Review: Micromax Canvas HD A116

At Rs 14,900 Micromax Canvas HD A116 is value for money if you can ignore its not-so-great camera quality, says Meenal Singh

Indian mobile manufacturer Micromax has grown faster than any of its Indian competitor. The company has witnessed growth at a very fast rate comparatively, when many other local mobile manufacturers have been struggling to prove their worth in the market.

Micromax entered the mobile phone segment in 2008 with 'low-price' strategy and wide distribution channel. The company first targeted the entry-level segment, which made it quite a popular brand. The first entry-level smartphone from Micromax was Andro A60 that operated on Android v.2.1 operating system and had 2.8-inch display with touch feature. Since then, Micromax is continuously serving the smartphone segment with low-budget smartphones with features that are seen in high-priced models.

Micromax is the first brand that introduced Apple's Siri-like feature in its low-priced smartphones, AISHA (Artificial Intelligence Speech Handset Assistant). The first Micromax smartphone to get AISHA feature was Micromax A50 Superfone Ninja. In terms of volume, Micromax is the third largest handset manufacturer in India and 12th worldwide. What helped Micromax gain this kind of huge popularity is innovations at low costs, an example of which is Micromax Canvas HD A116.

The phone hit the shelves on February 14 and has already taken a particular segment of market off its feet. Let's have a closer look at Micromax Canvas HD A116.

Screen, display and dimension

Following the current trend of big screen displays, Micromax Canvas HD A116 masters a 5-inch IPS LCD display with capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels and 294ppi of pixel density. Though the display seems bright and clear with sharp view, other rivals with same screen size offer 1080p resolution with much higher pixel density.

With the support of multi-touch feature, users can send multiple commands to the droid in a go. Micromax Canvas A116 HD's brilliant screen makes every colour come alive with the HD feature adding spice to it by bringing life-like touch to the images and videos.

Micromax Canvas HD A116 comes packed in size of 144mm x 74mm x 10.7mm at a weight of 156 grams only, which is way lighter that its strongest rival, Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos. With curved edges, it is easy to hold the phone comfortably in hand.

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Processor and operating system

Micromax Canvas HD A116 is the flagship Android dual SIM smartphone running on Android v.4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system and draws power from a quad-core processor clocked at 1.2GHz.

It can be upgraded to Android v.4.2 Jelly Bean which would eventually bring more special features to this handset. The presence of the quad-core processor increases the performance of the handset multiple times, while the Android platform gives access to thousands of exclusive applications and games available at the Google Play Store.

This smartphone is the first mid-ranged droid that draws power from a quad-core processor, whereas its rival, Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos, runs on dual-core processor.

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Camera and image quality

With this entry-level phone, clicking the best of moments becomes easier. The camera is almost the best feature of the phone at an elephantine 8MP, autofocus rear camera with dual LED flash support. The dual LED flash back-up helps in capturing images with better brightness and sharpness in dark.

Other camera features are geo-tagging, touch focus and face detection. The 8MP snapper captures images with a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels and records 720p videos at the rate of 30fps. You can capture every moment of your life with this primary camera that has the support of burst mode feature, which allows you to shoot stop-motion videos along with images.

However, in comparison to its competition phones, Micromax Canvas HD A116 fails to provide crisp images and videos, which one would expect from such a high sensor shooter. There is a secondary 2MP front camera too, which makes live video calls possible.

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Memory and connectivity

Micromax HD Canvas A116 comes with an internal memory of 4GB, out of which only 1.77GB is available, and 1GB RAM. A microSD card slot is made available that can extend the storage capacity to 32GB.

In terms of connectivity, options like GPRS, EDGE, 2G, 3G with HSPA+ speed, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth, USB port and GPS make this smartphone one of the best choices one can opt for.

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Battery

To let the handset handle heavy tasks on the go, a 2,100mAh battery provides a long life to the device. It delivers a talk time of up to 5 hours and a standby time of up to 174 hours.

Micromax Canvas HD A116 proves that power does not need to be backed by an excessive amount of money. With Android Jelly Bean OS, Micromax Canvas HD A116 comes with an improvement in the notification tray that now provides direct access to some major settings, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, data connectivity, brightness adjustment and auto screen rotation.

Alongside the enhanced notification bit, the company has also added few of its exclusive applications, which include M!Live, M!Store, M!Zone+. Providing such an amazing product at such a reasonable price is a milestone for the company and ultimately has dared other manufacturers to develop such a phone at affordable prices.

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