Micromax A110 Superfone Canvas 2 Review




Micromax has found the comfortable footing in India, that it sought to make. Previous criticism over its mobiles and technology has dissipated into recognition of its capabilities. When Micromax first began manufacturing mobiles, it was obvious that the Company’s objective was to bring into the market, budget phones with good performance akin to those being created by bigger players. Now, phablets are the new rage, with the most popular ones being far from the reach of many. Micromax has once again understood the need for budget technology and with that has decided to upgrade its Canvas line-up, only two months after  its first 5 inch phone called the A100. The Canvas 2 which is a sequel to the A100, is powered by a Dual Core processor, and an IPS pane, and has an upgraded 8-megapixel camera.
The phone has adopted a lot from the Samsung Galaxy S III and Note II looks wise, which is more obvious when you look at its front, there is no physical home button like on those two phablets however. Even the chrome speaker grill, sensors and front camera are placed similarly as that of the Samsung Note II. This slight imitation is acceptable as the idea behind this phone is a budget alternative that looks as good as the top priced phablets. There is an outline for three capacitive touch buttons at the base of the display. The Micromax branding has been left out from the front of the phone. Any guesses why? Micromax has opted for a slightly premium look by adding a chrome trim around the circumference of the phone but that option has left the phone looking a little too flashy ironically reducing the premium look offered by its other features. To the right is the main power key which is slightly oversized. The volume rocker has been placed on the left side. Both the power button and volume rocker also have a chrome finish. The Micro-USB port and the 3.5mm audio ports have been given a place atop the phone. The back plastic of the phone has been given a matte finish, and overall it is made to withstand common accidents and the texture from the matte adds grip. The Micromax logo has been affixed at the back. The camera lens, distastefully bulges out towards the top. An LED flash has been placed next to the camera. The back also has the speaker of the phone. The handset also offers FM Radio.

The phone is powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor backed up with 512MB RAM and has 4GB storage which can be expanded up to 32GB through a microSD card. The Micromax A110 boasts of dual-SIM capacities and also supports GSM SIM card in both the slots. The SIM Card slots and the slot for the micro SD card are hidden away under the back cover above the space for the battery. This creates a problem for easily removing the SIM cards and the Micro SD cards since you have to first take the battery out.

The Micromax A110 comes has a 5 inch 262k colour capacitive touch screen with an IPS panel having a pixel resolution of 480x854. The resolution of the screen was sadly low and the large screen of the size does not hide it. The graphics are not as color intense are they should be and the text is also not comfortable to read. On the upside there is a wide viewing angle and very little glare under source light and natural light. The phone unfortunately does not have an ambient light-sensor, hence you will have to set the brightness level suited for you manually.

The camera produced some good imagery with decent quality and color reproduction. The detailing was not as good as it ought to be nonetheless there is not much to complain about. While pictures taken under well light conditions delivered the aforesaid results, we found the that camera did not function too well under low lighting, resultantly the pictures were dull and lacked balance in contrast. With the LED flash turned on this was improved. The video quality is pretty good however. The front 0.3-megapixel camera faired just alright and suffices for video conferencing. Missing from the device is a much needed camera button to initiate the camera easily.

The Micromax A110 Superfone Canvas 2 works on the Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Micromax has packed in a few of its own apps like its apps and content store, M! Store, and services store, M! Zone, apart from its messaging app, HookUp, and friends locator app, M! Buddy and some games (Fruit Devil, Cricket Fever). The device also comes with an Android browser and the web pages run smoothly. There is no Adobe Flash pre-installed on the phone.

This phone has three capacitive buttons which are the Menu key, Home button and a Back key. Holding down the Home key takes you to the app-switcher option to switch between apps. However while using the apps, lags were noticed in switching between an app and opening up the internet. Lags were also felt while playing games and navigating through the menu options. These issues should have been taken care of by its processor. Perhaps an upgrade to Jelly Bean, would improve the experience than the one we get from Ice Cream Sandwich.

Audio is good as the speaker phone works well without any jarring even when the volume is maxed out. Call quality was good. The phone is a dual-SIM GSM phone and supports one active and the other in active-standby mode.

The Micromax Canvas 2 has a 2000mAh battery which offered good backup. Using the phone strenuously running a ton of processes left the phone working up to 7 hours. With clever usage we expect the phone to deliver almost 9 hours on a single charge, so you can comfortably game, browse the internet and log into your social networking websites at ease.

The Micromax A110- Canvas 2 is definitely better than the A100 and makes for a good replacement. The price has been set at Rs 9,990  which is great for its camera quality and level of audio and sound efficiency. The screen quality could have been improved rendering better resolution to complete the media experience.

No comments:

Post a Comment