E-commerce giant Flipkart is getting into the handset business with its own lineup of affordable smartphones. Its first smartphone is called Billion Capture+ and it will be available on Flipkart.com at Rs10,999 (3GB RAM+32GB storage) and Rs 12,999 (4GB+64GB). At the current price point the smartphone is competing with the Xiaomi Mi A1 (Rs14,999).
E-commerce giant Flipkart is getting into the handset business with its own lineup of affordable smartphones. Its first smartphone is called Billion Capture+ and it will be available on Flipkart.com at Rs10,999 (3GB RAM+32GB storage) and Rs 12,999 (4GB+64GB). At the current price point the smartphone is competing with the Xiaomi Mi A1 (Rs14,999).
Design: Looks clunky, but manageable
The Capture+ has a metal body and clunky form factor. It is 8.5mm thick and weighs 176g. Despite the slightly thick design, it doesn’t feel unmanageable. Subtle improvements such as the slight curve on the back panel and the rounded spine improves grip quality and makes it comfortable to hold. The fingerprint sensor is placed on the back and is easily accessible. The other notable highlight is the dual camera setup. It is also one of the few budget smartphone to embrace the USB Type-C connector. The Mi A1 has a metal exterior too, but looks more stylish, slim (7.3mm) and weighs just 165g.
Display: Big and bright canvas
What adds to the phone’s size is the 5.5-inch screen and wide bezels around it. It has a 1,920×1,080p which puts it at par with some of the best affordable smartphones such as the Mi A1. This gives the screen a sharp and rich look and makes for an enjoyable movie playback experience. When compared to the Mi A1, it looks at par but has a slight yellow tint in the screen. There are no display customisation options that are common in smartphones with custom UIs these days.
Software: Clean Android experience
The lack of these customisations can be attributed to the near stock Android interface. Capture+ runs Android 7.1 with a bare bone stock user interface (UI). Flipkart has tied up with Indian phonemaker Smartron to offer some of its apps such as camera, photo, FM Radio and Tronx (offers unlimited cloud storage). What separates it from the stock Android interface of Mi A1 is that has a got the circular app drawer icon seen in Google launcher and older version of Android.
Also, the Mi A1 is part of Google’s Android One program and is likely to receive all Google updates for two years. It also offers unlimited storage for original quality images on Google Drive.
Performance: Steady with most tasks
The Capture+ on Qualcomm’s popular Snapdragon 625 octa-core processor with up to 4GB RAM. This makes it one of the few smartphones in the budget segment after the Redmi Note 4, Mi A1 and Asus ZenFone 3 which run on the 14nm processor.
There is barely any difference between the Capture+ and the MI A1 when it comes to performance. It felt smooth, apps opened faster, and we didn’t notice any sluggishness creep in with multi-tasking. It was also able to handle new games such as Shadow Fight 3 and PES 2018 without feeling stifled at any point.
The phone packs in a 3,500mAh battery which is more than the Mi A1 (3,080mAh), but we didn’t notice any major difference in term of performance. On modest use we got a whole day’s backup out of it on a single charge. The 64GB variant offers ample space for photos and movies. One can expand it to up to 128GB via microSD card. It comes with a hybrid SIM tray so you can’t install both SIM and microSD cards simultaneously.
Camera: Impresses with colour and clarity
The Flipkart smartphone comes with two 13-megapixel primary cameras with RGB sensor in one and monochrome sensor in the other. The latter also comes in handy in the portrait mode by allowing users to enhance the depth effect in their photos. In terms of performance, the camera impresses with its clarity and detailing, especially in the close-up shots. Daylight shots look much sharper and richer than the shots captured by the Mi A1’s dual 12-megapixel cameras. The only advantage of the Mi A1’s camera is the 2x optical zoom in one of the cameras which allows for better landscape shots with more detailing. Low-light shots look well-lit but suffers from the same lack of clarity seen in the Mi A1.
For selfie enthusiasts, Capture+ has an 8-megapixel front camera which can take clear-looking shots if the lighting is good.
Verdict
Billion Capture+ is one of the competent new launches in the affordable segment. Overall, it is not better than the Mi A1 and instead matches it in terms of performance at most times, but there are subtle benefits that you get out of it such as the slightly lower price and better camera. The Mi A1 looks and more stylish and comes with the assurance of timely Google updates for two years.
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