixel
Processor CPU: Qualcomm Snapdragon 653
RAM 6GB LPDDR3
ROM 32GB/64GB
Rear Camera 13 megapixel camera
Front Camera 8 megapixel camera
Battery 4000mAh
SIM Card Dual SIM card slots, nano
Dimension 151mm x 76mm x 8.35mm
Weight 175g
In the box Phone, USB Cable, Charger, Manual, EU/AU/UK Plug Adapter