The lower the price, the greater the chances of first-time smartphone buyers. With this intention, Micromax is launching mobile phones targeting small towns and villages and non-English speaking customers who may have only used voice and SMS services till now.
The company has priced the new Canvas Spark 3 at Rs 4,999. This price can be said to be good for those buyers who have never used a computing device before. Today we will review this new smartphone from Micromax and see if Canvas Spark 3 is really worth buying?
Look and design
Priced at Rs 5,000, the Canvas Spark 3 looks good. Unlike other low-cost devices, the phone doesn’t feel cheap or gimmicky. The front of the phone is plain and the camera and earpiece are placed on the top. The navigation buttons are onscreen. There is very little space on the left and right side of the screen, making the phone very easy to use with one hand.
The phone does not feel heavy at all in the hand and its curves help in holding and using it comfortably. There is a metallic band on the edge. There are power and volume buttons on the right side and a micro-USB port is provided at the bottom.
The rear panel made of plastic with a matte texture is removable and offers good grip. The rear panel has the camera and flash at the top with the Micromax logo below it. There is a large speaker grill at the bottom. There are two micro-SIM slots and a microSD slot under the rear cover. To replace the SIM card, you have to remove the battery.
When you buy the Canvas Spark 3, you will get a charger, USB cable, headset, screen protector and a small microfiber cloth to clean fingerprints and dust. Considering the price, this package of accessories can be called good.
Specification
Spreadtrum processor has been used in Canvas Spark 3. The phone has a quad-core processor running at 1.3 GHz. Mali-400MP2 GPU has been provided for graphics. Two micro-SIMs can be used simultaneously in the phone but it does not support 4G, due to which this phone seems a bit old as per today’s market.
The phone has 1GB of RAM and 8GB of inbuilt storage. However, only 4.76GB of space is available for user use while the rest of the space is already occupied by the device’s files. It’s been a while since we got a phone that showed the least space in all benchmarking apps and files. For storage, you will definitely need a memory card and the expandable storage is also just 32GB which is disappointing.
The phone has a 5.5 inch screen with 720×1280 pixel resolution which is one of its most special features. The rear camera of the phone is 8 megapixels while the front camera is 5 megapixels. However, the phone’s rear camera can only record 720 pixels of video while the front camera can only record 480 pixels of video.
For connectivity, there are features like Wi-Fi b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0. The phone lacks an ambient light sensor, so the brightness always has to be adjusted manually. The capacity of the removable battery provided in the phone is 2500 mAh.
Software
Micromax’s choice of software seems a bit odd. Keeping the first-time Android user in mind, the company has provided a very simple multi-language Indus Launcher but on the other hand, there are many complex apps and features that can confuse a non-tech-savvy user.
The phone runs Android 5.1 Lollipop and when you boot up, a custom Indus home screen shows seven large icons for basic functions. There is a second home screen on the left. Every time you exit an app, you will be brought back to the home screen, which means you have to go back multiple times to get back to the page you are on and the whole process is pretty slow.
The home screen widgets on the phone seem to be lumped together. The phone has an iOS-like dock with four large icons on the app drawer page, but neither this nor the home screen can be customized.
Indus Launcher settings allow you to change the language and other basic settings easily but the main Android settings icon is hidden. The Google settings icon is also visible along with other apps which is quite confusing. Fortunately, there is an option to switch to the stock AOSP launcher in Indus settings.
Just like the Micromax Unite 2 that was launched about two years ago, the Micromax Canvas Spark 3 also comes with local language support. However, the Canvas Spark 3 smartphone supports only 10 languages instead of 21. You can choose two primary languages and also toggle between them quickly.
Micromax has also pre-installed a lot of software, many of which are rarely used. The phone has an Indus App Store and an App Center. There is Micromax’s own storefront called M Games and M Line. Apart from this, there are many common apps and games like Amazon Shopping, OLX, Snapdeal, Hike, Quikr, Scandid, Opera Mini, Gaana, Clean Master, CM Security, CM Locker and M Travel. The good thing is that third-party apps can be removed to free up space.
Performance
There are several shortcomings in the phone. It takes a few seconds to exit an app and come back to the home screen. Many apps cause problems even while performing basic tasks like swiping from the photo gallery. This can also be due to the CM Security app which keeps running in the background all the time. While opening the pre-installed app Snapdeal, we got a warning message which talks about privacy leak and financial loss due to it.
The display of the phone is also of very low quality. Dark scenes in the video look fake and the viewing angle is quite poor. The sound quality is decent and can be said to be fine for games and video voice but not for music.
During benchmark tests, the Canvas Spark 3 hardware produced decent results.
The battery life of the phone is good and in our video loop test, the battery lasted for 7 hours and 13 minutes. The screen of the phone consumes the most battery and during normal use, the battery of the phone lasts for a full day.
The camera performance of the phone was better than what we expected. Focusing takes a little while and the shutter also has issues, so forget about taking quick shots. On the other hand, the camera gives good results in daylight. The colors in the pictures taken with the phone’s camera are good and the pictures do not look too artificial. The video quality recorded with the phone was a little poor as expected.
Our verdict
We should keep in mind that the potential market for the Canvas Spark 3 is people who have never used a smartphone or even a computer before. It should also be kept in mind that today such devices are available in the smartphone market for less than Rs 5,000. The reality is that there are many things that this phone cannot do. The performance of the phone is also quite weak.
The phone’s software may not be of much help to first-time smartphone users who have difficulty with English. The Micromax Canvas Spark 3 could have been a little better at this price point.
Users who are already used to using an Android phone will find the low-cost Micromax Canvas Spark 3 just fine. The phone has all the basic features and the camera is also fine.
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