Review: Intex Aqua i7 smartphone with 2 GB RAM

Aqua i7 is the costliest handset of Intex and comes with 2 GB RAM, 32 GB internal memory, a 13 megapixel rear camera, 5 megapixel front camera, and 1.5 GHz quad core processor. All this makes it one of the best handsets in the market. But like other handsets of Indian and Chinese manufacturers, the sword of suspicion hangs over Aqua i7 as well.

Thus we put the Intex Aqua i7 through all possible tests to check its mettle and here's what we found out about the smartphone.

Design

The most noticeable part of Intex Aqua i7 is its packaging. It comes in a huge box; even tablets do not come in such a big box. All the accessories like the headset and charger are neatly packed. Intex is also providing a flip cover with the phone. Both the default back cover and the flip cover have a shiny yet non-slippery surface. The body of the phone is thus not a fingerprint magnet and suits the Indian climate.

As far as design is concerned, Intex Aqua i7 is quite conventional with a volume rocker on the top left side, power button on the right, and micro USB on the top. The flip cover also comes with a small transparent cover that makes it possible to see notifications. There is a thin metal strip around its sides that further adds to its charm.

Overall it is a decent looking smartphone but it has no unique design feature as such.

Display

It comes with a 5 inch capacitive touchscreen with full HD resolution. The display is an IPS-LCD panel and as such provides decent viewing angles and good colour outputs. You can use it indoors in low brightness but in sunny areas you have to keep the brightness at maximum, which makes it just bright enough to see the contents.

The screen is a fingerprint magnet and attracts a lot of dust. I never encountered any problem with its touch input though. The screen of Aqua i7 supports full HD (1920 x 1080 pixel) resolution, which is really helpful while playing games and watching movies.

User interface and apps

This is another highlight of the Intex Aqua i7. The moment you switch it on, you will notice its unique theme called X Space, where things are designed like your drawing room. For instance, in the X Space, to listen to songs, you touch the iPod like icon; to watch videos you touch the TV icon and so on. There are a few other themes like Max, Simple, and Roma. In the Roma theme, icons are presented in a Roman way. Though Intex has tried a lot, the themes may not be liked by many. Thank god, then, that you can download other themes from Google Play Store or from the net.

Intex has also tried to alter Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean UI of Aqua i7. For instance, the settings page has been divided into Network, System, Security and Personal segments, which is simpler than the normal settings page of Android. In the notification bar, it has a special Optimization button that acts as a task manager - so there is no need to install a task manger; just open the notification bar and touch the button to clear memory.

The smartphone comes with NQ Mobile security and in its settings page too you will find elaborate security features like authority management, firewall, anti theft, and app lock. It also has an Intex Zone with sections like movies and games. The smartphone comes with auto call recorder preinstalled.

Processor performance

The Aqua i7 has a Mediatek 6589 Turbo quad core processor clocked at 1.5 GHz. It is supported by a PowerVR SGX 544MP graphics processing unit, 2 GB RAM and 32 GB internal memory. The PowerVR SGX has been hailed by experts for its high performance.

To test its mettle we also ran many benchmarks including the Epic Citadel, which is based on Unreal Engine 3 - a game engine used by many high end console games. The Aqua i7 ran Epic Citadel with ease and in its benchmark it even got High Performance. In the Antutu benchmark it got 721 and 3114 in 2D and 3D graphics, respectively, which is almost like that of HTC One X's 790 and 2985.

Moreover, its 2 GB RAM and 32 GB internal memory give it huge muscle to handle very high end games like Modern Combat 4, Blood and Glory etc. But the Mediatek 6589 is no match for Nvidia Tegra 3; it cannot run some games, such as Minion Rush.

Memory

As I said earlier, the Intex Aqua i7 comes with 32 GB internal memory, of which 4.17 GB is occupied by Android operating system, 3 GB is meant as flash memory for applications, while the rest is left for users. As a matter of fact 24.83 GB is sufficient for anyone. However, keep in mind that there is no expandable storage slot in Aqua i7.

Camera

There is a 13 megapixel rear camera and 5 megapixel front camera in the Intex Aqua i7. The rear camera is an auto focus unit but the front camera has a fixed focus. You can also record video using the front camera.

As far as our findings go, the rear camera is decent in good lighting conditions as well as in low light. The single LED flash does a good job as well. Below are a few pictures that we have clicked using the rear camera in the default setting. The front camera is decent for self portraits but an auto focus unit would have propelled the Aqua i7 over its competitors.

The camera application is quite easy to use: flash, options, and camera switch buttons are displayed prominently in the camera app. Using the options menu, you can start HDR, self timer, etc. There is a smart magic mode as well, which basically allows one to remove unwanted objects from the picture. To the extreme right, there are various effects that you can choose while taking a picture. While recording videos, you can change the options menu to change settings.

Curiously, in the still image section, you can zoom picture only using the on-screen menu, which, though, vanishes from the screen within 2-3 seconds. The volume rocker, which should have acted as a zoom in/out key acts as a camera key instead.

Battery

There is a 2000 mAh battery in the Intex Aqua i7. As per Intex, it provides 6-8 hours of talktime and 220 hours of standby, which is rather a vague statement. So we have put it through some testing.

As far as our finding goes, it provides almost 24 hours of normal use, like a few minutes of gaming, calling, and internet. For gaming, it provides around five hours of back up. Also, in one instance, I used the phone for clicking pictures and videos and the phone consumed 10 per cent charge in half an hour (full brightness).

But the most worrying factor is that it gets heated up very fast-on calling, camera use or gaming.

Connectivity

The Aqua i7 comes with two SIM slots. Notably, it has one micro SIM slot while the other slot is for a regular SIM. Besides, the smartphone has Bluetooth, WiFi, WiFi hotspot, micro USB, GPS andAGPS.

In the review unit, we faced problems with connectivity. For instance, call drops were severe. The review unit seemed to have a data connectivity bug as well, which shut down data connectivity - both WiFi and data - every now and then.

Curiously, the Intex Aqua i7 comes with support for HDMI devices like your TV, which makes it a unique device in the Rs 20,000 price range.

Conclusion

The Intex Aqua i7 is well armed with features while its price is very competitive. There are perhaps one or two smartphones in the market that would match it in terms of features, but none would be from MNC players. Intex also has a bit of an advantage over others since it is quite an old player in the market.

Having said that the Intex Aqua i7 has some chinks in its armour as cited above. It has connectivity issues, though the bug may be peculiar to the review unit and an update could solve it. Also, people who think 24.8 GB is not enough should stay away from this device as it has no micro SD card slot. The Mediatek processor and 2 GB RAM configuration is very good for most games found on Google Play Store but it cannot play all types of games like Tegra 3 can. Its battery back up is decent but not something that would blow up your mind. The phone also gets heated up too much during calls and while playing games.

Review-Intex Aqua i7 smartphone with 2 GB RAM Specifications
Network
Operating System	Android 4.2
Dimensions
Display	5 inch full HD
Input Method	Touchscreen
Processor	1.5 GHz Mediatek 6589 quad core
Memory	2 GB RAM,32 GB internal, no expandable storage
Connectivity	dual SIM, WiFi, Bluetooth, HDMI, micro USB
Multimedia	Supports all major audio file types
Camera	13 megapixel auto focus rear camera, 5 megapixel fixed focus front camera
GPS	yes with A-GPS
Additional features
Battery	2000 mAh
Warranty	1 year
Price	Rs 20,000

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Top 5 android smartphones below Rs 10,000 - 15 October 2013

The most popular feature rich devices for a low-budget, within Rs 10,000.

Budget smartphones offer bare minimum hardware specifications and features while high-end devices offer faster and better hardware and features. In recent times this gap has been bridged to a great extent. So much so that devices that fall under the Rs 10,000 price range also offer quad core processors and features, which only flagship devices tended to earlier give.

So to help our readers choose the best devices with a sub Rs 10,000 price tag here we present the top 5 sub Rs 10,000 android smartphones.

1. Xolo Q600 (MRP: Rs 7,500)

The era of single core and dual core smartphones is almost at its end and with manufacturers bringing in quad core devices at sweeter price points, we are definitely heading toward some exciting times. Well, the Xolo Q600 is currently the cheapest quad core processor powered android smartphone. But as with all things this humbly equipped android smartphone comes with killer looks in both black as well as in white.

Powered with android's latest 4.2 Jelly Bean operating system the Xolo Q600 features a 4.5 inch TFT 854 x 480 pixel display with a pixel density of 217 ppi. The smartphone is powered by a 1.2GHz quad core processor and Power VR SGX544 GPU aided with 512 MB RAM. For storage the Xolo Q600 comes packed with 4 GB internal storage, which can be further expanded to 32 GB via a micro SD card.

The smartphone has a 2,000 mAh battery, which is said to power up to 13.4 hours of talktime on 2G and a standby time of 333 hours.

There is a 5 megapixel rear camera that can record videos at 30 frames per second, and a VGAcamera in front for video chat. It is a dual-SIM smartphone with dual standby. Other connectivity options include 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS.

2. Sony Xperia E (MRP: Rs 8,000)

The list of Sony's android smartphone devices has been growing ever since the split between Sony and Ericsson took place, right from the cheapest ever Sony Xperia Tipo and Miro, Sony has maintained its quality and appeal across devices. The Sony Xperia E sports a 3.5 inch 320 x 480 pixel touchscreen display and is powered by a single core 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7227A processor. There is 512 MB RAM to supplement it and there is 4 GB of internal storage that can be further expanded up to 32 GB using micro SD cards.

The device gets a 1,500 mAh battery that can provide talktime of up to 6.3 hours, or a standby time of up to 530 hours. The Xperia E smartphone also gets a 3.2 megapixel rear camera with auto focus. Sony has revealed the Xperia E in both dual SIM and single SIM versions.

According to Sony the smartphone offers HD Voice, which makes phone calls clearer than on other devices, and there is a noise cancellation feature that filters out background noise.

3.Samsung Galaxy S Duos (MRP: Rs 8,700)

The Galaxy S Duos is a classic example of how well a budget device can offer users a premium look and feel. It's been quite a while since the Galaxy S duos was launched but till today this phone remains one of the popular devices that Android has seen. The Galaxy S Duos as its name suggests, is a dual SIM android smartphone powered with a 1 GHz Qualcomm snapdragon MSM 7227A processor running the older android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. But Samsung has rolled out android Jelly Bean 4.1 operating system upgrade for the device as well.

The 4 inch LCD display comes with 480 x 800 pixel resolution while the 1 GHz processor coupled with 768 MB RAM takes care of applications well. The device utilizes a slightly older but functional Adreno 200 graphics engine, which will be good enough for most tasks, but HD gaming will be one task where the device will lag.

The device comes with 4 GB of usable onboard storage while another 32 GB can be expanded using a standard micro SDHC card as well. The imaging is handled by a 5 megapixel auto focus camera that can sadly record VGA resolution videos only, but there is an LED flash for illumination in low light conditions. In the front there is also a VGA camera for video calling.

4. Micromax Canvas Doodle (MRP: Rs 9,500)

The Doodle from Micromax is a clear example of how well a stylus goes with a big screen device. Micromax has taken a good quad core processor powered android smartphone and has made it better by adding stylus functionality to it. Although it's not as refined as the Samsung Galaxy Note it is still worth every penny it costs.

The Canvas Doodle gets a 5.3 inch display with 540 x 960 pixel resolution and runs on android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean operating system. The phone gets a Qualcomm Snapdragon Play quad core processor running at 1.2 GHz, with 512 MB RAM. There is 4 GB storage on the device that is further expandable up to 32 GB with the help of micro SD cards.

The phone has an 8 megapixel rear camera and 2 megapixel front camera. The Doodle A111 comes with a complimentary flip cover as well and is powered by a 2100 mAh battery with a claimed 6.5 hours talk time.

5. Karbonn Titanium S5 (MRP: Rs 9,999)

The Karbonn Titanium S5 is a fully loaded android smartphone, or phablet as most call it these days, that offers a powerful set of hardware specifications at a pocket friendly price tag. The Karbonn Titanium range of devices looks grand and stands out in the crowd.

The device is a dual SIM phone with a 5 inch 540 x 960 pixel display. It runs on a 1.2 GHz quad core processor from MediaTek and to top it off it gets 1 GB RAM. The phone runs on the latest Android Jelly Bean OS version 4.1.2. and most likely it will get Jelly Bean 4.2 upgrade as well.

Titanium S5 has an 8 megapixel rear camera and a 2 megapixel front camera. It uses a 2000 mAh battery and connectivity features that include 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth.

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