360 Mobiles had a big day today as the company announced the successor to the 360 N5 model that was released just a few months back. The new model, called the 360 N5S, comes with pretty good upgrades as compared to the earlier generation model. The company seems to have given priority to the design and the front camera in this new version, which makes it a great overall mid-ranger.
360 N5S Design
360 Mobiles continued with the same design language in the past few generations, which is why it was necessary for a quick overhaul in the design department of the new entrant. The 360 N5S ditches the traditional all-metal body in favor of 2.5D curved glass. So, you have 2.5D glass on both the front as well as the back with an aluminum alloy frame to keep things sturdy. Note that the back of the N5S has a mirror line finish which makes it look a lot like the Honor 8. The phone comes in Blue as well as Black colors and there’s a good chance that you might confuse the N5S with the Honor 8, especially its blue color edition. The fingerprint also lies on the back of the phone.
Dimensions: 153.5 x 76.9 x 8mm
Weight: 170 grams
So, the phone is similar to the dimensions of its previous generation model but with a thinner 8mm body. However, the phone’s weight has increased significantly, as it weighs 170 grams, much higher than the metal clad 360 N5′ 156-gram weight.
The buttons also have a textured pattern to make sure that you can easily find it.
360 N5S Specs
360 N5 was a pretty powerful mid-ranger. The company has made a smart decision to keep most of the basic hardware intact, which means the 360 N5S specs include the same Snapdragon 653 octa-core chip, 6GB of RAM, 64GB of internal storage and MicroSD expansion slot that support up to 128GB. There’s a standard 5.5-inch 1080p panel on board.
Now note that for some reason, probably to keep the weight and thickness lower, the 360 N5S comes with a smaller, 3730mAh battery on board. The previous generation model had a 4000mAh battery, so cutting down the battery capacity, even by a small figure isn’t something that we would have liked to see. However, the company claims that you still get 1.5 days of usage from the device. Further, the phone supports 9V / 2A fast charging, which should give you about 45% charge in 30 minutes. That’s pretty good.
360 N5S Camera
The front camera has received the biggest upgrade, now featuring a dual camera setup. The front setup is a combination of a 13MP CMOS Samsung sensor with f/2.0 aperture and a 2MP secondary sensor with f/2.4 aperture. The secondary sensor is responsible for additional depth of field data to ensure you can capture good looking selfies with background blur. The presence of PDAF (0.1s focus) on the front camera setup should further ensure a clear and focused shot.
Coming to the rear camera, the 360 N5S comes with a standard 13MP f/2.0 sensor. It’s same rear sensor as the N5 model. So, the setup supports 4K as well as 1080p videos.
360 N5S Software
On the software side, the 360 N5S comes with 360 OS 2.0 UI which is based on Android 7.1 Nougat. The company seems to be focused on making the UI as clutter free and simple as possible. So, the new OS omits unwanted apps and brings features such as split screen multi-tasking (with transform / drag drop), multiple apps (open 2 copies of the same app) etc.
The phone comes with a notification light as well. Now, you’ll see a Nubia-like red circle on the phone’s home button, which is also a breathing notification light.
360 N5S Price & Availability
The phone will go on sale on June 2 on the official i360Mall in China for 1699 Yuan ($247). There seems to be just one memory version 6GB RAM + 64GB ROM and two color options: blue and black.
