Specifications
- screen: color Super AMOLED 4.8'' HD (720x1280), capacitive, touchscreen;
- processor: eight-core MT6592 1.7 GHz;
- graphics accelerator: ARM Mali-450 MP4;
- operating system: Android 4.4.2;
- RAM: 1 GB;
- built-in memory: 16 GB;
- memory card support: no;
- communication: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz; 3G 900/2100;
- SIM: microSIM;
- wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0;
- navigation: GPS+AGPS;
- cameras: main - 8 MP (flash, autofocus), front - 5 MP;
- sensors: accelerometer, light sensor, direction sensor, compass;
- battery: 2,050 mAh;
- dimensions: 139.8 x 67.5 x 5.15 mm;
- weight: 95.5 grams.
Memory and speed
The Tornado Slim uses the MT6592 platform with an 8-core 32-bit processor with a maximum frequency of 1.7 GHz and Mali-450 MP graphics. The amount of RAM is 1 GB. The built-in flash memory is 16 GB, of which about 10 GB is available to the user. There is no slot for microSD cards in the device. This is a minus.
If we talk about the perceived speed of the device, then it is quite fast. I didn't feel any lag in the interfaces. Opening third-party applications occurs in 1-2 seconds. These are average performance indicators. Although the Samsung Galaxy S5 or HTC One M8 are noticeably faster.
On your smartphone you can watch videos in FullHD without any glitches. Pre-installed codecs allow you to play video in the popular .avi and .mkv formats, but not all audio codecs are supported. Watching videos from YouTube is carried out without delays or freezes, and no frame drops were noticed. The smartphone also performed well in pre-installed games.
Equipment
In addition to the standard set of the device, charging and instructions with headphones, a funny-looking paper clip has been added.
Camera and sound
The Fly Tornado One's photo capabilities are at an average level. On the one hand, the smartphone has a proprietary 13-megapixel sensor from Sony (Exmor RS IMX135, f/2 aperture) and a powerful LED flash. All this together gives good pictures, especially if you take care of good external lighting: the picture is practically free of noise and artifacts, and the color rendition is quite natural even without additional processing in a photo editor . But as soon as you want to shoot in the evening or under artificial light, aggressive “noise reduction” will come into play, algorithms for calculating white balance will shift the picture towards cool shades, and sharpness will drop to unacceptable levels.
Appearance
Fly Tornado Slim is available for sale in classic black and white with gold trim. The entire body (both the front and back panels) is covered with protective glass Gorilla Glass 3, and the ends are framed by a metal frame with beveled corners.
Thickness compared to iPhone 5s and Huawei P7
Due to the fact that the smartphone is completely covered with glass, it is very easily soiled. On the white version the marks are not as noticeable as on the black one. They are easy to clean, but fingerprints are still annoying.
With dimensions of 139.8 x 67.4 x 5.15 mm, the smartphone weighs only 95.5 grams. It was made so light by internal parts made of aluminum alloy. In order to hold such a thin and light smartphone, you need to get used to it; it seems that it is about to slip out, fall, you constantly forget that it is in your pocket, etc.
If you look closely at the white body of the Tornado Slim, you will notice that there is a small black frame around the screen, which makes it seem larger. Above the screen are the front camera lens and the earpiece. At the bottom of the front panel there are touch buttons “Menu”, “Home” and “Back” of a light gray color, thanks to which they are distinguishable in the dark even when the backlight is turned off.
At the bottom end there is a micro-USB connector and a 3.5 mm audio jack. On the right side of the case there is a slot for a microSIM card.
On top of the back panel there is the main camera with a metal frame, a flash and a speaker.
Fly Tornado Slim 360:
Fly Tornado Slim - the thinnest smartphone in the world in 2014
The Fly company presented the Tornado Slim smartphone, in which it went against current market trends in increasing the size of devices. The result is a stylish, attractive accessory, different from conventional means of communication.
While a 5-inch screen has already become the lot of devices in the mid-price range, and the display of older models from other manufacturers tends to reach 6 inches, Fly decided to limit itself to a 4.8-inch monitor. The design team managed to create a truly sophisticated smartphone without sacrificing functionality and at the same time achieving such dimensions - 139.8 by 67.5 by 5.15 millimeters. At the same time, the weight of the smartphone is less than 100 grams (more precisely 95.5 grams), so it does not weigh on your pocket.
Based on its size, an attentive reader could already guess that the Fly smartphone is the thinnest in the world currently sold. No, it doesn't bend. Making the frame of the smartphone from aluminum alloy made the device lightweight and very durable. It also has no protruding parts, although its camera characteristics are comparable to those of leading manufacturers. The screen and back surface of the Fly Tornado Slim are covered with the thinnest third-generation Gorilla Glass, which is characterized by increased resistance to shocks and scratches.
Photo: Fly press service
Another secret to slimness is the use of a Super AMOLED matrix. It does not require backlighting and produces a bright and clear image. Despite the record thinness of the device, the display has an HD resolution (1280 by 720 pixels). Considering the small diagonal size of 4.8 inches, the device received a screen with a pixel density of 306 pixels per inch. This is considered to be higher than the resolution of the average user's eye.
The power key is not located on the right, as usual, but on the left side panel. Finally, left-handers have a model that they can conveniently turn on with their thumb.
Photo: Fly press service
Owners of the leading right hand will not be offended: the index finger fits comfortably on the power button. The palm can easily grasp the body thanks to its miniature dimensions. And above the power button there is the usual volume rocker
Proprietary functions allow you to enable double-click unlocking, gesture control and several other features that will appeal to all users, no matter in which hand they hold the smartphone at lunch
Traditionally, the main camera has a much higher resolution than the front camera. But in Tornado Slim, engineers worked on both - they have a resolution of 8 and 5 megapixels, respectively. The matrices and lenses of both cameras are made of high quality, so selfies and shooting of objects around you are good.
Fly has added signature features to the shooting process. Now you can shoot not only by touching the on-screen shutter button, but also by simply touching an arbitrary place on the screen where you want to focus. Also, Fly’s proprietary functions added to the smartphone the ability to take pictures based on the owner’s gesture or when a smile is detected, by touching the screen (in the “Camera” operating mode). Such methods are convenient if you have to shoot with outstretched arms, or even from a tripod with a long handle.
The name obliges the Fly smartphone to have destructive power. It is provided by an 8-core Mediatek MT6592 processor, which grinds information at a frequency of 1.7 gigahertz, made using ARM Cortex-A7 architecture. This power is enough for both office tasks and the most beautiful toys.
Photo: Fly press service
A sufficiently large amount of RAM of 1 gigabyte allows you to run several applications and many tabs in the browser in parallel without the risk of hanging up a thin smartphone.
Fly Tornado Slim runs on the modern Android 4.4.2 operating system, which allows you to install the latest applications on it. Moreover, the manufacturer worked some magic on the interface so that the user could immediately work comfortably without setting up a new device. For example, Google programs are stored in a separate folder. Yandex services are collected in a beautiful widget that shows the weather, traffic congestion and such valuable information as the exchange rate of the dollar and euro. In addition, the manufacturer has added a couple of banking applications and several games. The user may not have to visit the app store anytime soon.
The user can expect a high price for a record thin smartphone with good functionality. However, the manufacturer could set an adequate price of 12,990 rubles. There are two color options: black and white. At the moment, Fly Tornado looks very attractive. The smartphone is already available for sale in retail stores and on the website flystore.ru. More details about the new product at the link: https://tornado.fly-phone.ru/slim/
To support the release of the new model, Fly is launching videos on the company’s official YouTube channel. In one video, the Fly Tornado Slim's thin body is compared to playing cards. Another video shows the image quality provided by the Super AMOLED HD display and 8 megapixel camera. But the most popular was the video, which in the first four days entered the TOP 3 most popular videos in Russia:
The Fly brand https://www.fly-phone.ru/ was founded in 2003 and today is one of the leaders in the field of mobile technologies, as well as a leading manufacturer of high-tech smartphones. The company's head office is located in the UK (London). The Fly brand has representative offices in Russia, Ukraine, and India. The brand's products are in high demand among users - according to the results of the first half of 2014, Fly took second place in smartphone sales in Russia.
Screen
Fly Tornado Slim has a 4.8-inch Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. Wide viewing angles, a sensitive sensor, amazing clarity, rich vibrant colors - all this makes the screen stunning. In addition, the brightness reserve is enough to easily read information from the screen in sunlight.
Multi-touch technology recognizes up to nine simultaneous clicks.
Screen. Graphics capabilities
The Tornado Slim uses a 4.8-inch AMOLED touchscreen display with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels (density 320 pixels per inch). The matrix boasts good color reproduction, colorful and contrasting images. The advantages of the display include large viewing angles and deep black color. To protect the display, high-quality glass is used, which reliably protects the screen from damage. During the two-week test, by the way, no scratches appeared on the screen, despite the extreme location of the device with the keys in my pocket.
The display resolution allows you to comfortably view websites in their original form. Presses are processed instantly, sensitivity is high.
Software
Fly Tornado Slim runs Android 4.4 and has a proprietary interface. The difference is the absence of an application menu, i.e. all icons are placed on desktops, and, of course, you can group them into folders. It is possible to embed widgets into desktops.
All icons are made in a minimalist style, but they are round at the bottom and square at the top with rounded edges. It looks very good, I don’t like the stock Android at all, but Fly’s shell really does.
By the way, many pre-installed applications also received a proprietary interface. For example, a voice recorder, instead of standard “sliders”, shows fluctuations in levels with multi-colored circles.
The system works just fine, instantly responding to all commands: screenshots, unlocking, snapshots. But there is one key and, in my opinion, important “but”: the call mode itself often slows down, producing errors such as calling on its own or dropping the call, etc.
How was the model created?
A lot of time has passed since the first deliveries of the British company to the Russian mobile phone market. However, only now has the Fly company decided that it should focus its efforts not just on occupying the budget segment, but also on the immediate release of individual models that have a twist. Probably, the company will adhere to a similar concept in the future, but we cannot say this for sure. There is only one thing for sure: the manufacturer has already taken the first steps in this direction by releasing the Fly Tornado Slim IQ4516 Octa smartphones on the Russian market, reviews of which the reader can find at the end of the article.
Iron
The world's thinnest smartphone is powered by an octa-core MT6592 1.7 GHz processor with ARM Mali-450 MP4 graphics. The amount of RAM is 1 GB, built-in memory is 16 GB, of which 14.9 GB are available to the user.
Fly Tornado Slim played 1080p video without any problems and did not lag when opening several tabs. But when loading heavy games, the smartphone body became noticeably hot, and the tests showed average results.
For example, when loading Minion Rush, the smartphone froze, and when playing Dead Trigger 2 it became noticeably warm. Of course, light games like Cut the Rope run smoothly and without problems.
⇡#Hardware and performance
Despite the fact that Fly Tornado Slim is a mid-price smartphone, it runs on a quite robust system-on-chip. From a marketing point of view, the platform used can be automatically considered ideal, because it includes eight cores at once. We are talking about the MediaTek MT6592 in the W modification with low-performance ARM Cortex-A7 cores operating at a frequency of 1.7 GHz. The MT6592 also has a more economical M version with a core frequency reduced to 1.4 GHz. We recently talked about the most powerful modification of this chip - designated by the letter T - with a frequency of 2 GHz in a review of the inexpensive Micromax Canvas Knight A350 smartphone. The chip is made using a 28nm process technology.
Fly Tornado Slim - AnTuTu Benchmark 5.2 test results
An important reminder should be made here: the screen resolution of the tested smartphone is only 720 × 1280 pixels. Of course, such a display requires much less resources to render an image than a Full HD screen. Hence the relatively high productivity.
During the week-long testing, the gadget demonstrated very stable operation without sudden shutdowns or unpleasant glitches - Fly’s firmware is well-debugged. The smartphone quickly switches between applications, smoothly displays operating system animations, and copes with other ordinary tasks without any problems. True, it won’t be possible to keep many programs open at once, as well as a bunch of tabs in the browser - there is only one gigabyte of RAM in the Tornado Slim. The capacity of the flash drive is also small - sixteen gigabytes, of which a little more than ten are available to the user. Unfortunately, there are no expansion slots. But, as we said earlier, you can connect an external drive to the device via an OTG adapter.
The quad-core graphics controller represented by the ARM Mali-450 copes quite successfully with displaying graphics on an HD display. It should be noted that Fly Tornado Slim is one of the few smartphones in its class that was able to reach the vSync limit of sixty frames per second in the Basemark 2 Taiji gaming test.
However, when passing more resource-intensive tests, the device began to become thoughtful. However, this was quite expected. It should be noted that even in complex benchmarks, the gadget showed good results within the class. On a smartphone you can play not only casual arcade games, but also heavier games - you just have to lower the graphics settings. The gadget does not have any problems with playing multimedia files.
Camera
Tornado Slim received a main camera with 8 megapixels and autofocus and a front camera of 5 megapixels.
The main camera takes excellent photos: good color rendition, clear frames with good sharpness. Even at dusk or in the dark, color rendition remains excellent, and the presence of noise is critically low.
The camera interface is poorly thought out. For example, to enable HDR, you need to go to the menu.
The settings menu has various modes, effects and stickers - especially for lovers of tinsel in photos.
In standard mode, you can turn the flash on and off, activate shooting by tapping on the screen, and take panoramas. There are no manual settings, so you have to trust the automatic ones.
The front camera also takes pictures clearly, without any noise.
operating system
Tornado One runs Android 4.4.2 KitKat.
The list of pre-installed applications is quite large, useful ones include the “ES Explorer” file manager, FM radio, Opera browser, Navitel maps, Change Yo! Voice, which allows you to change your voice during a conversation, Melodies, with which you can prepare your favorite tracks to set as a ringtone (albeit for a fee).
Also frequently used applications are “Vkontakte”, “Odnoklassniki”, intaxi - for calling a taxi and others.
Games include Green Farm 3, Danger Dash and World at Arms.
There is a gesture recognition feature that can be disabled. Of the eight options, three are unchanged (double tap - wake, up - unlock, down - phone), and the rest can be changed as you wish.
The function is very useful.
Battery
It would seem that there should be a small battery under such a thin body. But Fly still equipped its smartphone with a battery with a capacity of 2050 mAh.
In the settings, an energy-saving mode is set, which sets a limit on maximum performance.
With a heavy load on the processor, the battery level can drop sharply from 50% to 30% in just half an hour.
When continuously watching videos in HD format, the battery lasts for 4 hours; in an hour of play, about a quarter of the charge is “eaten up”; and with moderate use (web surfing, calls, listening to music, etc.) the smartphone will last until the end of the evening.
In our test, the smartphone lasted 7 and a half hours.
Tornado Slim as a salvation
In recent years, according to official data, sales of British devices on the Russian market have declined rapidly. The reasons for this have not been fully determined, since there may not be several dozen factors, but they are still enough to create general confusion. Nevertheless, the British company decided to react to such results extremely calmly, using sober calculations and ordinary logic. And so, as a rescue, the “4516 Tornado Slim” model was created. By definition, the smartphone had to show that the company adheres to the tactics of the optimal price-quality ratio. This appears to be what happened. Previously it was said that the model was supposed to increase sales due to the presence of a highlight, which was the thinness of the device. At that time, the device was the thinnest in the world. But a couple of months later, the OPPO R5 smartphone was released. Its thickness was 4.85 millimeters. However, this did not in any way affect the level of sales.
