The Unite 4 Pro was launched a few months ago and this is the phone we have reviewed. The smartphone is not just aimed at the budget segment customers but the company is trying to attract non-English speaking customers in India who can take advantage of the company’s customized OS.
At Rs 7,999, the market already has popular phones like Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus, Xiaomi Redmi 3S and Moto G4 Play. Is the unique language feature of Micromax Unite 4 Pro enough to make it a market leader? Let’s find out.
Micromax Unite 4 Pro design and build
Micromax seems to have got the formula right when it comes to designing smartphones as the Unite 4 Pro is a good looking phone. There is nothing groundbreaking in the design. To be honest, if it were not for the brand logo, it would look like any other phone from a Chinese company. The metal back panel gives it a slightly premium look, which is good.
The 5-inch IPS display has good colour reproduction and viewing angles. However, it easily gets fingerprints and other stains. Cleaning it frequently can be a hassle. The HD resolution is not bad for this screen size. The brightness is good and we did not face any problem in using the phone outdoors.
Space has been wasted at the bottom of the display, which is why it looks longer than expected. It seems like there should be capacitive buttons there, but the company has provided onscreen buttons.
The metal rear cover can be removed. Here you will see the SIM card and microSD card slot. However, the battery cannot be removed from the handset. You will have trouble removing the rear cover. It is a bit tricky. There is a fingerprint scanner on the back of the phone. Along with this, there are speakers and camera modules.
The Canvas Unite Pro comes with a 7.5W adapter, data cable and instruction manual. Overall, we liked the design and build of this device. The design and size make it easy to use with one hand.
Micromax Unite 4 Pro specifications and features
Micromax has used a MediaTek quad-core Spreadtrum (SC9832) chipset in the handset. Mali-400 GPU is integrated for graphics. To be honest, this is not a great processor. Android runs slow at times, which is also reflected in the benchmark test results. The results of AnTuTu and 3DMark Ice Storm tests are lower than the usual MediaTek chipsets.
The handset has 2GB RAM, 16GB storage, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, FM radio and USB OTG. Both SIM slots support 4G LTE. However, Voice over LTE feature is not available.
The most unique feature of Unite 4 Pro is its Indus OS 2.0 feature. This is a regional OS based on Android. Micromax has also used this OS in Canvas and Bolt series handsets. The new OS has support for a total of 12 regional languages. This is good for those who are not very comfortable with English.
The OS is designed with understanding. While some parts of the launcher and select apps like SMS are customized, everything else is stock Android. During the initial setup, you can choose your primary language and also your mother tongue. And you can easily swap between the two. It is not just limited to switching languages. Indus Swipe will translate and transliterate text from English to your mother tongue in the SMS app. This feature works only in the SMS app. However, to translate text into regional languages in other apps, you will have to use the Indus Keyboard.
Indus Reader is a text to speech converter platform. With its help, you will be able to listen to written text in 9 different languages. Indus Keyboard has native language word prediction and autocorrection feature. The good thing is that you can type your message in English and transliterate it before sending it. The translation from English to your preferred language will not always be perfect, but it is very useful for giving a quick response.
Another unique feature is the App Bazaar which shows you the apps in the language of your choice. With its help, you will also be able to buy the app. And the money will be added to the mobile bill. This feature will be liked by those users who do not want to use credit card to buy apps. Currently this feature works with Airtel, Idea and Vodafone.
Micromax Unite 4 Pro performance
The Unite 4 Pro is a good phone for general use. Its build quality is comfortable and it doesn’t heat up during use. The overall performance isn’t bad, but the chipset isn’t fully capable of multitasking. The phone does tend to lag at times. Apps take a little longer to load. For example, when we were setting up the fingerprint sensor, the phone refused to start the registration process because there were too many apps downloading in the background.
Talking about the fingerprint sensor, the fingerprint sensor is slow to respond and is not completely accurate either. We faced a few issues while using the phone. The phone played full-HD videos smoothly, but the audio quality was below average. The speaker is just loud enough to hear alerts. Nothing more than that. The audio quality was below average even with the earphones we bought from the market. The Gaana music streaming app is the default music player.
The 8-megapixel rear camera focuses quickly in daylight. The colors in the pictures are good. The app often sharpens the pictures. You will realize this when you zoom in on the pictures. The focusing speed decreases in low light. The lack of detail is clearly visible even in the pictures taken indoors. However, there is not much noise in the pictures.
It is possible to record videos of up to 1080 pixels with the rear camera. And 480 pixels with the 5 megapixel front camera. The quality of selfies was good in proper lighting. The camera app is basically similar to the Google Camera app. It is very easy to use. You will get features like HDR and Panorama.
The 3900mAh battery on the phone lasted 13 hours and 14 minutes in our video loop test. This is considered good. However, we expected more battery life considering the weak chipset. In normal use, the phone’s battery easily lasted a day. Charging is quite slow. The battery took at least 5 hours to fully charge.
Our verdict
The Micromax Unite 4 Pro is priced at Rs 7,999. However, this seems a bit high considering the overall performance of the phone. The phone does a good job in some aspects like battery life. The OS is something that users will love in any case. The design and build quality is good. The native language integration is great and is a defining feature of the phone.
The Unite 4 Pro is less powerful than expected in this price range. You will not get the best Android experience in it. Due to weak audio quality, slow fingerprint reader and average camera quality, we cannot recommend it to you.
If the price is reduced, then this phone can be considered for purchase. If the language support feature is not very important for you, then there are many affordable options available for you in the market from Micromax and other mobile manufacturers.
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