Lalamove keeps things moving through Partner-Driver empowerment

By Maynard Lumhod

Lalamove, Philippine’s #1 on-demand delivery service, will be celebrating its fourth year anniversary this November during one of the most challenging times in our history. At the height of the enhanced community quarantine, Lalamove was a reliable partner for people to deliver and receive essential goods such as food, medicine, and even aid to our health workers. While people are still finding ways to cope with the new normal, Lalamove has been consistent since the onset of the pandemic in keeping things moving.

Lalamove, as an online delivery platform, serves two sets of clients: the consumer or business requiring delivery service and the partner-drivers looking for sources of income and perform delivery. With the restrictive ECQ in place, Lalamove was able to provide an opportunity for those who found themselves without a job or unable to continue with their business. As business pivot to digital, Lalamove was uniquely poised to accept the challenge in supporting the same day delivery requirements of small and medium business enterprises which in turn allow Lalamove to onboard more partner-drivers in its platform to meet the growing demand for delivery.

“Dahil sa Lalamove, ako ay may sapat na kita para mabuhay ang pamilya ko. Marami ang nahirapan sa pandemya, pero kami sa Lalamove, tuloy tuloy lang ang kita basta masipag at maayos ang serbisyo,” says Mr. Adrian Nery, a Lalamove partner driver since 2016 and with a star rating of 4.9 out of 5.

“Dati akong delivery rider ng pizza restaurant at iba pang courier companies. Sinubukan kong mag-part time sa Lalamove para malaman kung maganda ang kita. Simula nag-full time ako, kinikita ko na sa isang araw ang dating isang linggo kong pinaghihirapan.” says Mr. Cesar Rejolio, Lalamove Partner- Driver since 2019 and with star rating of 4.8 out of 5.

Lalamove attributes its success to the way the platform was able to empower its driver-partners to have more financial security and also allow them to manage their time and resources like any owners of a business. The partnership between Lalamove and its partner-drivers is strengthened by the Panalomoves Program launched in 2018.

Under the Panalomoves Program, every partner driver in their platform gets to enjoy benefits such as free insurance, Lalamove-exclusive fuel discounts, vehicle maintenance discounts, as well as mobile phone discounts. The program also advocates for financial inclusion by providing them with free mobile money accounts and an ATM card for free withdrawals, opportunities to avail of loans, and opportunities to upgrade their vehicle with key partners.

To extend the benefits to their family, the Panalomoves program also includes benefits related to leisure activities such as massage, groceries, as well as discounts to prepaid healthcare that may be used for their family. Lalamove shares in the success story of its partner-drivers by celebrating them through this Panalomoves and its monthly Star Drivers’ Night.

With four years of delivering care in the Philippines, Lalamove’s goal is to empower the lives of every partner driver in their platform. This objective has strengthened their resolve in continuing to look after their partner drivers and to keep things moving despite challenges.

Hyundai PH honors Filipino-Korean ties with a show of local art, fashion, and cars

realme 12 lands in the Philippines, priced

Nissan Epoch, Epic, Era, and Evo NEV concept cars on display at Auto China 2024

Affordable gaming phone nubia Neo 2 5G lands in PH

Infinix HOT 20S review: Built for continuous gaming

04/26/2023

During the past couple of years, mobile gaming has taken for itself a large chunk in the gaming space as it became the preferred platform for a lot of users. There are different brands catering to this need and one of them is Infinix with its HOT 20S midrange phone that promises capable performance and a lengthy battery life.

Does it live up to these promises? We find out.

Design

While most gaming phones are on the bulky and hefty side, Infinix was able to make the HOT 20S lean a bit more towards the sleek side which is not really surprising as we’ve seen on the Infinix Zero X Pro and Infinix HOT 10S that we previously reviewed.

The back panel has a glossy finish (hello smudges) but has this textured patterns underneath the outer layer. It does provide a nice look when light reflects off it and gives it that semi-premium look.

Its edges are cornered which could be easily felt when holding the device. The right side of the solidly built chassis houses the power/lock button in addition to the volume rocker and are both easy to reach in portrait usage.

This power/lock button also doubles as a fingerprint scanner which has been reliable to use and easily gives us access to the device with no fuss.

On the left side, it only features the SIM slot sitting alone at the upper edge of the device. Down below we have a USB-C port for charging and transferring files as well as a 3.5mm audio jack for wired connectivity of accessories and a speaker grille on the right-most part.

The phone is available in four color options: black, purple, white, and blue. Overall, the device isn’t too heavy but not too light either. It has a decent heft to it that makes it sit on the hands comfortably without the fear of accidentally slipping off from your grasp.

Having cornered edges also helped in securing the phone in your palms but if you’re a fan of smooth, curved edges, this might take some getting used to.

Display and multimedia

The Infinix Hot 20S comes with a large 6.78-inch IPS-TFT LCD display with a Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2460 pixels. It features a 120Hz refresh rate which means scrolling and animations appear smoother.

It’s proven to be great for gaming as having a comfortable screen real estate does affect how one enjoys gameplay.

When talking about being immersive, the screen-to-body ratio of the phone is 90.5% — giving it a modern look and while bezels are somewhat noticeable, the entire display can still pull you into the game effectively. Colors are vibrant enough without going overboard and the allowable brightness is just right even while viewing content outdoors.

It only comes with a single down-firing speaker, though, which could leave you wanting more in the sound department when streaming videos or playing games. Thankfully, you can easily connect a pair of headphones via its audio jack.

Cameras

The Infinix Hot 20S has a triple-camera setup on the rear, consisting of a 50-megapixel main camera, a 2-megapixel macro camera, and a 2-megapixel depth camera.

Its main camera can take high-quality photos with good detail and accurate colors. There’s no ultra-wide camera here, only a macro sensor that could be useful for taking close-up shots of small objects, but has limited use, of course.

The depth camera helps to capture bokeh or portrait shots with a blurred background effect. But as with most depth sensors in this range, successfully cutting out subjects from the background could be hit-and-miss.

On the flip side, it comes with an 8-megapixel front camera that can take satisfactory selfies with beautification filters and can also be used decently for video calls.

Performance

The HOT 20S is powered by a 12nm MediaTek Helio G96 4G chipset and Mali-G57 MC2 GPU. If you’re not familiar, Helio G96 is a powerful and efficient processor that can handle most tasks with ease.

It’s also accompanied by 8GB RAM that can get up to 5GB additional memory and 128GB of storage — a generous amount of memory and storage for a midrange phone.

Running today’s popular games like Mobile Legends, Call of Duty, and Genshin Impact, the phone handled them all without disturbing lags as long as you settle for decent gaming settings, especially for Genshin Impact.

For Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, the phone’s high refresh rate comes into play and easily makes the gaming experience more enjoyable than running on standard 30fps.

Running Call of Duty: Mobile was also immersive on the HOT 20S, with decently precise input for effectively getting those headshots!

Being a gaming-focused smartphone, it has access to settings to improve gameplay and avoid distractions at the height of each match. From its Dar-link Ultimate Game Booster platform, you can tweak your settings depending on the demands of the game titles you’re playing.

The phone runs on XOS 12, which is based on Android 12. XOS 12 comes with a range of features and customization options, but it can be a bit heavy and may affect the phone’s performance in the long run. Of course, you can opt to keep customizations and widgets to a minimum so they don’t affect the device’s performance that much.

Battery

The Infinix Hot 20S has a large 5,000mAh battery that can easily last for a full day of usage. Even with long periods of gaming, its battery was still able to last, and rarely did we need to charge before the day ended.

The phone supports 18-watt USB-C charging, which is convenient considering the capacity of this smartphone. Although at 18W, topping up the device still lasted more than two hours of being plugged in.

If you’re looking for additional features like wireless charging, that’s not present here. But with its price, it’s not really something I would personally expect.

Price in the Philippines and final thoughts

Overall, the Infinix Hot 20S is a decent midrange smartphone with some impressive features. It has a large and immersive display, a powerful processor, and a generous amount of memory at up to 13GB and storage at 128GB.

The camera setup is good, but the macro camera is not very useful. Although in the battery department, we are simply satisfied when it comes to performance and its fast charging feature is a welcome addition considering its 5000mAh capacity.

If you are looking for a midrange phone with a large display, internals that do capable work, and a lasting battery setup, the Infinix Hot 20S is definitely worth considering its PhP 8,499 price tag.