Lava's Xolo was initially launched to
serve a more premium audience, with Lava itself taking care of the
budget market. It launched India's smartphone with an Intel SoC,
the Xolo X900, and has recently
been in the news for diverse products such as the Xolo Black
(Review | Pictures) and Xolo Chromebook,
which offer decent quality at competitive prices.
It's then
surprising that Xolo is pushing into the budget segment with the Rs. 6,499 Era 4K. This budget phone promises reliable performance and good battery life, thanks to its
4000mAh battery. We get into the details of the Xolo Era 4K in our
review.
Look and feel
When you're shopping for a smartphone
in the budget segment, you can't have very high expectations for aesthetics and build quality, and plastic is pretty much all that you will get. The Xolo Era 4K is understandably plastic in terms of material quality, and
feels like any other low-cost phone. It has a comfortable shape and
size, but isn't as easy to grip as we'd like, because of the smooth texture and
slight curve near the edges.
That said, it's still a simple
looking phone and is easy on the
eyes. It's available in two colours: white and blue. Although our white
review sample looked decent enough, we feel that the blue variant exudes
more sophistication and style. The sides are silver with a
dull finish. While the power and volume keys are on the right edge, the
3.5mm socket is at the top and the Micro-USB port is at the bottom.
The
front of the Era 4K is plain, with a 67.1 percent screen-to-body ratio. At the
top are the front camera, earpiece and proximity sensor, while the chin
is plain because of the use of on-screen Android buttons. The 5-inch HD IPS LCD display is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and is
just about satisfactory when it comes to brightness, colours and
sharpness. Although it won't thrill you greatly, it's
entirely acceptable in all ways for the price.
The back is
plain, with only the Xolo logo, speaker grille, rear camera and flash
visible. You can pop off the plastic panel to get to the Micro-SIM and
microSD slots. Fortunately, there are three separate slots, so you can have two SIMs as well as expandable
storage of up to 32GB. Both SIM slots support 4G connectivity, but only
one can run on 4G networks at a time.
Specifications and software
The Xolo Era 4K runs
on the MediaTek MT6735P SoC, with its four CPU cores clocked at
1GHz. It's a chip that we're used to seeing on budget devices, and is
known to offer decent entry-level performance. There's
also 2GB of RAM, 4G connectivity on both TDD Band 40
and FDD Band 3, and 8GB of internal storage, of which only about 4GB is
user-accessible.
Android 5.1 powers the phone, with the standard Google Now launcher. This will appeal to a lot of users, because of the
simplicity and ease of use that Google's stock launcher offers. There
are of course some minor changes in the settings and menus, but the
system is essentially a near-stock version of Android Lollipop.
The Settings menu
itself is simple, with no major additions apart from a 'Smart Features'
tab which allows you to use the Air Shuffle and Smart Wake features.
Air Shuffle lets users wave a hand over the proximity sensor to control navigation
of the phone, while Smart Wake uses gestures to wake the phone and
launch specific apps directly from sleep mode. While the latter works
fine, the former barely ever worked for us and was far too unreliable to bother with.
The rest of the interface is simple, although
unlike typical stock Android, there are far too many apps
pre-installed on the phone. They include Amazon, Citrus Cube, Gameloft
Game Hub, Clean Master, Hike, Hotstar, Office Suite, OLX, Opera Mini,
PayTM, Saavn and Fame, which is a lot of add-ons that you may or may
not want.
Fortunately, all of the apps can be uninstalled, which will
also free up a bit of space. Wallpapers, widgets and launcher settings
are easily accessed, and there is also a useful 'Super Power' mode which
shuts down all but basic phone functionality to stretch battery life.
On the whole, the phone is well equipped for beginners and experienced users
alike.
Camera
The Xolo Era 4K has an 8-megapixel primary
camera with LED flash, and a 5-megapixel front camera. The rear camera
records video at up to 720p, while the one in front can record video at
up to 480p. A handful of picture modes are present, including
multi-angle view, live photo, motion track and panorama. There is also
an HDR mode, as well as a QR scanner built into the app itself.
The
camera app appears a bit cluttered, but is easy to use. All
functions are easy to reach, and recording video is a one-step
procedure. The Settings menu gives you access to manual controls,
self-timer, resolution settings and more, and interestingly,
you also have the option to mute the audio while recording video, by disabling
the microphone. The main screen lets you control the flash, switch cameras,
toggle HDR, and choose quick-capture modes such as Smile and V-symbol. There's a lot
you can do with this phone's cameras for the price, and that's a good thing.
(Tap to see full-size image)Pictures
are bright and colourful, but suffer when it comes to detail.
Outdoor shots are incredibly vibrant for a phone in this
price range, but zooming in reveals the stark lack of actual detail.
Close-up shots also manage to reproduce colours admirably, but
zooming in will reveal noise and fuzziness. The front camera is just
about adequate for the occasional selfie, while low-light photography is
best avoided altogether because of the lack of detail and tendency to
get fuzzy.
(Tap to see full-size image)Performance
With its MT6735P SoC and 2GB of RAM, the
Xolo Era 4K is equipped for acceptable entry-level performance. The
software is efficient as well, and the system works well on the whole.
Most apps and games work comfortably, although there is some delay when
opening apps. Additionally, having too many apps open will slow the
phone down and cause lag. If you keep things light and simple,
the phone won't let you down when it comes to performance.
On
running our standard benchmark tests, we found that the Xolo Era 4K is strikingly
similar in performance to the Lava Pixel V2 (Review), with nearly identical scores. This isn't surprising, considering both
phones are in the same price bracket and come from the same stable. The
Era 4K returned scores of 8.6fps and 3708 in GFXBench's T-Rex On-Screen test and
3DMark Ice Storm respectively, and 24,199 and 8,990 in AnTuTu and
Quadrant.
The phone comfortably held on to 3G and 4G signals, but was a bit weak in maintaining stable Wi-Fi connections during our time with the device. Call quality was decent, and the speaker, while a bit
weak and soft, is acceptable for the price. Sound quality
through earphones is decent as well. The phone ran for 12 hours, 55
minutes in our video loop test, which is among the highest times we've
seen for a device in this price range. In ordinary use, the phone
would last well over a full day. The bundled 10W charger
is quick to top up the 4000mAh battery as well.
Verdict
The
Xolo Era 4K has a rather amusing name, since it doesn't have a 4K
screen, isn't the fourth Xolo Era, and apart from having four cores in
its SoC, we can't see that anything about it has to do with either a 4 or a K. That aside, the phone is
an interesting option for buyers looking for a budget phone. Rs. 6,499
gets you an inoffensive looking smartphone with dual-SIM support, 4G
capability on either SIM, expandable storage, and a near-stock version of
Android. Performance is acceptable for the price, and above all, battery
life is among the best we've seen in phone in this price segment.
There
are some let-downs though, notably when it comes to camera quality,
Wi-Fi stability and the fact that there is only 8GB of internal storage
on the phone, which is on the low side today considering that many other similarly
priced devices offer 16GB. However, if your needs are basic and you're looking for a phone that is easy and
user-friendly, the Xolo Era 4K will suit you just fine.
Disclosure: Gadgets 360 is the exclusive retail partner for the Xolo Era 4K.
Xolo Era 4K in pictures