Well, to start, I didn’t buy it from Flipkart as I’ve always preferred a physical store to buy electronics. I’m going to highlight the pros and cons after one month of usage. Before I write, I just want to mention some hard facts about review. Nowadays, almost everyone boasts of being a smartphone expert and the reviews they write are becoming increasingly bizarre and conflicting. Going through the negative reviews against this phone in this site, I found that almost all of them are just as useless and bizarre.
Without much technological babble and theory about what being a good display and what should be a good screen and display properties, the display of this phone is very good. Yes, it is not in the same line as display of premium phones, but in the group of HD display, this display is very good and clearly visible in strong sunlight.
Has two capacitive soft keys, not noticeable in daylight, but a soft white color that glows softly in dark.
Has one notification LED, which is white and the glow is soft. I find it aesthetically pleasing.
The fingerprint sensor is as it should be. Touch and unlock. It’s like that. My human brain can’t differentiate the tiniest lag, if any, there is in this phone while unlocking with fingerprint.
Has a good security feature of encrypted apps. One can easily go in the settings and assign the apps with extra level of security such that when anyone will try to access that app, say whatsapp, it will ask for a pattern unlock and this pattern will be different than the pattern to unlock the phone. That is, if anyone sets a unlock pattern to unlock the phone, he can set a different pattern for these encrypted and private apps.
There is a separate setting for designating private areas. One can set photos, videos and apps in that area and thus, making the private things safe from prying eyes. Those photos, videos or apps will not show in the phone unless explicitly viewed in the security settings with a separate unlocking pattern if set.
I use one JIO SIM for the last two weeks, and to say truly, the result is just what is advertised by JIO makers. That is the internet speed is perfect . There is absolutely no buffering on YouTube or Dailymotion for 1080p videos.
The video calling and voice calling features are at par with standards set and the volume on the earpiece is loud enough to hear in noisy places.
I’m not into gaming, so can’t really comment on the performance of the phone on that, but there are absolutely no heating issues to be concerned of.
The camera is good. Please don’t be concerned with someone commenting on high contrast or saturation levels in the pictures clicked by the phone or issues about not getting the full 13 or 16 megapixels from the camera. The pictures are good enough to get a good print. Although, I must say a little grain is there when pictures clicked in very low light. In medium to low light scenarios, the grains are barely noticeable and will look good in the computer screen. I cast the pictures on my 43 inch 4K TV and it looks good enough. Moreover, everybody uses one or two photo editing apps nowadays and so minor blemishes can easily be fixed. I suggest Google’s Snapseed. Another thing I will like to mention to those people who are saying that they are not getting full megapixel effects in their pictures, should know that the phone makers always mention the full megapixel of their cameras subject to one condition. Most people don’t know that the full megapixel in pictures can be achieved ONLY in the 4:3 aspect ratio of the pictures. If one clicks pictures with full screen mode, i.e. 16:9, the megapixels WILL always be lower.
The phone doesn’t show any lag and the app switching is smooth as butter with one left soft key dedicated for the task.
The speaker is very good with two speaker grills at the bottom delivering stereo sounds loud enough for the purpose.
The charging is efficient and though it doesn’t say anywhere of being capable of quick charge, the charging time is decent.
There’s a power saver mode which is very effective.
A lot of themes and fonts are available to customize the phone OS looks.
The build quality is good and the back looks premium.
I got a factory administered screen guard on the phone which is a little sticky on the front but at least, regular cleaning still makes it clinging to the screen with zero air bubble. Also, a transparent back cover has been provided which till date is just fine.
Gesture controls are a draw.