Facelifted Mercedez-Benz CLA, GLB arrive in PH, priced

Get ready to experience automotive evolution firsthand as Mercedes-Benz Philippines unveils the facelifted CLA and GLB models this month. Setting a new benchmark for the compact car and SUV segments, through elegance and performance.

CLA 200 Progressive line: Perfect Blend of Sportiness, Elegance, and Performance

Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe Retail Price: PhP 3,990,000

The Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe is designed to captivate and exhilarate and sets a new standard in the luxury compact car segment. This CLA Coupe will capture your attention, with its sporty, flat rear end and distinctive power domes adorning the bonnet. The design language sets the stage for an unparalleled driving experience, seamlessly blending performance and sophistication.

The CLA redefines what it means to drive with style and purpose. Embrace the thrill of the open road and the joy of shared experiences as the Mercedes-Benz CLA becomes your ultimate lifestyle companion in everyday journey and enhancing moment with luxury, comfort, and performance.

Design and Performance 

The Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe, encounters modernity and sophistication with its redesigned front apron, LED High Performance Headlamps, and Adaptive Highbeam Assist. Enhanced by 18-inch multi-spoke light alloy wheels, its presence on the road is bold.

The interior of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe is a testament to avant-garde engineering and sophistication. Boasting a seamlessly integrated MBUX Multimedia System, drivers are greeted by a stunning 10.25-inch touchscreen and an all-digital instrumental display delivering not just connectivity, but also clarity in essential information.

Now the Mercedes-Benz CLA offers expanded storage options, including a spacious center console compartment capable of accommodating everyday essentials, complemented by a 12V socket and USB interface for added convenience. Elevating your ambiance further through ambient lighting with 64 color options allows drivers to tailor their driving environment to match your mood, whether navigating the metro streets or winding down on your way home.

Explore the Mercedes-Benz CLA DYNAMIC SELECT feature with a tap of a console switch; you can tailor your driving experience to match your mood and preferences like before. There are four distinct driving modes, each meticulously crafted to offer a unique blend of comfort, eco, sport and individual. The Mercedes-Benz CLA equipped with essential safety features including Active Brake Assist, Attention Assist, and Guard 360 Anti-theft alarm, ensuring optimal protection and security for drivers and passengers alike.

Powered by a dynamic 163 horsepower turbocharged inline-4 engine, boasting an impressive 270nn of torque, and paired with a seven-speed transmission in the CLA 200 Progressive model, this coupe delivers a driving experience that exceeds all expectations. From its commanding acceleration to its seamless handling, the CLA 200 Progressive redefines what it means to drive a luxury coupe.

GLB: Where Luxury Meets Versatility in the Compact SUV Segment

Mercedes-Benz GLB 200 AMG Retail Price: PhP 4,590,000

Mercedes-Benz GLB 200 AMG redefining the Luxury SUV segment, this model offers unparalleled versatility and spaciousness, making it ideal for families and everyday lifestyles. The GLB stands out as a true embodiment of Mercedes-Benz’s commitment to excellence. Whether city driving or embarking on spontaneous road trips, the GLB delivers a driving experience that exceeds expectations.

Design and Performance

The GLB 200 AMG has 7-inch Digital Display, MBUX Multimedia System, and Convenient Center Console Storage, the interior sets a new standard for comfort and connectivity. Plus, with its generous cargo space with a maximum luggage space up to 1,812mm when the seconds seats row folded down. The GLB is designed in providing space and comfort, ensuring that whether you’re running weekend errands or going on a spontaneous family vacation. Equipped with 19-inch AMG 5-twin spoke light alloy wheels, LED High Performance Headlamp, and 3rd Row Seating, the GLB 200 AMG Line combines premium features with practicality seamlessly.

The GLB’s spacious cabin offers unparalleled versatility: the second-row seats effortlessly slide, recline, or fold in a convenient 40/20/40 split configuration. Effortless entry provides seamless access to the available 50/50-split third-row seating. With all rear seats folded down, the GLB boasts an expansive cargo area, ensuring ample room for all your adventures.

The GLB has a four-cylinder engine, boasting an impressive output of 165 horsepower and a torque of 270Nm. Paired with a seamless seven-speed transmission, this powerhouse propels the GLB with effortless grace, ensuring a smooth and exhilarating ride every time.

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realme C55 review: Redefining the C Series

04/21/2023

realme Philippines just introduced the realme C55 smartphone in the Philippines. It’s a midrange phone with a sub-PhP8K price tag but offers an array of features and capable performance. It also sports the new Mini Capsule similar to the Dynamic Island found on Apple’s iPhones.

With that affordable pricing, can it really deliver on its promises? We find out.

Unboxing

Let’s begin with the box. Not much has changed when it comes to packaging and you still get an all-yellow box and once you open it, you’ll be greeted and welcomed to the realme family.

Lifting and opening this smaller box reveals the usual manuals and guides in addition to its included jelly case if you want to add some sort of protection to your device.

What’s left in the box is the realme C55 unit and digging deeper will introduce you to the power brick and USB-C cable that supports SuperVOOC charging. More on that later.

Design

For the device itself, the realme C55 has a sleek and modern design with a well-designed back that’s available in two colors – Sunshower and Rainy Night. Even though the back panel is made of plastic, it still exudes that premium look and feel thanks to its rounded edges.

What we have here is the Rainy Night color and just like its name suggests, the back has these textures and patterns that look like showers of light rain pouring at certain angles. Looking at it could get trippy.

The phone feels comfortable in the hand, and the buttons are well-placed and easy to reach. All the buttons are on the right side with the volume rocker sitting above the power/lock button that also doubles as a fingerprint scanner. There have been a few fingerprint misreadings during our time but overall, it has been quick and responsive and had no major issues.

The left side houses its dual SIM tray and microSD slot for storage expansion. Meanwhile, at the bottom, you have an audio jack for wired headphones, its USB 2.0 Type-C port, and a speaker grille.

As for the rest of its back panel, there are two prominent camera sensors at the back namely a 64-megapixel main and a secondary 2-megapixel depth sensor. We’ll expound on the optics later on.

Display and multimedia

In terms of display, this phone comes with a 6.72-inch FHD+ IPS display with a resolution of 2400 x 1080 pixels. The display is bright and vibrant, and the colors are accurate. There’s a bit of chin at the bottom but the rest of the bezels are pretty thin but still a bit noticeable.

The realme C55 also features a 90Hz refresh rate, which makes scrolling and navigating through the UI feel smooth and fluid. I always turn set my phone’s refresh rate to the highest since scrolling just looks very fluid even though it depletes the battery faster. That’s what its fast-charging tech is there for, at least for me.

Using it when watching videos on YouTube or streaming TV shows and movies on Netflix, its large display makes for easy viewing. Although I would appreciate it better if it had stereo speakers rather than just one bottom-firing grille. But of course, that would bump up the price.

Camera

As mentioned earlier, the realme C55 has a dual camera setup on the back, which includes a 64-megapixel main camera, and a 2-megapixel depth sensor. Having the same main sensor as the realme GT Edition, the camera performance is impressive for its price point, with good color accuracy and detail in well-lit conditions.

Photos have a generally cool tone to them and dynamic range is actually good as it preserves details both in the dark and light areas for each shot even with HDR turned off.

One of the things I noticed, though, is that it sometimes struggles in focusing when taking photos of subjects up close. Usually, this is where a macro feature would come in handy, but that’s not present in this phone. Night Mode also works well and is able to get needed light into its sensor for a clear image at the expense of holding still for about 3 seconds on average.

Something that I missed shooting with a realme phone is its Street Mode which automatically applies Kodak-approved filters to produce more of those street-style vibe photos. But, this is the entry-level C series, after all, so we’re not complaining.

Video recording maxes out at 1080p at 60fps which is good enough for shooting reels. But since this phone isn’t meant to specialize in videos, we don’t have any complaints.

The phone also features an 8MP front-facing camera, which takes decent selfies. One of my observations, though, is that its night mode has the same long shutter approach so it wasn’t the best thing to use in low light with a large group of people unless they’re willing to keep still for about 3 seconds while the selfie camera lets more light into its sensor.

Performance

This midrange phone is powered by a MediaTek Helio G88 chipset paired with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of internal storage. This is the first time that a model from the C series comes with this RAM and storage combo.

In terms of daily usage, switching between apps is effortless and its realme UI 4.0 based on Android 13 makes navigation intuitive. The phone, in general, can handle your usual social media apps and even video editing software for creating short videos on TikTok or IG Reels, for example.

The phone also features a Mali-G52 GPU, which is capable of handling most games and apps. I did experience some frame drops when playing resource-intensive games like Genshin Impact. It’s quite understandable but I was still able to enjoy playing on the device and lags were not something I experienced on a regular basis.

Special to this phone is realme’s Mini Capsule feature that appears on top of the screen to show useful notifications. As of writing this review, it just displays the battery status that pops up when the battery is running low, charging, or fully charged. It can also alert you of your data usage when you’ve consumed more than 90% of your daily data usage limit.

realme says it will still add more features to the Mini Capsule via downloadable updates in the future.

Battery life

The realme C55 has a 5000mAh battery, which provides impressive battery life. The phone can easily last for a full day on a single charge with moderate usage and we were even able to use the phone as our wireless display for our DJI RSC 2 while shooting our video reviews.

The phone also supports 33W SuperVOOC fast charging, with claims that it can charge the phone from 0 to 100% in about an hour. This proved true during our experience and even just charging the phone for 30 minutes already yielded around 50% of battery life from empty.

For context, previous iterations from the C series could only charge up to 18W with their Quick Charging feature.

Price and conclusion

The realme C55 has a starting price in the Philippines of PhP 8,999 for the 6GB and 128GB model while the 8GB and 256GB variant that we have is at PhP 10,999.

Overall, the realme C55 is a solid midrange smartphone that offers good value for money. The phone has a sleek and modern design, a large and vibrant display with a high refresh rate, powerful performance, and a capable camera system.

The phone also has excellent battery life and supports fast charging. So if you’re looking for an affordable smartphone that offers good overall performance, the realme C55 definitely reinvents offerings from the C series and is well worth considering.

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