Celkon A500 Signature 2
As the title of my review suggests, it is a 5 inch screen phone, but very gentle on your wallet. You read it right. I purchased this phone as a backup phone. I got it for Rs.5800/-.
Yes below 6K and a five inch phone with Android KitKat. More surprises in the review. Read on.
The phone is pretty large sized and difficult to operate with one hand. But hey it is a five incher and adds very well for showoff. Very economical at the price being sold and very much suitable for first time users to android who wants a big screen yet on a very tight budget. Also a good back up phone for people who use high end powerful phones.
The Pros
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1) Very low priced for a five inch screen phone
2) 1 GB RAM
3) Dual SIM
4) Good Looks
5) 2000 maH battery
6) 5 inch screen
7) 4.4.2 KitKat
8) Very good touch response
9) 3G capability
10) Dual core 1.3 GHz
11) Not very heavy -147 grams
12) Front camera
13) Free flip cover included
14) Supports USB OTG
15) Plain Google android interface. No skins or launchers included.
16) Boots in 9 seconds flat.(Conditions apply)
17) Shutsdown in 6 seconds
18) Good earphone volume
The CONS
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1) Large bezel
2) A bit low screen resolution - 480x854 pixels with 241 ppi
3) Terrible below average back camera
4) Average out speaker volume(Not the earpiece on the top. Out speaker on the back of the phone)
5) Takes 3 hours to charge from 0 to 100%
6) Unusually long micro usb pin to the charger cable(the pin which we insert into phone for charging)
7) No screen guard bundled along with the phone
8) No guaranteed Android L update
9) Mediocre backpanel. Matte finish plastic back panel which mimics as rubberized panel but not
10) Incomplete manual
11) Lot of bloatware pre installed
As you observe the cons are less than the pros.
As soon as I had switched on the phone, immediately I had disabled all the crap bloatware pre-installed like trail games, abhi bus, yellow pages etc. I had disabled around 10 apps. This made the phone boot faster and free up more RAM so that the required applications run smoothly and the phone boots up quickly.
As the phone is plain android without any skins and fancies, phone is fast and responsive. This also attributes to the 1 GB RAM. The chip is a Mediatek M6572 processor.
Surprisingly this phone supports USB OTG. Out of curiosity I had inserted my micro usb pen drive and it quietly mounted it and showed the device in the file manager app. An extremely rare feature in low budget phones.
Two annoying features are it cannot receive .apk files(probably a software restriction). So you have to transfer them to the SD card or the USB drive, then insert the micro SD card or the OTG pen drive in the phone and then install them.
The unusually large micro usb charging pin forces to carry the charger cable always along with the phone. This is very irritating for people who are always on the move. This also means that the phone charges only with this budled cable and no other cables can be used.
But overall a good phone in an extremely low budget and for first time android users who want a large screen, this phone is for you.
4 stars for the price and screen size.
Lost 1 star due to low screen resolution.