Can Hugh Jackman sell Micromax Canvas Turbo A250?

Make no mistake. Jackman is a huge catch! But even the star's celebrity status might not be enough to rake in huge sales as expected.

With no expandable memory slot, non-removable battery, competition from Nexus 4 and Gionee, Micromax's latest mobile may be in for a rough ride, writes Himanshu Juneja.

The sub Rs 20,000 price range has always been very tricky for cellphone manufacturers. And to even the situation out, consumers too have always been attracted to phones in this range. This price slab offers a lot of potential to earn decent revenues.

As a result, the gadgets launched in this segment have always been very eagerly awaited, and if they have the firepower, are received well too.
Micromax has tried to grab some serious eyeballs with the launch of Canvas Turbo A250 for Rs 19,999.

To make the deal a bit sweeter, the Canvas Turbo A250 offers dual SIM capability.

However, absence of an expandable memory slot and a non-removable battery could turn out to be the chief sore points dissuading consumers away from the phone despite the attractive price point.

Specs:

• Processor: 1.5GHz MediaTek Quad Core
• RAM: 2GB
• Display: 5-inch Full HD @ 1920×1080
• Camera: 13 MP with LED flash as rear camera, 5 MP front camera.
• OS: Android 4.2.1 (Jelly Bean)
• Onboard memory: 16 GB Internal memory/12.47GB usable
• Expandable memory slot: None
• Battery: Non-removable 2000 mAh

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Build

That Micromax offers rebranded chinese phones is no secret. But it has done reasonably well to keep away the tag and the danger of getting stereotyped. Far from it. The company has made steady progress in providing a good range of products to the Indian consumers. With Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 sporting a full aluminum body, Micromax is trying to step up.

The build quality feels premium to say the least. The rear side of the phone comes with matte finish, something which should accentuate the look and feel of the phone. No complaints here. The build quality doesn't disappoint.

The top side of the phone features the micro USB port. Looking at the right side of the phone, one finds the power/lock button and the volume rocker. The left side of the phone houses the SIM card slots. The 3.5mm audio jack is located at the bottom.

Interestingly, the phone has a non-removable battery. This might not go down well with too many users as the option to replace the battery is severely restricted. Another gripe would be the necessity to use a SIM ejector pin to pry the SIM cards out of their slots.

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Display

Seems like Micromax is getting on the bandwagon of deploying the FULL HD on a mobile phone gimmick.

The limited screen size of the phones basically means that one doesn't really needs a 'FULL HD' display. But that hasn't stopped the companies from wooing the customers with the FULL HD tagline and MMX seems to have become party to it as well.

The phone comes with an IPS panel of 5 inches with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels, earning it a place on the FULL HD smartphones pedestal.

The screen is gorgeous no doubt and gives satisfactory performance.

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OS and features

The Canvas Turbo A250 runs the Jellybean OS straight out of the box, something which will definitely please potential buyers.

The phone seems to have been brought in as a successor to the Canvas 4, and continuing the trend, supports gesture controls like answering the call as and when the user places the phone next to the ear, allowing the person to make a call by simply bringing up the contact on your phone and again placing the phone next to the ear.

The phone also allows one to click snaps by waving the hand in front of the screen. Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 also exhibits the nifty 'Blow to unlock' feature.

In a nutshell, the nifty features one saw on the Canvas 4 can be seen on the new Turbo as well.

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Interestingly, the device is not getting a 'copy-paste' job for the features for sure.

Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 is coming with it's own set of features, the first of which seems to be the Floating Widget feature. This basically allows the user to have a widget floating about on the screen no matter what is being carried out as the main task.

With the advent of 360 degree panorama shots, Micromax too has gone ahead with its works and has implemented 3D panorama along with host of other features in it's app for the camera. Called as the 'Camerazzi', the app has tons of features bundled.

Panorama is one, another being Object Eraser.

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The Eraser feature, as the name suggests, enables the user to remove unwanted objects from the snapshots afterwards. It clicks a series of pics and enables the user to merge the images with the unwanted object removed in the final output.

Another nifty feature being Cinemagraph, which allows a user to create a GIF image to bring about the desired 'moving effect' to pictures.

The user records a small clip and can then select a small part of the screen to be animated, while keeping the rest of the area as a still image.

All in all, Micromax has bundled some decent features to bring forth with the new phone in here.

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Accessories

The phone comes bundled along with earphones, data cable, charger, SIM ejector pin and the user manuals.

Competition

With the Gionee Elife E6 making waves of late, it seems like Turbo is pitted directly against it.

Gionee E6, another generic chinese phone offering, will draw the interest from the crowd that demands the extra storage space on their mobile phones. However, the Gionee E6 comes with a single SIM option only.

For Micromax, the sweet price point of Rs 20,000, dual SIM option, as well as the reasonably well-known name of its brand is going to keep many prospective buyers interested.

Micromax phones have on and off given their users some hard time owing to their generic chinese build, and the customer care experience hasn't been very satisfactory either, but providing a feature loaded smartphone within a decent budget has been it's USP all this while long.

If Gionee can match that even for a decent time period, it will be an interesting scenario between these two.

One cannot help but sense that these are early signs of a competition between a rebranded chinese phone vs generic chinese brand phone.

People with budget of about Rs 20,000 will do well to opt for Nexus 4 which is available for around Rs 22000. A decent price revision seems to be on the card for the Micromax Turbo.

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Can Hugh Jackman create the Micromax brand?

It's nothing like anything,' says Hugh 'Wolverine' Jackman in an advertisement for Micromax Canvas Turbo A250. Yes, the well-known Hollywood actor has been roped in by Micromax to endorse and promote the now well-known Indian brand Micromax.

It was probably the next logical step for the company. The trend has been very apparent of late with low budget phone-makers creating slick commercials to push their products into the psyche of the Indian and the international consumers. With its huge consumer base, Micromax sure had the financial might to rope in a celebrity and rope they did... in style.

Make no mistake, Jackman is a huge catch. But even the star power of the actor might not be enough to rake in the sales as expected.

For one, the target user base will keep providing the necessary sales as the USP for Micromax's phones is low budget feature rich phones. Consumers only care about not burning a hole in their pocket as the key here. Many from the target user base either won't recognise the actor or simply won't care.

Secondly, those who understand the aura of Hugh Jackman, will scoff at the phone's shoddy build quality, poor durability and bad after sales experience. The phone definitely doesn't exude neither confidence nor class that is associated with the actor.

For them, association of the actor with the brand is actually a step back for both the parties.

With the latest offering from Micromax being devoid of basic features like expandable memory, non-removable battery, comparatively lesser battery capacity, introduction of SIM extraction module, it will take more than a commercial and a Hollywood actor to sell the latest Canvas Turbo A250.

Micromax would have done well to spend money on after sales than signing Hollywood based brand ambassadors. One can't help but feel that the move is more a cosmetic addition as the arrival of Gionee and the option of Nexus 4 staring their product in the face, Micromax had to make a strong case to show something to the viewers and create more visibility for themselves. Another angle could be that Micromax is planning an international foray.

But surely, with basic issues still lingering in their own backyard (India), this one expenditure should have been avoided.

Conclusion

Micromax has presented a strong contender with the Turbo. An aluminum body with matte finish, dual SIM and pretty decent power under the hood presents a favourable case.

Some nagging areas like less mAH on the battery, non-removable battery, the ejector pin, uninspiring customer care experience and apprehension vis a vis durability remains, but if somebody can ignore these, they might line up for the newest offering from Micromax. But the issues are too many to ignore really.

With these issues, the option of Nexus 4 and the advent of Gionee, Micromax's latest mobile maybe in for a rough ride.

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