People looking for a tablet-like experience from their phones might want to consider phablets with screens of five inches and above. Here's the review of four such handsets from international and indigenous brands.
Look and feel
Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos: Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos is comfortable to hold despite its phablet size, and bears a premium look inspired by the flagship S III and Note 2. It is built with good quality plastic, and doesn't heat up easily either.
Micromax A116 HD: The device is well built. Its physical buttons feel nice and firm. The screen is made up of hardened glass, but we would have preferred something more robust and scratch-resistant like Gorilla Glass. All in all, the device has a plastic feel to it, but it still feels solid - and more expensive than its price.
Lava Xolo A1000: The Xolo A1000 is built quite well. Like most other smartphones in its category, it uses glossy plastic - while the strip of aluminium around the frame gives it polish and rigidity. The device feels solid to hold.
Performance
Samsung Galaxy Grand: Despite its dual-core CPU, the Grand is not a smooth multi-tasker . There is some lag when you have a few apps open, and heavy games suffer from some stutter.
Micromax A116 HD: The Canvas HD, with its quad-core chip, is miles ahead of the competition in terms of pure processing muscle. When it comes to multimedia, it handles full-HD movies with ease; transitions in Android are smooth; apps - including processintensive games - perform without a hitch or lag; and its touchscreen is responsive to taps and swipes.
Lava Xolo A1000: Xolo A1000 is a capable phone, but it doesn't match the similarly priced Micromax Canvas HD in processing muscle. There is a discernable lag when you open an app, switch between tasks, scroll through web pages, or play Temple Run. Also, GPS performance is another weak point. The A1000 is slow to lock on to satellite signals.
Screen quality
Samsung Galaxy Grand: Although it doesn't have HD resolution, the screen itself is quite good, pumping out vibrant colours and boasting of great viewing angles. We missed the HD, but our main complaint is that sometimes, the images look saturated.
Micromax A116 HD: The phone sports an HD IPS display that has wide viewing angles. Text and images look sharp, though colours looked washed out when compared to the Galaxy Grand. Like it is with all devices in its category, visibility suffers under direct sunlight.
Lava Xolo A1000: Most of the 'affordable' Android smartphones come with screens that have washed out colours. Not Xolo A1000. It sports an IPS screen that not only boasts of 720p HD resolution, but is also capable of punchy and vibrant colours. Even viewing angles and brightness are good. This makes watching videos or pictures on the device a joy.
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camera
Samsung Galaxy Grand: The Galaxy Grand's shooter is far better than the others in this review.The phone has an 8 megapixel rear camera and 2 megapixel front camera with zero shutter-lag and quick camera start-up.
Micromax A116 HD: The Canvas HD's cameras are its biggest drawback. Images shot in the day are decent, but low-light shots are blurry and dull. Light sources streak in snapshots and videos. The front cam is just about ok for video conferencing. Of course, the shooters are passable to use with apps like Instagram and Cymera.
Lava Xolo A1000: Its shooter performs poorly. Images taken in daylight are decent enough to be shared on Facebook or Twitter but don't expect the A1000 to shoot photos for the family album. In more challenging conditions like low light, it snaps pictures that lack details. It's the same with videos: Shooting small clips is fine but don't try to record your son's birthday party with this camera.
Battery life
Samsung Galaxy Grand: Despite a large 2,000mAh battery, the Grand's battery life is mildly disappointing. On a day of 3G gaming, internet browsing, music playback, a few Youtube videos, and about an hour's worth of calling, the phone lasted just 13 hours.
Micromax A116 HD: The phone's battery lasts around 12.5 hours in normal usage that includes its screen at medium brightness, some video, casual gaming, around 45 minutes of phone calls, email and web browsing. Turn on Wi-Fi, and you can expect a drop to around 11 hours - overall, a middling battery performance.
Lava Xolo A1000: The phone's battery lasts nearly 15 hours on a single charge when used for phone calls, emails, web browsing, Twitter, some photography and video playback. Unless you're watching full-length films or recording videos, it is likely that the Xolo A1000 will last you at least a day on a single charge.
price
Samsung Galaxy Grand: Rs 21,399
Micromax A116 HD: Rs 13,990
Lava Xolo A1000: Rs 13,999
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