Friends+Design
- Light-weight
- The back is textured, so you get decent grip
- Ordinary build quality and finish - will constantly remind you that this is strictly a budget device
- There are thick borders on each side of the display and the navigation buttons below it aren’t backlit
Display
- The 4-inch display has a low 480x800-pixel resolution, which makes text appear a bit jagged - viewing angles aren’t good either - the display isn’t laminated to the tempered glass, so the gap between them is visible, and it's also a big magnet for fingerprints. Sunlight legibility isn't great even at the maximum brightness
Software
- The main highlight of the phone is the Hike Total which is custom fork of Android, much like Indus OS - it has been designed specifically for the Indian market, with support for eight Indian languages and the ability to use some information services without an Internet connection - Hike hasn’t messed around with the Android Nougat UI too much, and it looks very close to stock - the most important addition is the left-most home screen dedicated to a curated list of ‘offline’ apps along with some utility apps such as Bus Tickets, which lets you purchase bus tickets for travel within the country - to start using the apps offline, you’ll need to create a Total account and verify your Airtel SIM
- There isn't a notification LED or an ambient light sensor
Performance
- The onboard SoC is capable of decoding 1080p video, but the screen's narrow viewing angles and poor contrast made it really hard to enjoy anything
- Performance is sluggish throughout - Android phones rarely play nice with just 1GB of RAM - you will also find yourself hitting the wrong characters on the on-screen keyboard due to lag or sluggish touch response (there’s a fair bit of latency between the time you press a key and when the character actually appears on the screen)
Camera
- Rear and front cameras are sub-par - details are lacking and colours often miss the mark
Audio
- Decent call quality, and 4G VoLTE support
- The speaker isn’t very loud either - it does an okay job with alerts but is fairly weak for most media files
Battery
- Mediocre battery life - struggles to last a full day even with light usage
- Charging with the bundled charger takes a while - roughly three hours to get it up to 80 percent
More
- On the whole, given the overall ordinary quality of the phone, many people may still find more sense in going for strong feature phones (like JioPhone) in this price bracket
