Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 boasts of a sturdy build and good performance
With its Aluminum build, the Micromax Canvas Turbo looks like a premium device. The front is the same as any other Micromax smartphone with the standard three capacitive buttons housed below the display. The rear of the smartphone has an aluminum unibody design, which means that you don’t have access to the battery. The smartphone also doesn’t house a microSD card slot.u00a0
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The rear has a dark blue finish that we really liked. The smartphone has two SIM card trays on the left. It has the same pin mechanic to open as we have seen on the iPhone 5, Nexus 4 and many more.
The Micromax specific apps on the smartphone includes M!Live gives you access to local Indian content such as ringtones, wallpapers and more and M!Unlock that gives access to the ‘blow or shake’ to unlock feature, one that was introduced with the Canvas 4.
With the Canvas Turbo, Micromax has introduced a feature called ifloat. The app gives you the ability to easily access the most frequently used apps from anywhere on the device. No need to come back to the home screen or the apps listing page. The ifloat apps gives you ‘pop out’ apps, something we have seen on the LG’s smartphone skin and on the Asus Padfone. For example, if you are on a call and want to do other work on your smartphone, you will have a pop up present that will give you access to controls such as hanging up, loudspeaker, dialer pad, mute and more. Same thing for SMS, pop up browser and the video player. The pop out video player however has crashed on us quite a few times on the smartphone.
The display of the Canvas Turbo, at full brightness is very vibrant. The 5-inch full HD display is a treat to consume multimedia content on. We saw the standard array of videos on the device ranging from MKV to MP4 and AVI. The videos were plagued with the same problem that we have with the MediaTek chipset. You have the MKV files where only the video runs and the audio isn’t recognised. Surprisingly, the native video player crashed when we ran AVI files on it and that’s a bummer. We have seen the same problem occur on the Canvas Doodle 2.
The keyboard on the smartphone is stock Android and there is enough display real estate for you to have a comfortable typing experience. Browsing the Internet, reading books, etc. all was a pleasant experience. Games such as Angry Birds, Temple Run 2 and more ran quite well with heavy games such as Dead Trigger stuttering at times.
If you have a budget of R20,000 you are spoiled for choices as far as options are concerned. You have the Gionee E-Life E6 with similar specifications and a very attractive design. You have the Xolo Q1000S that is a powerhouse performer. You have the Lenovo P780 that showcases a 4000mAh battery. All of them run on the MediaTek chipset and try to add a few unique features to distinguish themselves. The Canvas Turbo does the same. It has a good build, gorgeous display and is a good package deal. On the down side, the native video player is buggy and Real Racing 3 refused to run.
Pros
>> Aluminum build
>> Interesting preloaded apps
>> Vibrant display for consuming multimedia content
Cons
>> Native video player is buggy
>> Battery life could have been better
Specifications
Processor: Quad-core 1.5GHz processor
RAM: 2GB RAM
DISPLAY: 5.0-inch IPS LCD display (1920 x 1080 pixels)
Battery: 2020mAh
OS: Android 4.2
CONNECTIVITY: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
CAMERA: 13.0MP rear camera and 5.0MP video call camera
In-BUILT MEMORY: 16GB
Price: Rs 19,990u00a0