This review is about Micromax Q5 - the phone I bought Friday late evening from a shop in on Outer Ring road Bangalore (opposite country club Marathalli). I was driving home from office around 10 pm and saw this shop open so thought of having a look at the Micromax Q5 phone which was being advertised for so many days on TV as Facebook phone. At that moment I needed a new phone but had no plans to buy it so quickly but I liked the phone so much for its price that I bought at the spot. Thanks to the sales guy who was helpful enough to open the box packed phone for me and let me use it for 10-15 mins to get the look and feel. Let me share my initial usage report from last 3 days -
- Look and Feel - No less than Blackberry (for 1/3rd) of price. Has got a QWERTY keyboard and 2.6" screen which is similar (perhaps better looking) to Blackberry that colleague sitting next to me flaunted till yesterday ;-)
The phone comes with a sleeve (just like the one for iPhone) which makes it look better and protects from scratches.
Interface - The word ’dual sim’ made me think that its another cheap Chinese manufactured handset. Believe me its not!The interface is as good as Sony Ericsson phone I have been using for about an year. It has a track ball for easy navigation. The QWERTY keyboard is nicely spaced and designed. I was able to adapt my fingers to it I 2-3 hours.
Battery Backup - A big positive as of now. I charged it on Friday evening and it has run 3 good days with 2-3 hours of surfing and 2-3 hours of calling. Needs a charge again now. But I’m happy with the battery.
One touch Facebook - Useful feature if you have a GPRS activated but not as useful as advertised on TV. You can only see updates from friends & comments on them. I tried uploading a photo clicked on phone and tried uploading it. It showed me a ’success’ message but the pic did not get posted on my Facebook account. You can however smoothly access all WAP based websites from the in-build Opera mini browser. Very useful.
Camera - Not so good. The phone specifications say its a 2MP but I do not think its any better than old Nokia 6600 camera, . It seems to be 1.3 MP at max. Flash is also missing.
Audio - Ringtones are loud and clear but when using earphones - the sound did not sound good at all. May be it needs some settings like Equalizer and 3-d effects. I’ll spend time on this and update the review if things change.
Overall Experience - For a price of mere Rs. 4500 for a QWERTY phone with dual SIM, I am a happy customer. This surely is not another dual sim Chinese phone and neither a blackberry. But for this price - its a great phone. I would recommend it to any of my friends.