Half the Chinese phones around are beginning to look identical these days. The immediate thing that strikes me as I look at Micromax's Yu Yunicorn smartphone is that it looks almost identical to the recently launched Meizu M3 Note. Sure, there are minor differences, but one could easily confuse the two.
No matter. The Yu Yunicorn turns out to be a pretty good phone overall.
Budget PremiumThere was a time when metal was the domain of top end phones that cost well over Rs. 30,000. But now you'll see plastic becoming a bit of a rarity with phones that hover around the Rs 12,000 category. Aluminium is now getting more common. And so it is with the Yunicorn, whose brushed metal back panel (non removable) is really quite classy looking, specially in the pale gold colour that I found myself checking out. From the front it may look like most other phones, but the back is more than good enough for me.
The phone is also narrow enough to hold well in the hand, despite being the usual 5.5-inch device. It costs Rs. 12,999 to begin with but will climb to Rs 13,999 a month down the line, so now might be a good time to grab it.
Clean On The InsideYu Televentures has done the smart thing by not overloading the interface of the Yunicorn with bells and whistles and unnecessary apps. They also haven't removed the app drawer that Android users are accustomed to and don't want to see banished in an attempt to look like the iPhone. The result is a clean look once you get into the phone and it's a relief.
It also means the device works fast and smooth and doesn't give you that overburdened feel right from the start. The Yunicorn runs on Android Lollipop, and while it's a pity it's not on Marshmallow, it's still a good performer.
Services With A SwipeA swipe right on the Home screen opens up another smart thing Yu is doing with its lineup of phones. It's called Around Yu. Putting in shortcuts to various services and things to buy. You have cricket news, food, cabs, flights, hotels, trains, shopping and recharging your phone. This is interesting because of how quick it is to get to these things without having to download separate apps for each area. Apparently more categories and services will be added soon enough.
A Good ShowThe Yunicorn has mid-range specs, but everything works pretty well. The 1920x1080p is pretty nice and has a feature called MiraVision that lets users control dynamic contrast, colour saturation, picture brightness, sharpness, temperature etc for photos and videos. This makes the display even nicer and the phone more of a bargain for its price.
The Yunicorn runs on a Mediatek Helio P10 processor, 4GB RAM with 32GB internal memory with cloud storage. There's a fingerprint scanner (on the front), which works pretty well and a 4,000 mAh battery which also performs well. There's a 13MP rear camera and 5MP front camera.
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
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