Here's how Micromax is taking on rivals

A look at Canvas Nitro A310, and you could get a fair idea as to why Micromax’s growth is not surprising, says Manu Shankar/Rediff.com

When Micromax took over Samsung as the leading mobile supplier in the second quarter of 2014, it was sending out a message.

It had already changed the dynamics of smartphones in the country. It further strengthened its position when Micromax’s handset shipments share was 16.6 per cent as opposed to Samsung’s share of 14.4 per cent or that of Nokia, which was at the third position with a 10.9 per cent.

So what has Micromax done differently to leave the competitors behind?

Design and hardware

The moment you come across the Nitro A310 you would be impressed by its build quality.

Powered by an Octa-core processor, it has 2GB RAM and 8GB of internal storage; additionally it supports microSD card up to 32GB.

Boasting of a 5-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and a pixel density of about 294 PPI, the Nitro offers good sunlight legibility and it has oleophobic coating, which prevents fingerprint smudges on the display.

A 3.5mm audio piece is on top of the 5-megapixel front facing camera. Next to the front-facing camera is that LED notification light, which glows in either red or green colour.

Turn the phone around and you see leather-like finish, which though made of plastic, gives a nice sturdy look to the phone.

Weighing at about 157 grams, the Nitro A310 has a strong grip, which shows that Micromax has worked on the overall development of the phone.

The 13-megapixel rear camera with single LED flash ensures one click decent pictures, although it could have done better. It has a 2500mAh battery, slightly bigger than most other Micromax Canvas smartphones.

Software

Running Android 4.4, the Nitro A310, doesn’t have too many customisation and changes to the user interface, which we would otherwise see on Samsung smartphones.

But one unique thing however about Nitro A310 is the notification for missed calls, messages received or mail notification. It is something that users will quite enjoy as different colours indicate different notifications.

Camera

Well, the camera interface is a mixed bag as far as we are concerned.

While we were particularly impressed with the front camera, the rear camera was a bit of disappointment.

Nitro A310 uses a Sony IMX135 CMOS sensor with f/2.2 aperture, Largan 5P 28mm lens and Mircormax has added several new camera features to suit the users.

There are specifically four different modes that Nitro uses namely Front Back mode, Stable mode, Selfie mode, Refocus.

While the 5 megapixel camera works wonderfully, with really nice selfies, we found that the rear camera has a tendency to underexpose images.

While, it takes nice macro shots, there were discrepancies in colours while taking pictures in daylight.

Even though the LED flash does brighten up the scene as far as low-light images are concerned, there was lot of noise in pictures.

The video recording perhaps is the weakest link of the Nitro. It struggles to maintain sharp focus while shooting videos and captures footage that has lots of noise.

Performance and battery

It’s safe to say that Micromax Canvas Nitro smoothly handles usage quite efficiently. Powered by a 1.66 GHz Octa-Core MediaTek MT6592 processor, the Canvas Nitro did not lag a bit and multitasking was smooth.

Call quality is pretty good both indoors and outdoors.

With a big 2500 mAh battery, one easily gets an average talk time of 12 hours on heavy usage, which would include making calls, surfing on 3G, messaging and activity at various social networks. Light users would see it stretching till second day comfortably.

Conclusion

All in all it is a steal of a deal considering it is at Rs 12, 990. Micormax has put a lot of thought behind coming up with a product that feels good in hand, has good features and a decent camera, which is good for videos, but photos could have been better.

Some would argue that Moto G or Xiaomi has better features, but for an overall performance, the Micromax Canvas Nitro A310 definitely is an all-rounder of sorts.