Yu Televentures, A name that changes the fate of Micromax in India in a positive way. No that Micromax was in a bad path before but it boosted the image of the company in a great way with Yureka smartphone that was brought to India in collaboration with Cyanogenmod. Though yureka was not of a perfect phone but for the price, we pay it's something we shouldn't complain too much. To sustain the image the company has launched their second smartphone very quickly and gave its competitors no chance. The smartphone we are talking about is the Yuphoria although its a bit late to cover the review but this article will cover the performance of the device after the incremental update that the company claims to fix the burning issues. So does the update changes the way thing used to work? Let's dig in.
Specifications of Yu Yuphoria
- 5-inches HD display with CGG3 protection
- Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 Quad core processor
- 2GB Ram/16GB internal storage(SD card slot available)
- 8-megapixel autofocus primary camera
- 5-megapixel fixed focus camera
- 2,230mAh battery
- 4G LTE, Dual SIM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS
- CM 12 based on Android 5.0.2
Build and Design of the smartphone are the first things that will catch our eyes on a very first glance. The design of the smartphone replicates the Lumia 830 at certain angles, but the rest of the design looks premium for a 7k Rs smartphone. The metal frame that runs around the sides of the smartphone is etched properly so that it won't hurt us while using the device. On the top of the device, there is just a 3.5MM audio jack that is located exactly in the middle, on the bottom there is a USB port for data transfers and charging. On the left, there is nothing placed while on the right side the volume rockers and power on/off button that is placed in between the volume buttons. These buttons are tactile and do give a good amount of feedback. On the back, there is an 8-megapixel camera located exactly in the middle and Saturn rings running around the camera module and speaker grills on the lower side of the back panel. On removing the back cover, we get access to Dual SIM card slots, SD card slot, and battery indent. On the front, the 5-megapixel selfie shooter, the usual set of sensors, the three touch type buttons are located within the display taking up some part of the display. Overall the design of the smartphone has nothing to complain except the fact that Metal frame tend to heat up more on extended usage(more on that later).
Rating: 3.5/5
The Display is an another positive thing about the smartphone as it features a 720p display on a 5-inch screen with 294PPI, so things look sharper but not the sharpest we have seen but commendable. Although the viewing angles are not that great but thankfully, the blue hint seen on Yureka is now missing. Our primary concern is the sunlight legibility, under the broad day light the display is not clearly visible and top of that the screen is reflective making it even hard. The adaptive brightness option might come in handy for most cases. The colors look a bit oversaturated. Overall the display is decent, functions like adaptive settings, double tap to wake and sleep, auto-rotation work fine creating no sort of disturbance. The touch response was the major issue before the update; sometimes the display becomes unresponsive but the update seems to have fixed the problem to a certain extent but the device freezes for a while during Gaming.
Rating: 3.25/5
The Device performance is quite good as the device is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 Soc clocked at 1.2GHz Quad-Core 64bit processor with Adreno 306GPU coupled with 2GB of Ram. The device doesn't slow down at any time no matter you are gaming or multitasking but, the performance isn't the best for that we blame the buggy CM OS 12, for instance, the app drawer take couple of seconds to open up and sudden reboots are noticed while testing the device. Except for the OS glitches, there is not worry about the device. We played graphic intense games like Nova 3, Asphalt 8, Modern Combat 5 these games ran pretty well with some frame drops now and then and it is very much acceptable as issue is rarely visible for a normal user. Comparing with competition like Redmi 2, Lenovo A6000+ the performance of Yuphoria is as good as expected and gives tough competition to the rest. The major advantage of the device is the 2GB Ram out of which around 900MB is available all the time. Like any other smartphone, Yu Yuphoria also suffers from the Heating issue while playing graphic intense games and heavy multitasking the metal frame running around the smartphone overheats, and weirdly the front tends to more temperature than the back panel. But then again the company's incremental update seem to have fixed the issue to a certain extent, and this doesn't mean the smartphone don't heat up it only means the issue is being controlled.
Rating: 3.25/5
Camera performance is a slight disappointment. The 8-megapixel autofocus primary camera with LED flash located inside the Saturn rings(that's what the company calls). The camera can capture decent images provided with a good amount of lighting and environment. The problem is that the CM camera app that is slow and doesn't fix focus at times. The color reproduction and saturation levels are poor, same goes with a front camera the images look washed out, but it is decent for video calls and selfie captures to some extent. The incremental update was expected to fix some of the camera issues, but it's sad to say none of the camera bugs was addressed as no major change was noticed. Below images demonstrate the performance.
Rating: 3/5
The Battery is yet another drawback of the smartphone. The smartphone struggles to get a single day of usage. The screen on time noticed was around 4 hours and once you start using the smartphone as your daily driver the standby time also reduces significantly. Thanks to heating issue the battery drains quickly it is the safe practice to remove battery for some time letting the device cool down before using it further. Since the update was expected to fix the battery issues, must say i didn't notice any change even after updating the device.
Rating: 3/5
Connectivity features include 4G LTE, Dual SIM, WiFi, Bluetooth. The call quality was good although the proximity sensor works weirdly while taking the call the problem was even seen on Yureka but the update seems to have fixed the issue. Since the device is 4G enabled you can access 4G connection if the bandwidth is available in the place you stay.
Others: Runs on Android 5.0.2 and is expected to receive Android 5.1 based on CM 12.1 very soon. There is 16GB internal storage of which around 11GB is available for users since the device has SD card slot storage is not an issue. No LED notification light and OTG support now the reason to skip these basic feature must be known to Yu.
PRO'S
- Price
- 2GB RAM
- Performance
- Build & Design
- Display
CON'S
- Buggy OS
- Avg Camera
- Avg Battery
- Heating
- No OTG
- NO LED notification
Bug's Fixed(after update)
- Better Audio Quality
- Keyboard Lag
- Slight Improvement in rear camera
- Double Tap functionality
Competition
- Redmi 2
- Lenovo A6000+
- Coolpad Dazel 1--> Review
