After giving promises on launching the Android Lollipop update on the popular Canvas series, Micromax has brought out yet another budget smartphone called as the Micromax Canvas Pep Q371. But the phone seems to start on a bad note; despite being in the Canvas series, it hasn't got the Lollipop.
While the new Canvas Pep Q371 is now being the talk of the town, we decided to voice our opinion of the phone, which looks very much similar to the recently launched Micromax Canvas Xpress A99.
Design and Display
Though this phone has been listed in its company website, not much has been revealed about the dimensions of this new device. What has been revealed is that the Canvas Pep features a 4.5 inch display which suggests that the phone's dimensions and styling might be similar to that of the Micromax Canvas A1 Android One smartphone.
The phone comes in the same Candy Bar form factor, as any smartphone, and is tipped with rounded edges, which makes the phone more comfortable to hold. With the camera lens towards the top-left end of the rear panel, there is no need to worry about your finger prints smudging all over the lens. The back panel features a matte-finish which adds to the premium look of the phone, unlike the usual smartphones which feature a plastic-glossy back cover at this price range.
The Canvas Pep Q371 comes in tow colour variants – Pristine White and Mystique Blue, of which the latter seemed to be more appealing a colour than the usual white. What stays prominent on the back panel is the silver like 3D Micromax logo with an embossed finish, which also adds to the looks of the phone.
As mentioned earlier, the device sports a 4.5-inch IPS capacitive multi-touch enabled LCD display with a pixel resolution of 800 x 854 (FWVGA), which means that we have around 218ppi which points at a pretty good display clarity for this price.
Processor and Performance
This dual-SIM phone runs on an Android KitKat v4.4.2 OS (with no word yet on the Lollipop update for this phone), which uses a MTK6582M processor clocked at 1.3 GHz. It also features a Mali 400 MP GPU, in the processor combination, which promises excellent gaming facilities. Taking the processor details into consideration, we can see that the new Micromax canvas Pep Q371 is aimed at the youngsters who are on the lookout for a budget smartphone that offers flawless multi-tasking facilities, sans issues like a frozen display or time-lag while switching between apps.
While looking into the storage capacity of this budget smartphone, it has been provided with a 1GB RAM, 8GB internal memory (of which only 5.99GB is accessible for the user to store files) along with an optional expandable memory of upto 32GB by means of a microSD card.
The 1700mAh Li-ion battery, which fuels this phone, doesn't seem to be really appealing as the manufacturer could have provided a better battery choice for a phone of this price. But however, Micromax promises to offer upto 6 hours of talktime and 210 hours of standby time, with this battery, which however, seems to be a rough estimate and needs to be tested.
Camera and Connectivity
Micromax offers a 5MP rear camera with an LED flash and a 0.3MP (VGA fixed focus) in its Canvas Pep Q371. There seems nothing to be disappointed about with the camera as it offers pretty good picture quality and supports 720p HD video recording as well.
On the connectivity side, this smartphone offers a dual-SIM connectivity, 3G,GPRS/EDGE, Wi-Fi, GPS enabled with A-GPS support, microUSB with on-the-go network connectivity options and Bluetooth connectivity.
Verdict
On the whole, the Micromax Canvas Pep Q371 seems to be a good deal-breaker, though it might not offer all that hyped-up excitement or pep as claimed by its manufacturers.