The screen on both these displays are 16m colors so i thought it would be fare comparing it so i will be uploading some pics of both the displays. Both have 1ghz processors. Xperia play has 4in screen and micromax 100 superphone canvas has 4.95in screen.
Do you guys want a full video comparison of these two devices? Let us know in comments.
I am doing a 3 part full review. Part 1 of which i have uploaded below. Part 2 and part 3 are also live now. Cheers.
Micromax A100
Micromax A100 Superfone canvas- Budget smartphone rediscovered, other smartphones hammered.
As you can see from the line above, this phone is excellent for its price. I will get into more detail in the review below.
Design
Back Micromax A100 Superfone canvas
This phone is just 11.9 mm thin. It is not the slimmest thing out there, but it feels very light in hand.
The body is completely plastic with a matte finish back cover. It is bigger then average but is good to hold. Scratches stay away from the back. There are no buttons on the front of the screen that gets and the design looks somewhat like galaxy s3. There is 0.3 ml front facing camera on the top left and a speaker grill on the top and a big 4.95 inch screen, that is all for the front. On the left side is volume rocker and on the right power button which are a little raised but looks a part of the frame. On top lies 3.5 mm jack and on bottom lies micro usb port.
Screen
A100 screen
The best part of this phone is its screen, a 4.95 inch FWVGA (854*480) resolution screen. The resolution might not be greatest but colors on this display look stunning. Videos on this display look really good. I did not see any pixelation. The touch is very responsive on this screen, no lag whatsoever in clicking buttons.
Outdoor viewing on this is good. i tried with brightness kept full and it worked well. On minimum brightness you wont be able to see much. It is a very user focused review because i am using this as my primary phone and i am sharing all the good and bad. I will compare the screen with xperia play which has super AMOLED screen 16m color lcd screen and then you can judge for yourself. http://androidintech.blogspot.com/2012/08/xperia-play-vs-micromax-a100-superphone.html
(Noe- this is only screen comparison) OS
Using this phone gives you a feeling that you are holding a nexus device. Onscreen buttons, quality screen, nice build quality and above all Stock Android 4 ICS(Ice cream sandwich). The only thing that is customized is the notification panel and it is done for good to give you access to quick settings. All applications are stock. and it provides for a very rich experience.
Performance
The 1Ghz processor is snappy and moving through the UI is buttery smooth. the processor does not let down when doing processor intensive tasks. I only felt a lag when i was using any background process. for eg. when i was downloading applications or games, the phone slowed down a bit. This is temporary. Wifi is b/g/n and it performs slick. I never felt lag in watching videos. You would want to look on to this screen when you look it in person. There is pre installed file manager app for your convenience. Launching apps, multitasking, closing apps, unlocking phone, setting wallpaper, reading books etc are tasks which need quick processor response and this phone delivers that.
Game performance
Game performance review
A100 did not come with any preloaded games. Games look really awesome on this display and perform the same. I played some games including Avatar HD which performed seamlessly. Multitouch on the screen does not dissapoint. Not only the game graphics looks exceptional the controls make you wana play more.
I did notice some game did not support this phone, but again majority of games will. It has an adreno 200 gpu. that also performs good for graphics intensive games.
HD games lag somewhat initially but that is not much. after some gameplay it is as smooth as any other phone.
I have also done Turbofly 3D and Ashphalt 6 game video. You can check it for yourself below.
Notifications
Quick settings
Micromax made some changes to A100 notification panel to show quick settings. This is really convenient and you will not have to place separate widgets for simple things like adjusting brightness, wifi toggle and more.
Storage
Though the specs say it has 4 gb, 1.32 gb is shown as internal space on device and 1.41GB on internal SD. I don't know why is there a separation in internal space of 4GB but this is it. i have been using this device and i feel this is sufficient considering there is a microSD card slot to expand the storage and you can add 32 GB more.
Battery
2000 mAH battery is present on this device. Although A100 has a bigger screen the battery is good for more than a day of use when kept on medium brightness. I have not tested it for continuous video playback but it works good. One thing i would like to bring into notice is that the phone takes time to charge. You will have to keep the phone for around 2 hours to get it fully charged. I am using this phone as my primary device and i am not disappointed because the battery life is good. You will get anywhere between 4 -5 hours of continuous browsing, however when playing HD games the battery starts draining quickly.
Browsing
This is one thing that should be good and matters in selection of a phone and this phone is good in that area.
Again it is stock ICS browser with smooth pinch to zoom good scrolling rate.
I also tried dolphin browser and it performed nicely.
I would like to mention one thing which might not matter for you. Google chrome on this phone performed very sluggish. It is very close to unusable. I don't know weather this is an issue or it is only with my device.
Flash support
Flash player is supported and videos can be played directly in browser. It gives a smooth experience.
Camera
Photo Samples
Closeup sample 1
Close up sample 2
landscape photo sample
lanscape photo sample 2
landscape photo sample 3
sky photo sample
This is stock ICS camera user interface. There is 5MP camera on the back and 0.3MP camera on the front for video calling. the camera on the back is capable of shooting 480P and also FWVGA. The quality of video is more than ok. It is good. it enables recording videos in H264, H263 and MPEG4 formats and audio in aac or AMRNB There are color options to choose filters for video. There is flash present but it is not as powerful. I will upload the video sample. Also there is zoom slider you can zoom while you are recording a video. Photo clicking is fun on this phone as it has quiet good functionality. There is Exposure mode selection of spot, center and frame. Focus mode CAF, macro, infinity, normal and auto. There is also a function of touch on screen to focus where you click an area and the camera focuses on that area but this feature does not work well. I tried focusing in macro mode but the camera did not focus. There are scene modes included as a plus. Flash in picture mode has flash auto function and in video mode it only has on/off and no auto. You can zoom when capturing an image but it gets pixelated when zooming. You can capture in a lot of picture sizes.
Benchmarks
Quadrant
Score : 2305
Antutu
Antutu benchmark : 2514
Browsermark
Browser mark : 63778
Nenamark
Score : 16.2 fps
Call Quality
This is one thing that can't be compromised on. This phone delivers good call quality on both the sim cards.
The sound is clear and crisp. You will not have to compromise on it. This is for normal talking when you are holding your phone but when you put the headset on the volume on the bundled headphone is pretty low and you can not hear much. i tried putting on other headphone but it gane same output for voice though microphone worked nicely.
Speaker
The speaker is loud. Although there is only one speaker present it is loud. The quality is not excellent but is not bad even. UPDATE : I had noticed one thing earlier that when you keep the phone straight on any surface, the volumes reduces significantly as the speaker is on the back.
Reception
I like the reception on this phone. Its excellent and quick it catches network fast and stays on it. Both sim cards have good reception capabilities. It is easy to select network and set default sim card for data.
Video calling over skype
There is no native video calling over carrier available on this phone so i tested it on skype. The front camera is a VGA camera and is an average performer. It works and will not disappoint.
WiFi performance
I have tested couple of phone along with this for WiFi and this phone performs better. It has b/g/n radio and the reception in low signal low signal is nice. - apologies for this.
Keyboard
It is a plus and a plus. First the keyboard is stock ICS, second because the screen is big the keyboard is spacious. In landscape mode it is not possible to type nicely because the screen is too big and the keyboard spans completely on the display.
As we are looking at a lot of features here i would break down and give a score.
Note to visitors: If anyone can provide me with a phone for review purpose, i will put up a special thanks and also a link or may be your advertise. Contact me on jayeshahit@gmail.com
I wont be able to upload video samples as there was a speaker problem in A100 and micromax service center will pack it and give back the phone. After that i will a replaced peice. Up until now they do not have the expertise to repair it here. Problem was a very simple, the speaker sounded very harsh.
Hello, jaani here. Do you feel this review is complete. Tell us your feedback and what you feel. I have a review in hindi coming up this week. If anyone has a feature they want to see you can tell me. Do you feel you need to see an in depth ICS Review? The reason being lot of phone that are coming in will be ICS loaded or further. Have a nice day. Cheers.
