Micromax ... ' cheap crap ' is the first thing that comes into many ppl's minds when i utter this word. But micromax has changed its approach towards mobiles and lately it has turned the tables with its canvas series of phones 
. A pretty gud transition from the cheapest android available back then i.e A 60 to a budget quad core 720p mobile .. micromax now has become a trustworthy and reliable brand imo and ppl finally are considering micromax also as one of their option :unsure:
Now coming to the phone .. behold the successor of canvas series the "mighty" quadcore 720p screen CANVAS HD A116 :bleh:
Decision : My brother was previously using dell xcd 35 which he was content with for his daily dose of calls,texting and little bit of timepass gaming. Sadly he dropped it and screen broke into pieces ( ) now he wanted something better and was in search of a bigger phone as the saying goes bada hai tho behtar hai xD . he checked out xperia series from sony and didnt like them and decided to go for canvas a110 by feb 1st week . Then i told him abt canvas hd a116 releasing on feb 14th and specs of it which made the decision easy for him. On v day 12 o clock i tried to order the phone but it was out of stock and my brother was like no problem we will get it when its out in stores. later in the mrng my brother was browsing a bit and decided to check upon availability and luckily we could snatch one ( no color option was provided while ordering )
pricing and delivery : Well the mrp of this budget quadcore device is 17,499 /- ( printed on the box ) . We got it via micromax site at 13990 at 3 interested free emi's to make it more pocket friendly Ordered it on the 15th morning and it arrived today( 18th feb ) . tracking was updated on 15th evng and was done by DELHIVERY couriers.packaging was pretty gud with box in box method and bubble wrap and lots of duct tape to hold it together.
Unboxing : I was pretty eager to check out what punch the device packed in it . so opened it up and it had the following
1) phone - white ( my brother wanted a white one .. no color option was provided while ordering so didnt knew what was coming ..)
2) battery
3) charger / data cable
4) handsfree
5) warranty card and user guide
Usual set of things. i expected micromax to pack a screen guard and pouch which didnt happen though.Screen has some kind of protective covering though
Specs : Processor : 1.2Ghz quad core Mediatek MT6589 chipset
Android : jelly bean 4.1.2
dimensions : 144mm x 74mm x10.7mm
display : 12.7cms HD ( 1280x720 pixels )
camera : 8MP auto focus camera with flash and 2MP front camera
memory : 4gb - expandable upto 32gb
Ram : 1gb ddr2
connectivity : bluetooth 4.0 , wifi , light- proximity -gravity sensor
battery : 2000mah
talktime : 5hrs
standby time : 174 hrs
This is what the back of the box say's
Gpu : powerVR SGX 544MP ( quadrant shows this name )
Cpu : name - ARMv7 processor rev 2
max freq - 1209mhz
min freq : 497.25mhz
Initial Impressions : Where to begin with .. mmmmm .. the phone's a biggy for sure..i use a s3 myself and this is bigger than that and felt on the heavier side. In general terms it has a robust plastic back and certainly felt premium than previous micromax products or the canvas line.buttons are pretty much tactile.Only issue was removing the back panel is not that user friendly and i dun mind it that much cos my brother doesnt remove the sim once inserted.it felt similar to htc one x .. standard button placement .. power to right,volume to left, charge and 3.5mm on the top of the phone.removing the back panel it greeted me with two sim slots and a micro sd slot in between them.I popped in the battery and powered it on
Display : The first thing i really wanted to check was the display of this phone. when i powered it on i was really awestruck. I expected the display to be of a low quality as budget quad core was being provided but to my amuse the screen was pretty darn good.color reproduction was pretty gud. After using s3 all displays looked dull to me but this one caught my eye . i instantly popped up few pics from s3 to canvas. s3 as u ppl might know has some over saturated colors ( i prefer that ... dunno y ) and on the other hand micromax has slightly under saturated colors ( i used nexus 4 too which in my knowledge im putting it as neutral - true to life color scheme ) . But still canvas hd fared well when it comes to screen quality.Coming to touch it was smooth and had no problems of any sort with it resolution as u all know is 1280x720 pixels . picture's were crisp and vivid but when it comes to playback the blacks were dull and contrast was low. some kinda white haze dominated through out video play back ( not stock player problem .. tried mx player too)
User interface : A116 comes with jelly bean 4.1.2 and some preloaded apps like m! zone , m! store , m! live , cricket fun,fruit devil,hook up, wireless input device and pretty much all Google Apps.In settings u hav a scheduled on and off option which caught my attention. launcher has five screens and seemed like the default theme of nova launcher . app drawer has 5x4 arrangement of icons and tabbed display of apps and widgets with play store shortcut to the right.swiping through screens and app drawer i found no lag of whatsoever and felt pretty snappy. jelly bean project butter can be attributed to that imo. u always hav the choice to switch b/w home screen launching apps so for me anything is fine
Call : I dint do extensive testing on this dept. call clarity was gud and speaker phone was pretty audible.it has same options what all android comes with.Network performance is stable
Camera : 8mp camera and 2mp front cam .. umm... pretty decent ... opened cam started click and the macro's came out very well . it also had the option of HDR. low light photography is a bit of problem but still it is a decent 8mp shooter for sure. comes with the same settings what all android cam's carry and video is FUll HD which im yet to try . Video has a time lapse interval :S
Audio and video : First things first - the stock earbuds suck :| that being said the music player software bundled is pretty standard.has some sound enhancements options and equalizers to mix it up. one shouldn't expect exceptional quality out of this phone like a iphone 4 or 4s but still this sound pretty decent and does the job. loud speaker is gud and audible and cranking the volume to the top doesnt distort it which is kinda nice Video playback was darn good even with the stock video player. It played 1080p videos without any hiccups
Performance and gaming: Finally coming to the thing which all ppl are interested abt . Budget quad core - lets c what it offers . Installed few timepass games like cut the rope,temple run2 , raging thunder. they ran pretty smooth without any kind of jerks. Now coming to big guns like Asphalt 7 ( the nly legit game i own .. pretty bad right? ) this phone performed well handling asphalt 7 and had no problems whatsoever. one thing to be mentioned here is abt the 4gb inbuilt memory which is way lowmore inbuilt storage would hav been a gud option.Coming to the benchmarks i've done what all i could and i think it fared pretty well .. lets the pictures do the talking [ 4.2k in quadrant ,13k in antutu , 40fps in nenamark 2 , 49 fps in epic citadel ]
Battery : 5hrs of talktime and 174 hrs of stand by time as declared .. yet to test it out. but 2000mah of battery should carry you through a day easily imo .
conlusion : If u are on a budget and want a snappy device irrespective of brand then look no further.A116 should be ur choice .. nothing beats this device when it comes to price/performace
pros : price
screen
quad core
premium feel compared to previous micromax devices
8mp camera and 2mp front cam
jelly bean out of box
decent audio and video capabilities
cons : availability
4gb inbuilt
earbuds quality
no pouch or screen guard
service ?????
Well thats it for now .. if u want any kinda benchmark's run on it please do leave comments and il be happy to do it for you im keeping this device for two days with me and later on transfer it to my brother .. so be quick with ur doubts.
Ps : Im new to giving my reviews .. please leave comments which will help me to get better at this .. thank you
. A pretty gud transition from the cheapest android available back then i.e A 60 to a budget quad core 720p mobile .. micromax now has become a trustworthy and reliable brand imo and ppl finally are considering micromax also as one of their option :unsure:Now coming to the phone .. behold the successor of canvas series the "mighty" quadcore 720p screen CANVAS HD A116 :bleh:
Decision : My brother was previously using dell xcd 35 which he was content with for his daily dose of calls,texting and little bit of timepass gaming. Sadly he dropped it and screen broke into pieces (
) now he wanted something better and was in search of a bigger phone as the saying goes bada hai tho behtar hai xD . he checked out xperia series from sony and didnt like them and decided to go for canvas a110 by feb 1st week . Then i told him abt canvas hd a116 releasing on feb 14th and specs of it which made the decision easy for him. On v day 12 o clock i tried to order the phone but it was out of stock and my brother was like no problem we will get it when its out in stores. later in the mrng my brother was browsing a bit and decided to check upon availability and luckily we could snatch one ( no color option was provided while ordering )pricing and delivery : Well the mrp of this budget quadcore device is 17,499 /- ( printed on the box ) . We got it via micromax site at 13990 at 3 interested free emi's to make it more pocket friendly Ordered it on the 15th morning and it arrived today( 18th feb ) . tracking was updated on 15th evng and was done by DELHIVERY couriers.packaging was pretty gud with box in box method and bubble wrap and lots of duct tape to hold it together.
Unboxing : I was pretty eager to check out what punch the device packed in it . so opened it up and it had the following
1) phone - white ( my brother wanted a white one .. no color option was provided while ordering so didnt knew what was coming ..)
2) battery
3) charger / data cable
4) handsfree
5) warranty card and user guide
Usual set of things. i expected micromax to pack a screen guard and pouch which didnt happen though.Screen has some kind of protective covering though
Specs : Processor : 1.2Ghz quad core Mediatek MT6589 chipset
Android : jelly bean 4.1.2
dimensions : 144mm x 74mm x10.7mm
display : 12.7cms HD ( 1280x720 pixels )
camera : 8MP auto focus camera with flash and 2MP front camera
memory : 4gb - expandable upto 32gb
Ram : 1gb ddr2
connectivity : bluetooth 4.0 , wifi , light- proximity -gravity sensor
battery : 2000mah
talktime : 5hrs
standby time : 174 hrs
This is what the back of the box say's
Gpu : powerVR SGX 544MP ( quadrant shows this name )
Cpu : name - ARMv7 processor rev 2
max freq - 1209mhz
min freq : 497.25mhz
Initial Impressions : Where to begin with .. mmmmm .. the phone's a biggy for sure..i use a s3 myself and this is bigger than that and felt on the heavier side. In general terms it has a robust plastic back and certainly felt premium than previous micromax products or the canvas line.buttons are pretty much tactile.Only issue was removing the back panel is not that user friendly and i dun mind it that much cos my brother doesnt remove the sim once inserted.it felt similar to htc one x .. standard button placement .. power to right,volume to left, charge and 3.5mm on the top of the phone.removing the back panel it greeted me with two sim slots and a micro sd slot in between them.I popped in the battery and powered it on
Display : The first thing i really wanted to check was the display of this phone. when i powered it on i was really awestruck. I expected the display to be of a low quality as budget quad core was being provided but to my amuse the screen was pretty darn good.color reproduction was pretty gud. After using s3 all displays looked dull to me but this one caught my eye . i instantly popped up few pics from s3 to canvas. s3 as u ppl might know has some over saturated colors ( i prefer that ... dunno y ) and on the other hand micromax has slightly under saturated colors ( i used nexus 4 too which in my knowledge im putting it as neutral - true to life color scheme ) . But still canvas hd fared well when it comes to screen quality.Coming to touch it was smooth and had no problems of any sort with it
resolution as u all know is 1280x720 pixels . picture's were crisp and vivid but when it comes to playback the blacks were dull and contrast was low. some kinda white haze dominated through out video play back ( not stock player problem .. tried mx player too)
User interface : A116 comes with jelly bean 4.1.2 and some preloaded apps like m! zone , m! store , m! live , cricket fun,fruit devil,hook up, wireless input device and pretty much all Google Apps.In settings u hav a scheduled on and off option which caught my attention. launcher has five screens and seemed like the default theme of nova launcher
. app drawer has 5x4 arrangement of icons and tabbed display of apps and widgets with play store shortcut to the right.swiping through screens and app drawer i found no lag of whatsoever and felt pretty snappy. jelly bean project butter can be attributed to that imo. u always hav the choice to switch b/w home screen launching apps so for me anything is fine
Call : I dint do extensive testing on this dept. call clarity was gud and speaker phone was pretty audible.it has same options what all android comes with.Network performance is stable
Camera : 8mp camera and 2mp front cam .. umm... pretty decent ... opened cam started click and the macro's came out very well . it also had the option of HDR. low light photography is a bit of problem but still it is a decent 8mp shooter for sure. comes with the same settings what all android cam's carry and video is FUll HD which im yet to try . Video has a time lapse interval :S
Audio and video : First things first - the stock earbuds suck :| that being said the music player software bundled is pretty standard.has some sound enhancements options and equalizers to mix it up. one shouldn't expect exceptional quality out of this phone like a iphone 4 or 4s but still this sound pretty decent and does the job. loud speaker is gud and audible and cranking the volume to the top doesnt distort it which is kinda nice
Video playback was darn good even with the stock video player. It played 1080p videos without any hiccups
Performance and gaming: Finally coming to the thing which all ppl are interested abt . Budget quad core - lets c what it offers . Installed few timepass games like cut the rope,temple run2 , raging thunder. they ran pretty smooth without any kind of jerks. Now coming to big guns like Asphalt 7 ( the nly legit game i own .. pretty bad right? ) this phone performed well handling asphalt 7 and had no problems whatsoever. one thing to be mentioned here is abt the 4gb inbuilt memory which is way lowmore inbuilt storage would hav been a gud option.Coming to the benchmarks i've done what all i could and i think it fared pretty well .. lets the pictures do the talking [ 4.2k in quadrant ,13k in antutu , 40fps in nenamark 2 , 49 fps in epic citadel ]
Battery : 5hrs of talktime and 174 hrs of stand by time as declared .. yet to test it out. but 2000mah of battery should carry you through a day easily imo .
conlusion : If u are on a budget and want a snappy device irrespective of brand then look no further.A116 should be ur choice .. nothing beats this device when it comes to price/performace
pros : price
screen
quad core
premium feel compared to previous micromax devices
8mp camera and 2mp front cam
jelly bean out of box
decent audio and video capabilities
cons : availability
4gb inbuilt
earbuds quality
no pouch or screen guard
service ?????
Well thats it for now .. if u want any kinda benchmark's run on it please do leave comments and il be happy to do it for you
im keeping this device for two days with me and later on transfer it to my brother .. so be quick with ur doubts.Ps : Im new to giving my reviews .. please leave comments which will help me to get better at this .. thank you
