Reference Auto

Micromax is on a launching spree and soon after rolling out the Canvas Superphone A100 and A116, it has brought in the A116 HD phablet (a phone and a tablet), mainly to take on the likes of BlackBerry and Samsung, which have rolled out new handsets recently, but owing to the low pricing, the A116 may pip Samsung’s Grand in sales.

The Micromax A116 Canvas HD is propelled by MediaTek’s MT6589 1.2 GHz quad-core processor and can run on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). The A116 HD comes with a 2,100 mAh battery.

Micromax Canvas HD has a 5-inch HD IPS screen, which paves the way for HD resolution (1280x720) and has a colour depth of 16.7 million, which is commendable.

The smartphone has a slew of additional features like an 8-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and 4X zoom, which obviously could be Micromax’s USP as a handset with such a high resolution camera comes for above Rs 20,000.

There is also a VGA front camera. Other salient features of the smartphone include a 1 GB RAM and 4 GB internal storage, which can be expanded to 32 GB via a microSD card.

Micromax Canvas HD smartphone is likely to hit the market within a week. The company has kept the price under wraps but the buzz is that it could be priced below Rs 15,000.

Commenting on the launch, Deepak Mehrotra, CEO of Micromax, said, “At Micromax, we work hard to innovate and develop great technological experiences for our consumers. The launch of the Canvas HD marks our association with MediaTek to bring forth our first quad-core phone in this category. This will offer consumers a great user experience with latest features and enhanced functionality.”

But in after sales service, Samsung is far ahead and Micromax has to do a lot of catching up in order to beef up its service. It recently had many dissatisfied customers.

During unveiling of the so called Canvas HD phablet, Micromax claimed it imported around 1.98 lakh phablets to India in the October-December 2012 period.

In contrast, Micromax said the figure for Samsung stood at nearly 1.89 lakh Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II tablets in the same period. Accordingly, other handset makers imported around 38,000 phablets.

In comparison to the Samsung Grand, the Micromax handset could be Rs 5,000 cheaper. But comparing the two phablets, we notice that Samsung Galaxy Grand provides a better camera and a host of innovative features.

However, the Micromax Canvas HD offers high quality display and quad-core processor, which could wean away a string of potential Galaxy Note customers.

So with a price difference, which could be in the range of Rs 5,000, it may be advantage Micromax’s A116 Canvas HD over Samsung’s Grand phablet.