Good Hardware Deigns @low price...
Swapnil Teltumbale (May 20, 2014)
on Gadgets 360
I purchased this phone in
stunning Black from another marketplace &
got it delivered on February 15. From
design & hardware perspective, this phone
is a class leader at it's price in most
aspects. But Xolo has ruined the Android
experience. Design & Hardware Pros :
Overall the phone feels to be of a much
higher price range * Zero Panel Gaps.
Brilliant non joint smooth metal casing
between front & rear panels. * Stunning
chrome finish embossing of the logo on the
rear. Premium colour finishing of the front
& rear panels. * Only phone at this budget
with Dual SIM 3G support which is not
even found in Sony Xperia C or Moto G.
Feature not mentioned in actual
specifications, found in the Network
settings on the phone. * Clever integration
of Earpiece(top) & mic(bottom) with dual
front speakers, closing hard to clean large
dust accumulation locations. * Better
Camera & Bright LED : LED compared with
A500s illuminates well at about 3m as a
functional emergency torch in case of a
night power outage. Compared with A500S
a shot in pitch dark *INTERIORS* does a
fair capture. Design & Hardware Cons :
Some slight niggles * Confusing fragile Sim
1 Mini, Sim 2 Micro & Micro SD slots
integrated together, without a push to
release option making it hard to release sim
cards. * No Magnetometer which is needed
for navigation. (Generally not found in this
price range. Xolo missed an ace) * No back
lighting of hard touch buttons. Xolo has
fudged up with the stock Android build of
A500S (version 4.2.2) in a very disgusting
manner for this phone, copying Samsung
(and indirectly Apple) interface. The settings
screen is all messed up, & if you are used
to stock android & never used crap
Samsung interface, then you will feel
miserable. It could easily run stock Android
4.3.1, giving Xolo another ace at this price
point but instead they have goofed up by
doing useless customizations. Software
Cons : (No software Pros, it is so bad) *
You can't sort apps on the installed apps in
the menu. You can do a custom ordering
on them, but once you install a new app,
the custom ordering will be lost leaving you
frustrated with all the effort you put. *
Removed option to disable incoming calls
from contacts you want to block. Forced to
install an app for this. * Cant use Google
Now voice calling as there is no way to
choose a default sim out of the two sims &
thus each time you use Google Now to call/
text, eventually you will have to use touch
again to choose the sim to use. * Cant
remove multiple calls or messages threads
simultaneously. You have to delete each
separately or delete all. No option to do
multi select like stock Android. * Cant see
multiple numbers of a contact when using
T9 smart typing to find name. Only first
number is callable.You have to go to
contacts listing to choose other numbers.
As mentioned in the next point even that is
screwed. * If you use custom contacts
display option from Android, the Xolo
customizations are a bummer. I like to
keep only a few contacts displayable for
WhatsApp on my phone, as I don't want to
cram my WhatsApp list with the large
amount of numbers I have. You can still
choose custom contacts listing from
different accounts, but what happens is
that, now when you want to call one of the
non displayed Google contacts with
multiple phone numbers as mentioned
above, they are not searchable by typing
any more. So you have to enable them for
listing, just for that brief period of time
you want to call them infrequently. *
Removed roaming indicator from
notification bar, thus leading to confusion
with sim identification. Xolo has removed
the option to rename or color code the
sims present in stock Android, instead
adding a tiny icon to identify the sim for
the incoming call. The sim cards just
register with the name of the service
provider by default & that can't be
changed. * Data usage monitor has been
completely removed. Navigation bar data
usage indicator is no longer linked to the
active data sim. You have to double check
the data sim being used with no direct
indicator present. * The Xolo Power App
just reads stock Android interface defaults ,
which have been disabled from Settings, &
repackaged as bloatware. Option to see
simple things like Battery % on navigation
bar have been removed & instead the app
has to be fired up to see the exact battery
level each time. Xolo has ruined the basic
phone features of Dual Sim Call/SMS
completely. These can possibly be
recuperated by installing additional apps,
but then why would you want to drain your
battery with those.
Overall, because of the
immensely superior design & hardware at
such a low price range, I would like to give 4 stars
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