Micromax YU Yureka review: The new contender

 

 

 

 Micromax recently unveiled  Yureka, its 1st budget smartphone to be battery-powered by Cyanogen's package below a brand new sub-brand that it calls YU. Besides running the developer-friendly flavour of humanoid, celebrated for its customization capabilities, the phone additionally boasts of the newest hardware and 4G property.

At Rs 8,999, it's one in all the foremost competitively priced smartphones accessible within the Asian nation market. however will it extremely live up to all or any the ballyhoo encompassing it? we tend to try and determine in our review...

Build &Design

At first look, the Yureka smartphone does not look terribly totally different from alternative Micromax budget devices, complete with a shiny, black plastic front panel and electrical phenomenon bit keys. The corners square measure pronouncedly rounded whereas the sides square measure flat. though it falls in phablet territory, the Yureka does not feel large.




The phone includes a removable back panel that has slightly rounded edges and a soft matte end. Micromax refers to the end as 'Moonstone Grey' and it will inform America of the OnePlus One though the similarity is a lot of within the gray color than in texture. the ability secret's placed at the correct edge whereas the quantity rocker sits at the left facet. The keys square measure fabricated from plastic and supply tight tactile feedback.

The 13MP rear camera and light-emitting diode flash square measure placed at the rear towards the left facet and do not protrude out. you will additionally notice some YU stigmatisation (the solely bit) and a speaker grill at the rear. removing the rear cowl reveals the battery compartment, 2 micro-sim card slots and a microSD card slot.

For a phone priced at Rs eight,999, the YU may be a properly engineered device.

Display

Yureka options a five.5-inch IPS show with HD (720x1280p) resolution. not like OnePlus One, the panel isn't full-HD and this means that the amount of pixels per in. square measure less.

We detected some distortion owing to lower element density and additionally found colors to be a trifle over saturated. The display's color temperature is on the cooler facet leading to a blue tint. switch from a OnePlus One, we tend to found the tint to be daunting leading to whites wanting blue and colors not wanting terribly correct.

  show is additionally reflective leading to slightly less optimum under-sun legibility. we tend to additionally found that colors appeared slightly totally different as you modify the viewing angle. The show has pongid Glass three to guard against scratches ANd an oleophobic coating to stop smudging.

Touch response was smart although. Overall, we tend to feel that Micromax may have used a more robust display board.

Software

Micromax YU Yureka runs gas OS eleven a custom aftermarket version of humanoid (version four.4 KitKat) developed by gas. CyanogenMod, Cyanogen's humanoid memory board, is understood for its customizability, increased performance and extra security and privacy options.

The look and feel is extremely near stock humanoid blackball some UI parts, though customization is feasible via themes. The default theme has been tweaked a trifle {and the|and therefore the|and additionally the} icons looked totally different from the OnePlus One that also runs a similar OS.

The default theme options the standard lock screen, home screen and app launcher navigation structure. Long sound on AN empty house on the house screen launches a pull-up settings menu that enables you to customise the house screen, app drawer and app icons. you'll select the scrolling result, app shortcuts sorting mode, and icon size among alternative settings, and customise it. you'll additionally hide app icons just in case you do not wish somebody to check the apps you are exploitation.

The package offers a high level of customization and enables you to tweak the lock screen, standing bar and notifications panel as per your feeling. you'll prefer to change direct access to the fast settings panel by pull the correct edge.

There's a dual-view notification receptacle with the primary panel that includes notifications and a fast access ribbon with toggles for choose settings and therefore the other providing the fast settings panel. It additionally offers pop-up notifications.

You can additionally choose from on-screen navigation buttons and hardware navigation buttons, and programme hardware buttons to perform totally different actions. for example, you'll create the house button the decision answer key or create the quantity rocker keys awaken the device.

This is simply the tip of the iceberg and therefore the phone offers customization at each level due to the OS.

CyanogenMod additionally offers advanced privacy and security measures as well as Privacy Guard through that you'll forestall apps from accessing your personal information. there is additionally support for secure electronic messaging through WhisperPush encrypted SMS.However, these messages square measure supported between devices running gas and devices that square measure TextSecure compatible. The Phone app additionally permits you to dam and blacklist phone numbers.

CyanogenMod additionally offers a Themes app that lets users flick through, transfer and apply themes. Themes amendment the whole look and feel of the phone as well as the UI vogue, navigation bars, icons, fonts, boot animation and sounds.

YU Yureka additionally enables you to correct app and game information through the Baton app however we tend to weren't ready to use the service and it simply came back a 'could not hook up with server' error message.

The other native apps embody a File Manager, a Gallery app, Sound recorder and a Screencast app. The Gallery app mechanically organizes native and cloud-stored photos composition them by time (Moments), occasion (Albums) and sort (Media). The phone additionally includes all Google apps.

The phone's package options AudioFX app that provides equaliser presets for the phone's speaker, headset, Bluetooth output and Wireless output. It additionally offers a custom equalizer setting and extra settings for Bass boost, Surround sound and reverb.

Camera

YU Yureka options a 13MP rear camera (f2.2 aperture, capable of 1080p video capture) with Sony EXMOR CMOS device and a 5MP front camera with seventy one degree field of read. The phone may shoot slow-motion videos as sixty frames per second and a future package update can create it capable of shooting motion-picture show video at a hundred and twenty frames per second.



 

Yu comes with the CyanogenMod Camera app that provides granular settings for controls as well as size, quality, shutter speed, focus length, focus mode, and ISO, among others. Vertical swipes amendment the scene mode whereas horizontal swipes enables you to browse photos and videos shot with the phone. The app offers Panorama, Burst and HDR modes.



 

  

quality of pictures captured outdoors, in daylight was satisfactory with smart level of detail, correct color copy, very little noise and smart distinction.

Low-light shots weren't pretty much as good and had appreciable quantity of noise, particularly below 100 percent zoom.

The front camera captures smart quality selfies and therefore the Beauty mode extremely enhances them. it is also smart for voice chats.

Performance

YU Yureka sports the newest internals and is one in all the most affordable devices to supply 4G property and a chip supported sixty four bit design.

The phone is battery-powered by a sixty four bit Qualcomm flower 615 octa core chip with one.5GHz processor cores, Adreno 405 graphics and 2GB DDR3 RAM. we have seen a similar give the recently launched Vivo X5Max phone. Qualcomm's latest chip supports dual-mode 4G LTE property with support for each LTE TDD 2300MHz and LTE FDD 1800MHz bands covering most modern and future Indian 4G networks. we tend to weren't ready to take a look at 4G as our town does not have any LTE networks nevertheless.

It's value observing that the 64-bit design isn't supported by humanoid four.4, however gas and Micromax have secure that the phone can shortly get the humanoid Lollipop update. Phones still would like a lot of memory to completely leverage 64-bit capabilities and 2GB wouldn't extremely fulfil.

Thanks to all the ability below the hood, we tend to failed to notice any stutter or lag whereas launching and switch between apps, piece of writing photos, browsing the online, clicking photos, looking at high definition videos or enjoying graphics-heavy games.

In terms of artificial benchmarks, it scored sixteen,914 in Quadrant commonplace, 30,883 in AnTuTu, a pair of007 in Geekbench three (Multi-core) and fifty five in NenaMark 2. The benchmark scores square measure such as that of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3G. don't} endorse benchmark tests and do not suggest a phone primarily based entirely on benchmarks as globe performance is totally different occasionally.

We were ready to play videos of standard file formats with none hiccups.

Call quality was average however occasionally the opposite party complained of lower loudness levels. The phone works well even in weak signal areas and that we failed to face any network-related issue. It comes with GPS and A-GPS for navigation and maps and was simply ready to lock a symptom.



YU offers dual-sim practicality however does not enable you to forward calls from one line to the opposite. this implies it will not apprize you and forward calls once you get a turn the opposite line.

The sound output through the phone's speaker outlet was tight, however, the sound quality wasn't nice. Also, sound gets muffled once the phone is placed on a soft surface.

YU comes with a 2500mAh battery and therefore the results were mixed, particularly if you switch on full brightness and keep 3G information on.

With moderate to high usage, as well as concerning one to 2 hours of creating calls, enjoying games, clicking some photos, being attentive to music and browsing the online, the phone can last you a full operating day (11 to twelve hours with 1-2 hours screen on time) even though you place the screen brightness at the utmost level and keep 3G turned on.

If you turn to motorcar brightness the backup goes up significantly.

Gaming

We contend games like lunatic Tunes Dash, Leo's Fortune, Riptide GP2 and Asphalt eight (with Visual Quality set to High and Engine at 100%) while not encountering frame drops or freezes.

Verdict

It's tough to not suggest the Yureka if you are looking for a premium smartphone and do not wish to pay abundant. It's definitely the most effective smartphone accessible for fewer than Rs ten,000 particularly considering that it additionally supports 4G property.

The build quality and show don't seem to be high notch however the performance offered by the phone is superior compared to alternative phones within the value section. Of course, handiness is tough owing to the flash sales model however if you'll get your hands on one, the Yureka may be a nice purchase.