Micromax Canvas 4 - Quad Core Awesomeness @ Affordable Price

Micromax, the Indian mobile maker has officially announced 'Canvas 4' - the phone it's been teasing us with for long time now. The company's seems to be quite series about the ability of Canvas 4 to take on the Indian markets and has put up advertisements all over the media - from Internet to television. It even began accepting pre-orders of the phone on June 28th and promised to launch the phone on July 8. The company's announced that the price of Canvas 4 in India will be Rs. 17,999. But the enthusiasts didn't bother to wait for the official launch and it's learnt that the phone got almost 11,500 pre-orders. So, is Micromax 4 worthy of its price? Should you really choose this phone from an array of options available in the markets? Let's find out.

Let's start with the specs that matter. The Canvas 4 comes loaded with Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean out of the box. This candy-bar phone offers 12.7 cm (across) IPS screen which also has a 5 MP front-facing camera. The screen offers a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. The IPS technology is a new display technology which stands for In-Plane Switching and it solves the limitations of regular LCDs which have slower response times & lower-quality color reproduction. Micromax says the screen offers color depth of 16.7 million colors. With weight at just 158 grams, the phone is quite handy and the overall dimensions 144.5 x 73 x 8.9 mm should make it easier to carry in your pockets. The phone will boast two colors viz. grey and white.


Those who really care about the hardware may note that the Canvas 4's CPU is based on MT 6589 which operates at a frequency of 1.2 GHz. There's 1GB of memory (RAM) and 16 GB of internal storage capacity. The phone comes equipped with regular sensors including the light sensor, proximity sensor and G-sensor. The rear camera offers an impressive resolution of 13 MP and it's got flash as well. The camera offers variety of shooting modes including 6+ simultaneous face detection - which could be really handy when clicking group photos.

The phone is a quad-band phone - and it will work in almost anywhere in the world. The official does not list wireless specifications; but we'd guess it's 802.11 b/g/n. For in & out file transfers, you can connect the phone to your Mac or PC with USB 3.0 cable (micro USB, 5-pin). As you'd expect with most of the Micromax phones, this phone has Dual SIM support. Again, we'd expect that the dual-SIM support would be for GSM+GSM. The entire setup is powered by 2000mAh battery.

Our take: Looking at the specs, there are only two disappointing features. First absence of full HD display and second, a 2000 mAh battery. We think Micromax decided to lower on the display and battery specifications just to keep the price within check. Had this phone offered a full HD display; it'd have been a steal deal! Being android, we've not expect much of battery life and be prepared to keep plug this phone into power point almost every night.

The company seems to be quite excited about the launch of this phone. Rahul Sharma, co-founder of Micromax says that they're raising the bar for 'affordable innovation'. Deepak Mehrotra, the CEO of the company says that Micromax is currently #2 in the smartphone markets in India; with about 17.1% market share (Q1, 2013).

We've already talked about the phone through separate <a href="https://www.crazyengineers.com/threads/canvas-4-is-coming-soon.68548">Canvas 4 is Coming Soon....</a>. Let us know your thoughts on this phone and whether you think the price of the phone is justified. For the same price-tag, what do you think are the better options available in Indian markets?