Dual Core Smartphones on a Budget- Part I

Dual Core Smartphones on a Budget

What kind of smart phone you want to buy? As far as the industry goes no matter what phone you buy, the glory won’t last more than six months. So to stay up with the evolution you should be equipped with a smart phone which is having a descent CPU, so forget about Single core, let’s try to get the best dual core smart phone (1GHz in this case) available today and that too on a budget. And I have 3 worthy contenders lined up. First we have the best of Nokia and Windows Phone 8 with in great package, then Sami with a smart phone with smart compromises and then the our own Desi  Micromax trying to bully the other two with jaw dropping hard ware specs.

Let’s start with a small Comparison of three entry level dual core smartphones.

	Nokia Lumia 520	Micromax A110 Canvas 2	Samsung galaxy s Advance
Screen size	4” IPS	5” IPS	4” AMOLED
RAM	512 MB	512 MB	768 MB
On Board storage	8GB	2GB available	16 GB
Screen Resolution	480 x 800	480x854	480x 800
PPI	235	196	235
Blue Tooth	V3.0	V3.0	V3.0
Price (lowest possible J)	9500	9500	13500

 
Q1. Under the hood (20 Points)

All three of these devices have dual code processors. All three models rocks 1 GHz dual core. Simple look at the table shows that Samsung offers slightly higher 768 MB ram compared to the 512 provided by the others. But is just a boost to the ram capacity worth spending more? May be you will get more than just ram. And you do too. Sami throws competition away with the “Huge” 16GB on board storage where the closest competition is from the Nokia which offers just half of that. But 2GB on the Micromax is completely un-acceptable failL. Thankfully all of them can be upgraded up to 32 GB. Since we are on the hunt for the most appealing budget phone I have no interest in including a 32Gig SD card to the equation 😉 but still having an option for expansion is always welcome, if you are planning to keep it for the long run but for the canvas it’s a more of a life line compared to the other two.

 

Device
	Processor	RAM	Storage	Additional
Nokia Lumia 520	5	4	3	5
Micromax A110 Canvas 2	5	4	1	5
Samsung galaxy s Advance	5	5	5	5

Q2. Display (20 Points)

Both Samsung and Nokia opted for a reasonable 4” display but the Micromax on the other hand opted for a mammoth 5” screen. Smaller screen on option on the smartphone giants gave a reasonable pixel density of 235, where are the newbie with the giant screen had to settle with a less impressive 196. I’d say it’s a toss-up. If you want a large work area then you’d be happier with Micromax.  But still if you have 5” screen and can’t “Enjoy” HD videos on them, then what’s the user really? And yes seeing and enjoying the visual experience are two different perspectives.

One thing to note here is that you get an AMOLED screen with S advance. Which is truly awesome. I’ll take the AMOLED beauty over the IPS display on the Micromax simply because Sami offers much better experience. If you are not going to watch movies or videos on the NOKIA you will pleased with the IPS screen since the simple and flat windows 8 layout has managed to make it a bit more appealing than the MICROMAX. Here is where NOKIA surprises you, the 4” Screen Is creamed out with super sensitive touch which you can only find in the premium handsets like 920 or s4. I’ll definitely give more pints for that although you are not going to notice any significant change.

There were some issues with the touch response from Samsung and Micromax. Some of which are expected on extensive usage. Nokia how ever did not show any noticeable lags. I really enjoyed Fruit ninja on the device. The four figure Multi touch was amazingly smooth.  

Device
	PPI	Quality	Touch	Additional
Nokia Lumia 520	5	4	5	5
Micromax A110 Canvas 2	3	2	4	3
Samsung galaxy s Advance	5	5	4	3

  

Q3. Camera (15 Points)

At a budget price point it is not easy to get a good performance camera on your smart phone. In sheer numbers Micromax claims this filed clean compared to the others. But offering from Samsung feels much more complete and neat. Micromax features an 8 Megapixel primary shooter at the back which delivered respectable results compared to the others (Not to the other 8 Megapixel titans ruling the market). But the disappointing screen made the viewing experiencing a bit off putting. Samsung and Nokia on the other hand gives a fair 5 Megapixel primary camera. Nokia cam always produced a bit grainy result with noticeable amount of noise in the indoor condition and an overall washout output in bright and well lit conditions. All three cameras are not really good at low light conditions and the use of LED flash on Samsung overpowers the balance, the Dual LED on the Micromax produced decent results but in very low light conditions it completely ruins the details just like Samsung. Nokia doesn’t have a flash and is useless in this conditions! FailL.

As far as the secondary cam goes, Micromax provides a less impressive 0.3 Megapixel (VGA) camera, which is not very useful in any conditions. Samsung on the other hands provides a handy 1.3 Megapixel secondary camera making it a bit more suited for the intended purposeJ. Nokia 520 being the lowest priced offering doesn’t provide a primary camera, which makes me wonder why someone would want a Windows Phone and not use Skype😒.

So let’s see where we stand now
 

Device
	Camera	Quality		Additional
Nokia Lumia 520	3	3		0
Micromax A110 Canvas 2	5	4		1
Samsung galaxy s Advance	3	3		3

Still some remain view section two