Archos 50 Diamond review: Emerald cut

Introduction

It's the first time we have an Archos smartphone for review here at GSMArena but it isn't the first time we hear the French maker's name. For years now Archos has been churning out tablets with good specs for a reasonable price. They make phones too and you can find them subsidized by carriers in many countries.

The Archos 50 Diamond is the company's flagship phone at the helm of its portfolio. Its highlights include the 5" 1080p IPS LCD on the front, the 16MP camera on the back and the 64-bit Snapdragon 615 chipset and 2GB of RAM inside. The 50 Diamond also boasts dual SIM abilities out of the box without compromising its microSD card slot.

Together the main specs round off a reasonable upper midrange handset that can challenge competition from Samsung, HTC and China for the hard-earned cash of buyers. Perhaps one of the more important aspects of the Archos 50 Diamond is that it runs vanilla Android 4.4.4 KitKat out of the box catering to Google-purists that would otherwise cringe at yet another Android skin that contradicts Google's design aesthetic.

Key features

• 5" 1080p capacitive IPS LCD with 440ppi
• Physical home, back and menu buttons that don't take away from screen-estate
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset with dual quad-core processor: 1.5 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 plus 1.0 GHz quad-core Cortex-A53 processor, Adreno 405 GPU, 2GB of RAM
• Vanilla Android 4.4.4 KitKat with no bloatware
• • 16MP AF camera with extensive settings for sharpness, white balance, etc.; 1080p@30fps video capture
• 8MP front-facing camera
• 16GB of built-in memory; microSD card slot
• Dual SIM (dual stand-by); LTE Cat.4, NFC, Bluetooth, FM radio; microUSB 2.0 port, MHL, USB host
• Active noise cancellation with a dedicated microphone
• 2,700mAh battery; Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 support (an extra certified charger needed)

Main disadvantages

• Doesn't ship with Android Lollipop but the update is already in the works
• Non-removable battery
• Tall for a 5-incher

The Archos 50 Diamond review unit we received is the flamboyant lime-colored unit but there is a more subdued black variant as well. The popping color could sway the younger audience and maybe some die-hard Borussia Dortmund fans too (if soccer is your thing to begin with).

Archos is aiming the 50 Diamond as a capable device that could be easily associated with Google's Android more than with Archos - hence the choice of UI. You're most likely to find the device on specific retailer's shelves or mostly on your carrier's website.

Archos 50 Diamond press photos

While not a rival to the high-end smartphones of 2015, the Archos 50 Diamond looks to be a perfectly capable upper-midranger. At around € 250 at the moment it's also an affordable phone that would be good for multimedia consumption thanks to its good chipset, ample and high-res screen and ample storage due to the microSD expansion. It's also a good phone for users with the need for dual SIM and also LTE connectivity for a reasonable price.

The 16MP camera also sounds promising and packs 1080p video recording - which is still more than fine to have.

So stay around as we delve into the hardware prowess of the Archos 50 Diamond.