Specs Review:
Elegant Screen:
Anything below qHD doesn't do justice to a 5 inch phablet, as in the case of Galaxy Grand, which unfortunately has a WVGA screen. The Canvas HD takes care of this aspect with a beautiful 5" capacitive screen which sports a 720x1280 HD resolution. The ppi density (a separate article about what ppi is under construction) has been bumped to 294 from a meagre 196, the ppi density its predecessor i.e. Canvas 2 had.More than decent on the processing front:
The processing power under Canvas HD's hood is more than decent. The 1.2 GHz Quad core processor based on Mediatek's latest MT6589 chipset is quite efficient at multi tasking as well as hard core gaming. A PowerVR Series5XT GPU is also there to handle the graphics processing stuff. 1 GB RAM was what MMX A110 users were crying for, and Micromax brought that too in the Canvas HD. The boost in RAM should fix the occasional lags faced in earlier Canvas devices.
Other "little cared for" specs:
To put Battery and Camera under this title was indeed a daunting task for me. The battery was the only disappointing specification I read in the whole spec sheet. 2000 mAh just doesn't seem enough for powering a 720p screen and a quad core processor, unless Micromax has put inside some good software stuff to dramatically enhance the battery life. But sorry Micromax, I don't expect anything influential from you on the software part, especially after Hookup and other poorly implemented software we have seen from them in their earlier devices. The 8 MP camera is reportedly performing better in low light conditions than the one in Micromax A110.
Comparisons:
What I decided to do when I heard about A116 was a bit of research about some high end phones in the market. Canvas HD does rival their specs and is less than half their price. So, I created a excel file listing down all the specs and finally gave them ratings based on two criterias: One based on specs alone and the second one considers the Value for money part in the smartphones. The Specs ratings are given taking the specs of the current high end phones (like Sony Xperia Z or Droid Butterfly) as the specs that score 10 on 10.
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As you can see from the image above, Micromax A116 matched every phone on the list in terms of specs except S III and One X. In the value for money factor, it is unbeatable as of now.
If the image is not clear, you can download the original Excel file or download the same observations in pdf format.
I also thought about including some lesser known devices like Wammy Titan, but don't know why, dropped the idea.
Looking from feedback from you guys, my readers, for whom I spent so much time in this research. The comment box is present below this post.
