Once again, Micromax is back with a flagship handset part of
it’s Canvas series of phones. A beautifully curved front glass
and leather touch back greet you as you pick up the phone.
First appearances indeed make this appear as a far higher end
handset than we’re used to from the company. Appearances
however can be quite deceptive so read on as we take a
deeper look at what makes the Micromax Canvas 5 tick in our
full review.
Micromax Canvas 5 specifications
5.2-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) IPS full lamination display with
2.5D arc glass, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection, 424ppi,
450 nits brightness
1.3GHz Octa-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6753 processor with
450MHz Mali-T720 GPU
3GB DDR3 RAM, 16GB internal memory, expandable
memory up to 64GB with microSD
Dual micro SIM (4G + 2G)
Android 5.1 (Lollipop), upgradable to Android 6.0
(Marshmallow)
13MP rear camera with LED Flash, Samsung 3M2 sensor,
PDAF
5MP front-facing camera with Flash
Dimensions: 148 x 73.6 x 8.5 mm; Weight: 143g
4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS
2900mAh battery with up to 10 hours of talk time and up to
275h of standby time
Design
Pick up the phone and you see the 2.5D glass front
beautifully curve around the edges and seamlessly meld into
the shell of the phone as it gently tapers over to the back
leading to a soft touch leather like material. Indeed, the full
front glass finish acts as a statement piece and completely
hides the display when it is switched off. Hiding behind the
inky blackness is a tack sharp 5.2 inch display. The phone
lacks any capacitive controls and opts for on screen controls
which maximize screen real estate.
Up above the display you will find usual range of sensors
including the proximity sensor. There is also 5 megapixel
front camera paired with a front facing flash. Over on the
right hand side lies the volume rocker and the power button
below it. The buttons lack significant depth and offer very
mushy tactile feedback. As you would expect the audio jack
and micro USB port lie at the top and bottom respectively.
Flip the phone over and you will notice leather like material
that clads the plastic rear panel. This panel is removable but
unfortunately the battery is not. The material offers good
resistance and makes the phone grippy to hold. Micromax
hasn’t used very high quality material and so we are a bit
concerned about how the material will fair with long term
usage. In laid towards the top is a shiny Micromax logo and
towards it’s left lies the camera module.
Software
In terms of software, the Micromax Canvas 5 is running
Android 5.1 with a custom interface layer. For the most part
there is nothing surprising here. The phone drops the app
drawer hierarchy of stock Android for a single layer. This
means that all your app icons will be placed directly on the
home screen.
We’re not quite fond of this iPhone like interface paradigm
and have voiced our concern about this over multiple reviews.
That said, this is quite a personal take and you can of course
install a third party launcher to tweak the experience.
The rest of the experience is a standard affair all the way
from the lockscreen to the notification panel and the settings
menu as well. A regular experience except for one issue and
unfortunately a big one at that. The phone ships with an
immense amount of bloat. We counted as many as 20
applications pre-installed which not just chomp on valuable
built in storage but also eat up system resources. Connect the
phone to the internet for the first time and you get
bombarded by a few dozen notifications from all the
preinstalled apps. While you can uninstall a majority of these
apps, we’re still not inclined to excuse Micromax for this.
Performance
Like most other mid range handsets, we’ve come to a point
where general performance is satisfactory across the board.
The Micromax Canvas 5 too lives up to that reputation and
leaves no reason to be discontent with day to day usability.
The phone has a 1.3GHz Octa-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6753
processor paired with a 450MHz Mali-T720 GPU. There’s also
3GB of DDR3 RAM thrown in for good measure that
guarantees that multitasking isn’t something you’ll have
reason to be concerned about. Gaming on the handset is
good enough for the most part, we did notice a few dropped
frames here and there when on-screen animation got hectic
in games like Dead Trigger but not enough to be a deal
breaker. Indeed, this performance is very similar to most of
the competition that packs specs that are similar or even
identical.
Display
A 5.2 inch Full HD panel can be found on the Micromax
Canvas 5 which we found to be reasonably good. The display
tends to be fairly bright and the IPS LCD screen is quite
visible even in bright sunlight though the reflective front
panel plays truant here.
A bigger issue that we faced was that the screen has a
strange cast all over it. Seen usually on AMOLED displays, it is
strange to see an IPS display with a purple tinge. This means
that color accuracy isn’t all that good which takes away from
what is otherwise a pretty decent display.
Camera
Equipped with a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front facing
camera, the hardware on the Micromax Canvas 5 seems to be
appropriate for the category. Unfortunately, software
optimization lets it down.There is overtly aggressive noise
reduction that leads to a loss of detail.
Even in bright day lit conditions, the camera tends to over
expose and leads to burn out highlights. Dynamic range on
the Canvas 5 is limited to say the least. You can also forget
about night time shots as the range of the LED flash was
woefully short though for objects placed close enough, it
could throttle down and capture a good shot.
We were a bit disappointed to notice how even in marginally
dim lit scenarios, the noise levels on the camera shot through
the roof. The camera also tends to induce a bit of lens flare.
The front facing camera faces the same issue of aggressive
noise reduction to the point of blurring out the skin but is
still a better camera than many others in this range. You can
check out the camera samples above to get a better idea of
the image quality but we weren’t particularly impressed with
the shots on close inspection.
Connectivity & Battery Life
Connectivity options on the handset are bog standard and
includes 4G LTE / 3G HSPA+, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0
and GPS. You get dual SIM card slots under the battery cover
as well as a micro SD card slot to boost the inbuilt 16GB of
storage. As we mentioned, there is a large amount of
bloatware on the phone which takes a toll on the built in
storage. On the Micromax Canvas 5, there is only about
8.5GB available which makes the microSD card more of a
necessity than an option. The phone also supports USB OTG
based storage expansion.
There is a 2900 mAh battery built into the handset which
ensures above average standby and screen on times. Our
usage resulted in a screen on time that averaged just below 5
hours which we feel is satisfactory. With extensive usage the
phone easily lasted us a full day and more.
Conclusion
There’s no doubt that Micromax has stepped up it’s game
when it comes to hardware design. While some might notice
that it looks suspiciously like a certain white-label handset,
you’ve got to give credit that the company is releasing
increasingly better built handsets at lucrative price points. The
performance too isn’t all that bad.
That said, it’s not all roses when it comes to the usage
experience. The software is riddled with bloat and the camera
proved to be rather disappointing. Micromax Canvas 5
available in Space Grey and Tan Brown colors is priced at Rs.
11,999 and we feel that the competition is providing a better
overall experience even though the design might not be as
attractive. We won’t completely write away the phone but
would recommend that prospective buyers should take a look
at phones like the Coolpad Note 3 or the Moto G as well
before investing in this device.
Pros
Hardware quality
Design
General performance
Cons
Camera
Purple tinge on display
