The launch of MediaTek chipsets created a new era with lots of budget Android smartphones arising that could actually perform well. MediaTek chipsets allow vendors to to lower down their budgets which thereby decreased the overall cost of the product. This is the reason why so many OEMs which earlier only produced feature phones have entered the smartphone market and are ready to face the challenge.
Micromax if you remember had those stupid feature phones with a generic Chinese phone UI. They used to come up with different features like 30 day standby battery, etc. to sell their handsets but now that time has gone. Micromax is one of the top players in India along with the posh Samsung which is now selling their smartphones as hot cakes.
It all started with the Canvas series and they are constantly trying to improve it. Reaching a much finished level this year they launched the Micromax Canvas 4 after the uber popular Canvas HD. Micromax Canvas 4 undoubtedly packs the MediaTek chipset having the same quad-core processor and a GB of RAM. It also packs other different features which we shall talk about in the review below. So to know more keep scrolling.
Build:
Build of a handset is the first thing any human examines. Micromax Canvas 4 has a better build than Canvas HD thats for sure. The aluminum edges supporting the network antennas with aluminum buttons look a lot better than the crappy plastic but again its just for the edges. When you dissect the device this aluminum edge is the skeleton which holds the device structure. The back and the front have the expected glossy plastic with absolutely no branding on the front and back looks good with the new logo.
The front houses the ear piece and three capacitive touch buttons and the back has the camera along with the LED flash and a secondary microphone on the top left and a speaker grill at the bottom center. The left edge has the volume rockr and the right has the power/standby button. On the top we have the 3.5mm audio jack for output and the bottom has the microUSB port for data synchronization and charging.
Display:
Micromax Canvas 4 packs a 5-inch display which is better than what they had till now but still lacks somewhere in terms of color reproduction. We found the display to be too bright sometimes even on the minimum level. Obviously it depends on the wallpaper as well but it looks like we don’t have proper brightness control. The 5-inch HD display is of the resolution 720×1280 pixels and at least is not a pain for our eyes.
Hardware:
Micromax Canvas 4 packs the 1.2GHz Quad-Core processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB internal memory. Quad-core is now pretty much a standard as I said earlier thanks to MediaTek for reducing the budgets. The high end chipsets no doubt will perform significantly better but then for this price I would say the quad-core performance we are getting ain’t bad. This is the first time that Micromax has included 16GB of internal memory along with an option of expanding it further up to 32GB which is pretty good in my opinion. Apart from this we have the usual WiFi, HSDPA, GPS, Accelerometer, Proximity Sensor etc. which helps us to get the best smartphone experience.
Software:
Micromax has kept the ROM close to vanilla which is directly shipped by Google as Android 4.2. This is a good practice not to ruin the Android experience because earlier even we had this complaint from Micromax that they tweak a lot and destroy the feeling if using an Android operating system. This time looks like they have actually listened to customer feedback and just have few 3rd party applications installed like NQ Mobile Security, Hike, Foneclay etc. Micromax has partnered with all these software firms to give the best experience out of the the box.
The most heard software feature about the Canvas 4 is blow to unlock and yes it actually works. There is an application which comes pre-installed on the device which has been developed by foneclay which adds an additional lock screen above the usual Android one. By enabling the m! unlock application we can literally blow or shake the device to unlock. The blow to unlock actually senses the sound vibrations in the nearby surrounding and unlocks the device. The nearby range is very less so it basically ends near the microphone area.
Camera:
Micromax Canvas 4 has a 13MP rear camera BSI sensor and a 5MP front-facing camera. The front camera can shoot videos up to 720@30fps whereas the rear camera can do it up to 1080p@30fps. The rear unlike the Canvas HD is very good. We could actually capture some good pictures in daylight and average pictures in low-light conditions with a little noise. We can’t say good low-light conditions because we have to reach a comparable level with Lumia 920 for that which is not the case here. Camera interface on the device is exactly what is there on the AOSP that is vanilla rom, with the same shooting modes including the Panorama, 360 degree snapshot, etc.
Verdict:
Testing all the features and performance of the device for two-three weeks we came to the conclusion that Micromax Canvas 4 is good smartphone. Powered by the same Quad-core MediaTek chipset it do perform better than the earlier Canvas HD. The build, the camera, the performance almost everything has been improved. The display quality might look compromised with the color reproduction but thats because we are spoiled by the high-end category. Micromax Canvas 4 is the flagship device of the year 2013 but we expected them to give a little more with the next generation of MediaTek chipsets which were out by that time. Anyhow now that Micromax has some brand value we would expect them to improve their after sales service so that users don’t have a hard time servicing their products as electronic components tend to break down at times. Overall good should be considered as an option for the price range of 15-20k Android smartphone.
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