Indian smartphone tycoon Micromax has recently launched their latest product Micromax Canvas Spark which is in many ways a very interesting device. First, it is the cheapest device today to provide Android 5.0 Lollipop. Secondly, it is also the cheapest handset offering a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protective cover on the front. These two things make the Spark an attractive handset in the current market scenario.
Yes, you can argue there’s still a lot more to a mobile than just the operating system or some protective covering. But the point is: we can’t expect a beauty of a device at Rs.4,999; this phone is something that gets the job done. Lollipop and Corning are just additional perks and advantages.
Design
The first impressions are always the last ones. Looking at the Micromax Canvas Spark, it’s safe to say that it is one of the best-looking handsets in this price range.The corners have been cut to keep the price low, but the commendable thing is that device doesn’t compromise on the ‘good looking’ aspect
Spark’s regular candy bar body is almost exclusively made of plastic. The front portion is occupied by big chunky bezels with Micromax deciding to give you physical non-backlit capacitive keys
The back panel is made of removable plastic with the slightest bit of matte finish to it. But that matte finish touch helps improve grip and comfort and gives it some kind of visual appeal.
The back portion has two micro-SIM card slots, a micro-SD card slot and a non-removable battery.
On the right edge, there is the volume rocker and the power button.The speaker vent is located at the lower end of the back panel.
The phone has also a LED notification light, Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for added protection and weighs just 134 grammes.
Display
Canvas Spark offers 4.7-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen display with a 540×960 pixels resolution that roughly translates to 234ppi.
Keeping the numbers aside, the display of the Spark is not one which ‘sparks’ confidence. Colours look a bit pale; there is an evident lack of brightness and Sunlight visibility is also a challenge for the device owing.
Software
The USP of the Canvas Spark is it runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop.
Micromax has kind of overloaded the Spark with as many as 15 additional apps and services, which they have termed as bloatware but these eat up unnecessary space makes the phone a little slow.
Performance
Canvas Spark is powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 CPU with Mali-400 GPU and 1GB RAM which is commendable at this price.
The Spark struggled a bit when several apps were active in the background, and there is a marked inconsistency while opening apps. The Spark is not a perfect device if you are going to play high-end graphics games but you can play some of the lighter games like Candy Crush Saga.
Micromax Spark comes with 8GB of internal storage of which about 4.94GB is available for use. The device supports the expandable memory of up to 32GB via micro-SD card.
The speaker vent on the Spark is placed on the back lower end, and the sound output quality is average.
Camera
The Canvas Spark features an 8MP rear camera with autofocus and LED flash. There’s also a 2MP front-facing camera.
Like the processor, the rear camera also gives you an inconsistent output on some occasions. Photos clicked in outdoor lighting conditions is fair and images clicked in indoor well-lit conditions are good. But images taken under low light were not encouraging, with noise being too evident to our liking.
The front camera can click decent selfies, good enough to fulfil your social media posting needs.
The rear camera can shoot 720p videos with bit noise.
Battery
The Micromax Canvas Spark comes with a non-removable battery with a capacity of 2,000mAh. According to the company the battery is rated to deliver up to 7 hours of 3G talk time and up to 335 hours of standby.
The Canvas Spark does heat up when pushed hard with gaming or lots of browsing.
Should you buy it?
The Canvas Spark is a mid-budget smartphone, therefore obviously it has limitations.
That said we could have lived with some of these limitations since we’re getting Lollipop out-of-the-box. If you’re a first timer looking to make an entry into the world of Android, this one should make more sense for you especially.
