Micromax, the 12th largest handset manufacturer in the world launches a new handset, The Canvas Music A88 exclusively aiming the music lovers. The attractive ads seen in the media may be enough to attract the customers to this new product. But, if you want to know whether it is worth enough to spend your hard earned money on it, please read this review.
Micromax provide the Canvas Music A88 smart phone with the additional things in the box including a JBL tempo on-ear headset, Micromax earphones, Micro USB cable 2-pin charger, 1800 mAh battery and a user manual.
Design and styling
Micromax Canvas A88 music phone with thickness of 11.3 inch and a weight of 136 gram is quite light to carry. Even though the glass front that is magnet for fingerprint gives an average look and so is difficult to clean, the back panel with a rubberized finish looks good as well as give a very good grip to hold. The handset that features a plastic body, rounded corners and faux metal on sides is available in pearl white and midnight black colors
Micromax didn’t try to make the A88 so big, but focused much on the correct positioning of the buttons for ensuring easier operation. For example, the power button that is positioned on the right hand side and the volume tracker on the left side as well as the 3.5 mm jack and the micro USB cum charger at the top intend the convenient use of customers. You can see a tiny microphone hole on the bottom. Beneath the rear cover there are two regular-sized SIM slots and a microSD card slots which is not hot swappable. In addition, A Micromax log is placed in the back panel to boost the overall look of the phone.
Display
The Micromax Canvas A88 music phone comes with a multi touch screen of 4.5 inch in size and 480×854 pixel dimensions. We can say the display of A88 that has a pixel density of 217 ppi is only average, while many other low cost phones with 5.4 inch screens provide 244 or higher pixel density. Moreover, the display is not bright enough to use in bright sunlight. The absence of ambient light sensor makes the device disable to adjust the brightness its own. Besides the poor brightness levels and sunlight legibility, its viewing angles are also so bad that you may have to tilt the phone while using it for playing games or any other similar functions. In short, the screen of Micromax Canvas music phone makes you disappointed while considering the price.
Multimedia features
Camera
Micromax Canvas A88 music phone possess a 5 megapixel autofocus rear camera with dual LEDs and geotagging. The device that provides the resolution of 640×480 ensures the frame rate of 30 per sec. You can also control a few settings that include ISO, exposure, hue and saturation. There are also some additional features like HDR, colour effects and white balance settings. A self-timer of up to 10 seconds is another remarkable feature of the camera.
The camera UI with a navigation bar on the left pane allows changing the mode including panorama, HDR smile shutter and more. But the resulting images with rampant noise may disappoint you. Even though the daylight images are good, the too bright dual flash may spoil the images at times. The 0.3 MP front camera with VGA quality helps you enjoy the video calling. As far as the video recording capabilities concerned, the camera can record videos of 720×1280 pixels that are of average quality. Besides a flash toggle, there is an option on the top to switch between the cameras. You can swipe it to left to see the previously shot images or videos.
Music
As the name suggests Micromax Canvas A88 music is a device made for music lovers. But, don’t expect the specialized music technology like HTC’s Beats Audio from such a low cost handset. However, the Micromax canvas music offers a 3.5 mm audio connector and free JBL headphones that can enhance your audio experience, even though the phone’s output is average. The headset, although its metal bands are too firm, has comfortable cups. Although the audio quality of the device is poor even with a good pair of headphones, the rear speaker is loud enough to hear any of the alerts even in a noise surrounding.The music player offers equalizer pre-sets along with Bass and Reverb controls.
The free accessibility to Micromax MLive with this phone makes you able to select from around 3 lakhs songs including Hindi, English, Punjabi and Gujarati songs. Micromax Canvas Music supports different audio and video features such as MP3, AMR, WMA, AAC, MIDI, WMV, WAV, AVI(MJPEG), MP4, 3GP, H.264 and H.263. Video playback leaves a lot to be desired. While MP4 files play well in the stock player, MKV, AVI etc have trouble playing back even in MX player. You can also listen to your favorite FM radio station in MicroMax Canvas A88 music phone with an option to record.
System
Micromax Canvas Music A88 comes with WiFi with hotspot functionality like all other low cost android phones. However, it also possesses other features like 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, 3.5 mm jack and micro USB 2.0. The device with a 512 MB of RAM and a 1.2 GHz dual-core MediaTek MT6577 SoC chipset coupled with PowerVR AGX 531 GPU runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.4.4 platform. Canvas Music also features 4 GB of internal storage (2GB user accessible), which is expandable up to 32 GB. The phone comes with a lot of the built-in apps like Fruit Devil, Hook Up, File Manager, M! Buddy, ToDo, The Darkman, M!Zone+ and M! Live. The device also uses gravity, proximity sensor. Micromax Canvas Music handles casual games like Temple Run2 and Angry Birds. The device is apt for mildly graphics intensive games. Using a task manager will help the users to clear its memories every now and then too. Otherwise, the phone will hang definitely.
Battery life
The 1800 mAh Li-on battery of Micromax Canvas A88 Music phone can claim to provide 260 hours of standby on 2G network and 5 hours of talk time. The tests give a disappointing result on its battery backup and you may have to recharge the phone twice in a day.
Advantages and Drawbacks
Pros
- Micromax Canvas Music offers designing and building quality
- Bundled JBL tempo headset is good for enjoying music
- It provides 4 GB memory out of which 503 MB for apps and 1.97 GB available for user
- It possesses gravity sensor, proximity sensor and a notification of LED
- It has a dual stand by SIM
Cons
- Micromax does not provide screen guard or cover in the box
- The camera and screen are disappointing
- Images are of poor quality
- IT faces viewing angle issues
- Battery performance is not impressive
Micromax Canvas Music A88 phone, which is available at Rs 8500 with a JBL headset worth Rs 1,500 in the market, may be able to impress the music lovers who search for an affordable phone. But it does not have any unique or attractive features compared to other handsets available in the same price.