The new Cinemax 3 is quite similar to the previous smartphone. But along with the specification upgrade, the storage has been increased. But is the Rs 5,499 Zen Cinemax 3 a smartphone worth buying? Know about this
Design and design
Cinemax 3 due to excessive raised edges on the rear cover at first glance Obi Worldphone SF1 (Review). The design of the phone is fine, although it is difficult to realize this by looking at the phone because its rear is equipped with sandstone texture. Due to the texture, the phone has a good grip and does not leave fingerprints.
The protruding frame of the phone is good for beauty but it creates problems when the device is put to charge. The USB port is also installed in such a way that even a slight movement breaks the connection. The USB cable that comes with the phone is a bit long but it does not work well. And many times we faced disconnection while copying files from the device. Apart from this, if the cable that comes with it gets lost then you will have no option to charge the phone. Because removing the rear cover of the phone and charging it with another cable is a very difficult task.
The phone has non-backlit capacitive buttons on the front and a speaker grill on the rear. The display is also no better than before. The phone has a 5.5 inch display panel of 480×854 pixel resolution. The density of the screen is 162 ppi. Viewing angle and color reproduction is also quite poor. The phone neither has an ambient light sensor nor a notification LED.
The battery in the phone is removable and on removing the rear cover, two SIM slots and a separate microSD card slot (32 GB) can be seen. In the box you will get a charger, data cable, headset, screen protector and a case for the phone. Considering the price, the quality of the accessories that come with the phone can be said to be decent.
Specifications and Features
The Zen Cinemax 3 is powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core Spreadtrum SC7731 processor. This phone has 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage. The performance of this phone seemed to us quite similar to that of Micromax Unite 4 Pro, which is not very good. The benchmark figures of the phone were also not good.
This phone does not come with 4G support which can be a problem for many people. Apart from this, the phone has connectivity features like Wi-Fi B/G/N, Bluetooth, GPS and FM radio. This phone does not support USB OTG. The Cinemax 3 has an accelerometer and a proximity sensor.
Talking about software, Cinemax 3 runs on near-stock version of Android 5.1 Lollipop. Zen has given some customizations in the phone like lock screen magazine (Page2) through which you can see news snippets and also play puzzle games. Apps like Ultra Zone Store for buying video clips, NexGTV for news streaming, TV shows and movies, Zen Care for finding service centers and Zen Store for wallpapers, music etc. are provided.
Most of Zen’s apps have very few links to the website. Apart from this, many spam apps and trial games also come pre-loaded in the phone. The good thing is that you can uninstall all these apps including Google Play Music, Play Movie etc. by going to the Settings app and using ‘Delete Application’. Apart from this, there is also an SOS feature in the phone, through which you can send an emergency message to a selected contact by pressing the power button five times continuously.
performance
The design of the Zen Cinemax 3 is not good. It is quite large and due to its highly raised edges, it does not fit easily in the pocket. The phone ran smoothly most of the time and we did not face any problem of heating during the review. The call quality of the phone is good but it cannot be called excellent. There is no 4G support in the phone, so you will have to make do with 3G only. The touch response of the screen is not very good.
Android works fine when you’re browsing through the homescreen but has issues when multitasking and loading apps. Websites open slowly in Chrome and are difficult to scroll through. Simple games can be played easily on the phone but if you want to play games like Asphalt or Alto’s Adventure then it will not be possible in this phone.
Full HD videos are played in the phone but watching them is not fun and this is due to the poor quality of the display. The sound coming from the speaker is quite loud for incoming notifications.
Cinemax 3 has a 5 megapixel rear camera which captures good close-up shots. Landscape photos taken with phones are very bad. Focusing on the phone is very slow. In fact, due to poor display, it becomes very difficult to tell whether the picture you are taking is good or bad. Talking about selfie, the front camera is also not good.
The camera app given in the phone is the stock Google Camera app in which you will get panorama, HDR and some other options. Apart from this there is nothing special.
The phone has a 2900 mAh battery which lasted 9 hours 46 minutes in our video loop test. This can be called good. During normal use, we were able to use the phone for a day on a single full charge.
our decision
Considering the current trade in the market, we feel that the company could have made Cinemax 3 better. Instead, the company launched this phone with some upgrades over last year’s phone, which is not enough. 4G LTE is the most demanded feature in the market so now it is useless to buy a new smartphone without 4G support. This is enough reason not to buy this smartphone.
Apart from this, if we talk about other shortcomings of Cinemax 3, the display is not good, the performance is weak and the camera is also ordinary. The design of the phone also cannot be called very good because of the USB port.
There are other smartphones like Karbonn Quattro L50 HD available in the market with better specifications and features at this price. Despite the price cut, we would recommend against buying the Zen Cinemax 3 smartphone.