Protruly Darling VR Smartphones Sports Four Cameras & Captures in 360 degrees

At the MWC 2017, we have seen a smartphone called iLA T1 from a Chinese smartphone manufacturer that can detect the ECG and Blood Pressure. Now, there is one more Chinese manufacturer called Protruly that had displayed its latest smartphones with interesting features at the recently ended Mobile World Congress. The new smartphones are named as Darling D7 and Darling D8. Unlike the iLA T1, the Protruly Darling smartphones don’t have anything to do with health care related features, but they sport 360-degree camera which we are seeing for the first time on a smartphone. Even though these devices were first time showcased outside of China, they were actually launched in November last year.

The Protruly Darling D8 comes studded with four diamonds on the golden strip and has a leather padding on the rear camera module. With the 360-degree camera, the devices are longer than any other smartphone available in the market. The lens on top of the camera sensors makes it uncomfortable to carry in pockets. Since the lens are popped out, there are more prone to get damaged quickly and might kill the experience of capturing 360-degree photos and videos.While the Protruly D8 sports a physical home button that also includes a fingerprint sensor and on the Protruly D7, the fingerprint is placed on the rear as it lacks the physical home button.

Both the devices come with metal bodies that offer great strength to these long devices. Apart from the change in design, the devices come with similar specifications internally. On the front, we have a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display with Full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) on both the devices. The devices come powered by MediaTek Helio X20 deca-core processor clocked at 2.5GHz coupled with Mali T880 MP4 GPU. The Protruly Darling D7 packs 3GB of RAM and 32GB fo internal storage, whereas the Darling D8 includes 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. There is also a MicroSD card slot for further expansion of storage upto additional 128GB.

For selfies, both the devices offer an 8MP sensor with a f/2.4 aperture on the front. On the rear is a 13MP sensor with f/2.0 aperture and dual tone LED flash. Apart from the regular front and rear cameras, both these devices additionally come with two sensors for capturing 360-degree videos and photos. The dual 13MP sensor combinedly makes the 26MP 360-degree camera that has an aperture of f/2.0 and also supports 4K video recording. The devices run on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the customized skin laid on top. Connectivity options include 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 2.4GHz & 5GHz, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, A-GPS, 3.5mm Audio port, and USB Type-C 3.1 port.

Both the devices are backed by a 3,560mAh non-removable battery along with 9V/2A fast charging support. The power button is placed on the right edge, and the volume rocker can be found on the left edge of the device. The Protruly Darling D7 is priced at 4980 Yuan (approx $720 / Rs. 48,000) while the Darling D8 with premium build quality costs higher at 8800 Yuan (approx $1275 / Rs. 85,000). As of now, these are only limited to the Chinese market, and we don’t think they will be sold in the other markets anytime soon.