Micromax Canvas A1 (Android One) Review

Micromax Canvas A1 is yet another smartphone belonging to Android one series where you get a decent phone with good feature and an affordable price. Priced at just Rs. 6,300, Micromax Canvas A1 offers much more than any other Android budget device in the market. This includes a decent design, upgraded hardware and the latest android operating system. Google’s Android One series is designed for those who are looking for good features at a reasonable cost. No doubt that Micromax Canvas A1 is not like other budget phone. Here you are getting KitKat out of the box with surety of upcoming future updates. As its software updates will be managed by Google, instead of Micromax. This is the specialty of Android One series. So here we are going to test this budget quad core phone and find out whether it is a worth buying device or not.

First of all when you check the phone specs, you can find out that you are getting a bit more on low price. You are getting a decent phone that will give you good app output. But it is not fair to expect much from the design part. Being an entry level phone a lot of things like Gorilla Glass protection, durable design are removed. Compared to that if you check Motorola’s Moto E which is another budget phone but a little costlier comes with a good screen protection. I think the next series by Google under Android One is going to have this kind of options. Micromax Canvas A1 is powered by Quad Core CPU and has a 1GB ram. This is the most decent hardware specs, you can most commonly see in various entry level and mid range phone. It is quiet good for running different apps and also to play a few games. The phone is manufactured by Micromax while the operating system part is developed by Google. That is why Google is going to manage its OTA updates.

Micromax Canvas A1

Before we start testing the device, let’s have a quick look at its highlights:

Micromax Canvas A1 Highlights:

  • SIM – Dual SIM 2G/3G
  • Processor – 1.3 GHz Quad core processor
  • OS Version – Android v 4.4,kitkat
  • RAM  – 1 GB
  • Display – 4.5 inch
  • Resolution – FWVGA 480×854 pixels IPS Screen
  • Primary Camera – 5 MP
  • Secondary Camera –     2 MP
  • Internal memory – 4GB (2GB User Memory)
  • External memory – Micro SD, up to 32GB
  • Weight – 138g
  • Battery – 1700mAh Lithium Polymer

Display / Screen:

Micromax Canvas A1 has a WVGA display where the screen size is limited to 4.5inch. It is a decent size not very small or not very large. 4.5inch screen makes your job a bit easier. Viewing angles are fine here. You can simply use the screen for eBook reading, for browsing, etc. The maximum resolution that you get is around 854 x 480 on this IPS Display. I will not rate high for the display output. But being an entry level phone, Micromax Canvas A1 is already offering you many things.

However, I was expecting a bit more from this phone because if you see Moto E or a few similar phones that falls under Rs.10,000 then we are having a big HD display output on the same. That makes video viewing a lot better thing to deal with. The touch screen is amazing here. It is smooth and fast. It is quiet identical to Karbonn Sparkle V which we reviewed recently.

Micromax Canvas A1 Review

So here one thing is clear. The screen is not HD. That is what cause a bit fall inside the quality part, but still it is not a very bad device. Additionally KitKat is what makes it a lot better. The stock OS does not cause any problem with the performance. On the other hand, it makes it more effective. You can load the apps instantly; you can switch between different things and also play a bit of games on the same.

Software and UI:

Most of the Android One phones are going to run on stock Android 4.4 KitKat OS. And in future if Google release more new updates like Android 4.5 or 5.0 you might get that also. Many are considering Android L is the next Android 5.0 update but Google has not confirmed the version yet. And it is also found that Android L is a 64bit operating system. That means it won’t work on low end device.

So here we will consider that Android One series will get the Android 4.5 or 4.6 series update on the same through OTA. As Google is going to manage the OS thing, we have to less worry about updates. Because most of the manufacturer does not offer any update after the device release. New OS means a lot of new things. Like KitKat is well optimized to give you longer battery life. That is not possible to get on ICS. There are smart power management features also.

Micromax_Canvas_A1_android_one

The phone already comes with default android apps, which are part of Google Application Package. Here Google chrome is the default web browser, with a new Gallery and simple interface. You have to just buy a SD card to get more storage. Because 4GB is very low among which 2GB is used by the ROM. A 2GB will fill fast once you load a few applications in the phone.

Camera Quality:

Micromax Canvas A1 has a dual camera similar to Karbonn Sparkle V and Spice Dream UNO. It has a dual camera where a 2MP camera on the front side and a 5MP on the backside. There is a flash is also available that can used for taking pictures under low light. Pictures are great when you have lot of lights comings towards y our face. Yet I will not talk much about the camera quality. Because many of us already know 5MP is not enough for taking good pictures.

The camera app is bit tweaked due Kitkat OS. This app allows you to have some few modes like HDR that allow you to take more clear and nice photos. Images are good enough but not expect HD from the same. This type of camera is good enough for day to day usage. By adding a third party camera app you can take out a bit lot better close-up photos. The front camera makes image darker, it can be due to the hardware limitation. This can be a big down point of the phone.

Hardware and Performance:

Hardware point of view Micromax Canvas A1 is good enough to run different type of apps and give you a long lasting decent performance. The device is powered by 1.3 GHz Quad core processor and 1 GB. At first when the device was about to release I though the ram would be limited to 512MB but it is good to find that Google keep the output to 1GB or else it will be not easy to run KitKat and upcoming future OTA updates on the same. Benchmarking reports that Micromax Canvas A1 gives you performance very much near to Moto E android phone. It is capable of running all kind of apps easily.

I had also tested a few games that do not fail. It is good to have this kind of budget phone with decent output. Things do not crash much. Even if you load apps like Facebook, Instagram, a few bunch of browsers, and apps. Still the phone is able to manage the output and keeps things decent. Even HD games work well on the same but due to low screen quality the graphic output remains limited.  App switching is also fast. The phone also has a decent audio quality. The device runs on 1700mAh battery. The phone works well for 6 to 8 hours if you are using many app. on the same. And if you are using it limited options then you can use for longer period.

Conclusion:

Micromax Canvas A1 comes for Rs.6300 which is a cheap yet good phone. It is a good thing if we can get a HD screen that matters the most. Because here we are having a 4.5inch screen that fells a bit short due to that. And also adding Gorilla Glass on that will help more. Because we are having few phones that are in the same range but comes with some durable features. If you directly compare this both phone, you will find a lot of more things in Canvas A1. This would be just start of Android One series where Google has impressed many. We can expect better things in the coming time.

One thought on “Micromax Canvas A1 (Android One) Review

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