Recently Micromax has launched the Canvas Spark smartphone. The price of this phone is less than Rs 5,000 and it runs on Android’s latest version Lollipop. It also has a quad core processor. Should you buy this phone? We tell you
Look and design
Looking at the product, it seems that Micromax has tried hard to give it a premium look. We got white/gold unit for review but gray/silver option is also available in the market. The thickness of the phone is 8.5 millimeters and has curves on the edge. This phone of 135 grams has uniforms in all parts, due to which keeping it in hands is a good feeling. In fact, they are plastic on the edges of the phone. However, Micromax has given a metallic coating to make it real. A similar color scheme was also seen in Micromax Canvas Gold A300.
The screen of the smartphone is 4.7 inches. The top part has the place of ear piece, front camera and light sensor. Touch sensitive buttons are built downwards for navigation in the phone. The outlines of these buttons are quite thin and the lights do not burn in advance, due to which there is a problem in the use.
Power and volume buttons are built on the right side of the phone. The performance of these buttons is average. The back of the phone has a place for the speaker at the bottom. As far as the rear camera is concerned, it is out of the phone slightly outwards, which is at risk of scratching it. There may also be difficulty in making balance on flat surfaces. The brand’s metallic logo remains under the camera. The rear cover can come out, but you can only use SIM card slot and micro SD card slot. Battery does not come out.
Specifications and software
Micromax has expressed confidence in the dilapidated product MediaTek MT6582 SOC for Canvas Spark. This SoC uses four 1.3GHz processor core and has Mali 400 Graphics Integrated. The phone has 1 GB of RAM and its internal storage is 8 GB which can be increased to 32 GB via micro SD card.
Canvas Spark’s primary camera is 8 megapixels and can also shoot a video in 720 pixels. The phone has a 2 megapixel front camera. This phone gives dual SIM support and at least one SIM card can run on 3G network. As far as the second connectivity is concerned, it also has the option of Wi-Fi A/B/G/N and Bluetooth V4.0. This device has a 2000mAh battery, which gives a talk time of 7 hours and its standby time is 335 hours.
The resolution of the 4.7 -inch IPS screen is 540×960 which is also in Motorola Moto E (Gen 2). Canvas Spark’s screen is average and gives poor performance in sunlight. It is a matter of relief that the display is not very saturated, due to which warm colors relax the eyes. And Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 has been used for the screen, which is good.
Micromax has not tampered with Android Lollipop version, just turned the background of the app drawer from white to transparent dark gray. The company has also provided third-party apps for its customers, most of which are not useful and cannot be removed.
Performance and camera
There are many shortcomings in the performance of Canvas Spark. On several occasions, after touching the app icon, he had to wait for 15 seconds till it became active. The screen was not responded many times during the standbai mode. The phone did not smooth due to these shortcomings. While playing high-end games, the shortcomings of the phone were clearly visible. However, there was no decrease in performance during the casual games.
The phone got 19,499 and 5,494 points during the AnTuTu and Quadrant benchmark test. These figures are equal to the remaining smartphones with such hardware. In the GFXBench graphics test, Canvas Spark scored 3,231 in 9.3FPS and 3DMark Ice Storm Test.
Playing 1080 pixels video files many times, there were many times dropping frames. The speaker’s voice is good but on the high volume it starts to break. The voice in the headset given by the company is fine, but there is a lot of improvement in the voice in good earphones. During the phone call, the voice was getting good and we did not face the problem of dropping a phone call.
Canvas Spark’s battery worked for 7 hours and 16 minutes during the video loop test, most of the phones of this range also perform the same performance. However, during the processor intensive task, there was a tremendous decline in the battery life of the phone.
The camera disappointed. Photo drawn from the rear camera had shortcomings like under -exposure and over saturation. While shooting the video at 720 pixels, the camera app hangs several times. However, recorded video footage did not have that much deficiencies. By the way, the problem of under exposure was also seen in video footage. The shots taken in low light had a lot of grains, the performance of the front camera was also nothing special.
Our suggestion
We appreciate what Micromax has tried to achieve through Canvas Spark, but the lapse in the case of performance is clearly visible. It is a smartphone winner in terms of design and price. Canvas Spark is priced at Rs 4,999, which is 1,000 less than the rest of the budget range smartphone. If the budget is an important issue then this phone is for you. But, we would suggest you that by spending a little more money, buy Motorola Moto E (Gen 2) or Xiaomi Redmi 2, your smartphone experience will be better.