Micromax A100 Superfone Canvas Full Review
September 5, 2012
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Build Quality and Design
Micromax enters the “Phablet” segment with the A100. The company has opted for a simple and elegant design with a large 4.9″ screen in the front which comes covered with a perfectly-fit screen protector out of the box. Like the A90, the A100 does not have any physical buttons towards the front. The back cover of the phone is made of soft rubber which we loved as it provides grip and protection to the phone.
Overall, the phone is slightly heavy, but is solidly built. Using it with one hand does take some getting used to due to its size!
Hardware
The phone packs a 1GHz (single core) Qualcomm Scorpion chipset ARM V7 processor with Adreno 200 GPU which impressed us. There is 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage expandable up to 32GB. It has dual SIM support with dual Standby.
On the front is a massive 4.92″ TFT capacitive LCD display with 480×854 resolution which is a joy to use mainly due to its size. Touch response is excellent, best in this price bracket.
On the back side of Micromax A100 lies a 5MP camera with LED flash which is capable of recording 480p videos and on the front is a 0.3MP camera. The phone is powered by a 2000 mAh Li-ion battery.
Camera
The Micromax A100 has a 5 megapixel rear camera with LED flash, which captures decent quality snaps in bright-light. Low lighting conditions lead to slightly washed out pics, with apparent graininess. On the other hand, videos, even though being shot at 480p, look good. The camera offers a number of features including exposure value, scene modes and flash modes etc. to play around with. The phone also has a 0.3 megapixel front camera which can be used to make video calls through apps like Skype, though video calls cannot be made over 3G.
Display, Audio and Internet
As mentioned above the display is a joy to use as it is massive! Though colours do appear a bit washed out but nothing too bothering, the size more than makes up for that! Some may feel that the resolution of the screen coupled with the low ppi do not make it an enjoyable experience, but we were more than satisfied with it. Outdoor visibility is low and you’ll have to play around with the brightness settings to make visibility better.
The Audio quality of the phone is disappointing, especially during video playback. Low volume and noisy audio hampers the video playback experience. The audio quality is average at best.
The stock browser on the device is decent, again due to the massive screen! It is smooth but pinch to zoom and kinetic scrolling were lagging a bit. We would recommend downloading the Google Chrome browser to get the best browsing experience from the screen.
Battery Life
- Talk Time 3G network(data off): 5 Hours
- Talk Time 2g (data off) : 6.5 hours
- Internet : N/A
- Music : 8.5 Hours
- Video : 5.5 hours
- Talk Time 3G network(data on): 4.5 Hours
- Talk Time 2g (data on) : 6 hours
- Internet : 6 Hours
- Music : 8.5 Hours
- Video : 5 hours
- Talk Time 3G network(data off): 5 Hours
- Talk Time 2g (data off) : 6 hours
- Internet : 6.5 Hours
- Music : 8 Hours
- Video : 5 hours
Phone, Messaging and Network
The phone and network quality are good. No calls were dropped and the quality of both the speaker and the headset were satisfying. It, again like the A90, has dual sim capabilities, with one 3G sim and one 2G sim.
Messaging on the device is excellent. The large screen ensures that there is no mistyping, for the keyboard is spacious and nicely laid out.
Conclusion
The A100 is a phone that is a first of its kind in this price bracket. It’s the perfect mixture of performance and pricing. And while it does come with its downsides, with the camera being the biggest, considering the price at which the phone comes at, and what it has to offer, we would most definitely recommend it to those who are in the market looking for a phone which is loaded with features and is bound to make heads turn.
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