Micromax phones have a reputation: they are low cost devices running
sluggish software on middling hardware. And the biggest problem of late on
Micromax phones has been bloatware -- pre-installed software that you sure
as heck didn’t ask for that slows down your phone -- and unnecessary
changes to the user interface.
Which is why, the company’s newest brand, YU, is the best decision it
has made in a long time. YU is a spin-off brand aimed at power users of Android
who like to extensively tinker with their devices. It’s a clear shift away from
everything Micromax: the hardware is significantly better than most Micromax
devices; the inexpensive processors -- a Micromax staple -- have been replaced
by Qualcomm's Snapdragon chips; and the operating system, the highly
customisable Cyanogenmod, a fork of Android is a high point.
Hardware
The Yureka is a rather simplistic phone. There is absolutely no Micromax
branding. Instead, we get a large YU logo on the back of the phone. It’s not
the slimmest phone around, but it’s surprisingly light, and you’ll barely
notice it once you slide it inside your pocket.
That said, this is a large phone. The display comes in at 5.5-inches
with a 1280x720 resolution. Pictures and videos look fairly sharp, but I’ve
seen better. Colours appear slightly oversaturated but I’ll take oversaturated
over washed-out any day.
The front has capacitive touch buttons, but if you want to turn them off
and substitute on-screen buttons instead, you can. In my experience, the
on-screen buttons worked better than the capacitive buttons, which didn’t
register my response at times.
The back is grippy and has a rubbery texture, which looks nice out of
the box but unfortunately is a fingerprint magnet that makes your phone look
tacky mere hours after you start using it. There is a microSD card slot -- yes!
– and dual SIM support.
The phone insides feature a brand new Qualcomm octacore 64-bit
processor, the Snapdragon 615, and 2GB of RAM which means it does multitasking
and casual gaming with relative ease.
The 13 megapixel camera sounds impressive but low-light photography is
terrible and will result in grainy pictures. This is a shooter that’s best
suited for taking pictures outdoors in natural light. There’s also a
front-facing selfie camera that’s…OK.
Software
The Yureka comes with Cyanogenmod pre-installed, the only device in
India which does so after the courts banned the OnePlus One from doing so.
Cyanogenmod, a fork of Android, is the most customisable mainstream phone OS
out there. Everything from the user interface to hardware clockspeeds are
under your control if you have Cyanogenmod. For instance: if you aren't happy
with Yu's rather vanilla lockscreen, it can be disabled in the settings and the
default lockscreen with shortcuts and widgets can replace it. You can even mix
and match different interfaces like Holo and Material Design to create
something that suits your taste.
The most exciting thing about the Yureka, at least from a power user
perspective, however, is that Yu allows you to root the device without giving
up your precious warranty. This will encourage users to tinker with the
software on the phone.
Verdict
The Yu Yureka is the new sub-Rs. 10,000 king. There is nothing available
in this price bracket from competitors that will even come close to beating
this device when it comes specs or software. Yu’s target audience –
budget-conscious techies -- will be lining up to buy this phone in droves.
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