1. Lenovo K4 Note: Lenovo is on fire in India, it is launching back to back hit and great value for money phones in the budget segme...
1. Lenovo K4 Note:
Lenovo is on fire in India, it is
launching back to back hit and great value for money phones in the
budget segment. After the Vibe P1 and Vibe S1, the Lenovo K4 Note is
their latest offering in the 15k price segment. Starting with the
design, it has completely plastic build like its predecessor K3 Note
but, it now packs a better looking design, it has got rounded corners,
curved back panel and there is chrome finish on all the edges and also
on a small unit on the back containing the camera and fingerprint
scanner.
It features a 5.5 inches Full HD display with good colour
reproduction and viewing angles, it is a very good display overall. The
Lenovo K4 Note is powered by the 1.3 GHz 64-bit Octa Core Mediatek
MT6753 Processor coupled with 3 GB RAM and Mali T720-MP3 GPU, it
delivers very good performance and handles gaming well. It comes
with Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box with Lenovo’s new Vibe UI 3.0
running on top. In the version 3.0, Lenovo has quite improved its Vibe
UI, it now comes with more features and also includes the option to
arrange your icons in an App drawer like Stock Android. The phone has a
13 MP rear camera with PDAF (Phase Detection Autofocus) and Dual-LED
flash and takes good pictures. The 5 MP front camera is also good.
Another important feature is the fingerprint scanner which can be used
to quickly unlock the phone even when the screen is turned off, it can
also be used to take pictures. It also comes with two front facing Dolby
Atmos speakers (placed above & below the screen) which have very
good sound quality.
The K4 Note is a Dual Sim phone, it also includes
NFC for additional connectivity. It has 16 GB internal storage which can
be expanded upto 128 GB with the help of a microSD card. It is backed
by a non-removable Li-Po 3300 mAh battery which gives a good battery
backup and easily lasts for a day. The K4 Note is priced at Rs. 11,998
and the company is also offering ANT VR headset (costs 1,299) bundled
with the K4 Note at just Rs. 12,499.
Overall, the Lenovo K4 Note
is a great complete package. It gives good performance as well as great
media experience at a very good price. It is undoubtedly the best
mobile under 15000 Rs. The Lenovo Vibe P1
priced at Rs. 15,998 can be another great choice from Lenovo, it packs a
huge 4900 mAh battery and has premium metallic design, good performance
and it also includes the fingerprint scanner.
2. Moto G Turbo Edition:
A great fact is that, Moto G has been
the most selling product across any category on any e-commerce platform
in the history of Indian e-commerce. Carrying forward that legacy,
Motorola has launched a new variant of the Moto G (3rd Gen) called
as Moto G Turbo Edition. The new Moto G Turbo Edition comes with the
same design of Moto G (3rd Gen) but comes with a more powerful octa core
processor, better Adreno 405 GPU (than Adreno 306 in Moto G3) and
TurboPower charging capability, rest all the features remain the same.
So let’s get into details of the new phone. It has a very simple design
from the front and a very classy curvy back which has a vertical strip
which houses the camera, LED flash and the Moto logo, this strip looks
very beautiful and adds uniqueness in the design of the phone. The phone
is very comfortable to hold in hand and offers good grip. It sports a 5
inches HD screen with 294 ppi pixel density which is decent. It is
powered by 1.5 GHz Snapdragon 615 Octa Core Processor coupled
with 2GB RAM, so those who loved Moto G (3rd Gen) but wanted more power
for gaming and multitasking can now rejoice. It runs on the latest
Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with stock Android UI, which also makes the
performance good. Great thing is that, it will always get the future
Android updates and that too faster than many flagship phones! For
the first two generation Moto G’s, camera was the weakest point, but
now it’s the strongest. It packs a 13 MP rear camera with f/2.0 aperture
lens, HDR & dual-LED flash. The 5 MP front camera comes with f/2.2
lens and a Field of view (FOV) of 72 degrees. Both the cameras are
really good. An icing on the cake is, it is water-resistant for upto 30
minutes, this IP67 certification is provided by no phone in the near
price range. The 2470 mAh battery gives a good battery life and with
TurboPower charging, it can be used for 6 hours from just 15 minutes of
charging, claims the company. It has 16 GB internal & upto 32 GB expandable storage, Dual Sim & 4G. Overall,
it is a very popular phone and gives a great user experience and
satisfaction and now when the Moto G comes with an Octa Core processor
it gives a pretty good performance as well. It is a great overall device
to buy. If you don’t have heavy usage the Moto G (3rd Gen) at Rs. 10,999 is a great choice as well.
3. Lenovo Vibe S1:
Surprised to see another Lenovo phone in
this list? The Lenovo Vibe P1 and Vibe S1 both come from Lenovo’s Vibe
series and are offered at the same price but they are completely
different from each other and are targeted towards different types of
users. So, listing both the phones separately was necessary. There are
two USP’s in the Vibe S1 – Design & Front camera. Starting with the
design of the Lenovo Vibe S1, it looks really beautiful and feels
premium, it has got metallic body and curved glass on the back (which
attracts fingerprints easily though!) and with its 5 inches screen and
7.8mm thickness it feels compact and comfortable in hands. It is offered
in Dark Blue & White color variants, in Dark Blue it looks more
premium & different. Design wise, it is one of the finest phone
around this price and feels much better than a typical 15-16k phone. The
Vibe S1 features a 13 MP rear camera with PDAF, dual-LED flash and has
decent picture quality but when it comes to the front, it boasts of
Dual Selfie cameras, one of 8 MP and other of 2 MP and both work
together. The 8 MP front camera comes with f/2.2 aperture & BSI
sensor and captures the selfies as usual whereas, the 2 MP front camera
captures the DOF (Dept of Field). Basically, it can differentiate
between the subject and background and once you click a selfie, you can
blur the background (with many creative effects) and it also allows you
to cut out the subject and change the background. Overall, it will be a
great fun experience for selfie lovers. A 1.7 GHz Mediatek MT6752 Octa
Core Processor paired with 3 GB RAM gives a good performance to the
phone. The 5 inches Full HD display with 441 ppi pixel density is very
good. Corning Gorilla Glass 3 covers front and rear glasses. A 2420 mAh
battery powers the phone, it doesn’t provide a great battery life but
will run throughout the day. Overall, the Lenovo Vibe S1 is a
premium compact phone with good performance & great features for
selfies lovers, can be a very good choice at this price.
4. Huawei Honor 5X:
Huawei has finally launched their much
awaited smartphone the Honor 5X in India. The Honor 5X packs a great
premium metallic design which feels good in hands as well as looks
beautiful & stylish. It features a 5.5 inches Full HD display with
401 ppi pixel density and has good display quality, the viewing angles
are also good. It is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 Octa Core
Processor out of which four cores are clocked at 1.5 GHz and the other
four are clocked at 1.2 GHz. The phone has got 2 GB of RAM and Adreno
405 GPU, the overall performance of the phone is good and smooth but it
may lag a little during heavy gaming. It sports a 13 MP rear and a 5 MP
front camera, both have good depth and colors. The Honor 5X features a
fingerprint scanner on the back below the camera, it is very fast and
works with good accuracy. The phone runs on Android v5.1 Lollipop with
Huawei’s EMUI 3.1 skin running on top. It is a dual sim smartphone
supporting 4G on both the slots. It comes with 16 GB internal storage
which is expandable upto 128 GB. It is backed by a non-removable Li-Ion
3000 mAh battery which gives average battery backup and will last for
around a day. Overall, the Huawei Honor 5X offers very good design, decent performance and impressive features like the fingerprint scanner. It is a good package at this price. If you need more power, you can also go with the Huawei Honor 6.
5. Micromax Canvas 5:
Micromax has recently launched the
flagship phone of its Canvas series, the Canvas 5. It looks beautiful
and comes with a metallic frame on the sides and a leather like textured
plastic back panel which is removable. The phone is slim and
comfortable to hold and has decent overall build quality. It sports a
5.2 inches Full HD display with 423 ppi pixel density and Corning
Gorilla Glass 3 protection, the display quality is very good. The Canvas
5 runs on the 1.3 GHz Mediatek MT6753 Octa Core Processor paired with 3
GB RAM and delivers good performance. It runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop
and the company has promised Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for the
phone. Micromax has installed lots of bloatware on the phone but most of
them can be uninstalled. It features a 13 MP rear and 5 MP front camera
and both come with a LED flash and deliver good picture quality. The
camera app also comes with lots of settings and choices to let you
customize your photos the way you want. It comes with a cool
‘Picture-in-Picture’ feature which clicks pictures with the front and
rear camera at the same time in a single image. It is a dual sim
smartphone with 4G support. The phone has 16 GB internal storage which
can be expanded upto 64 GB with the help of a microSD card. It is backed
by a non-removeable Li-Po 2900 mAh battery which delivers decent
battery backup. Overall, the Micromax Canvas 5 packs decent set of features at a very good price point, it can be another good buying choice.
6. Asus Zenfone 2 ZE551ML (2GB RAM):
The Zenfone 5 was a hit, looks like that
piece of success has given Asus the perfect sense of market demand. I
am saying this because the newly launched Asus Zenfone 2 series is
excellent and pretty much delivers everything that a user desires – Good
Performance, Camera, Battery Life, Design, Latest Android and an
overall good User Experience. Well, the Zenfone 2 is quite well-known
for its 4 GB RAM but it starts from 19,999 Rs. but at under 15k we have got the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML with 2GB RAM (details about other variants here).
It runs on Quad Core, 64-bit, 1.8 GHz Intel Atom Z3560 processor which
is very powerful. It sports a 5.5 inches Full HD display which is very
good and it is also protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The phone
has a 13 MP rear & 5 MP front camera, the picture quality of both
the cameras is very impressive. They are bright & colourful. It
allows FHD video recording & produces good quality videos. It also
has Dual-LED Flash and the camera app has many other features. The
phone runs on the Android v5.0 Lollipop with Asus’s ZenUI running on top
of it. It supports Dual Sim & 4G (LTE). It is good on storage and
has a good 3000 mAh battery with fast charging capability. When it comes
to design, the phone looks very good and more importantly it’s
different from other phones in the market. Overall, the Zenfone 2 at this price is a very good all round device and can be a good choice. The Asus Zenfone Selfie (2GB RAM) priced
at Rs 14,999 brings in a 13 MP front camera with Dual LED front flash!
It also comes with most of the power and features of the Zenfone
2 ZE551ML so, if you are a selfie lover you must go with the Zenfone
selfie at this price otherwise for most people the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML
will be the right choice. The Asus Zenfone 2 Laser (3GB RAM) at Rs 12,999 is another option from Asus but the Zenfone 2 ZE551ML is a better package despite its smaller 2 GB RAM.
7. Samsung Galaxy J7:
Samsung is very determined to get back
its share in the budget smartphone market. With the launch of the new
Galaxy J5 & J7, we now see a completely refreshed line-up of phones
spread across every price in the budget to mid-range segment. Among the Galaxy J5
and J7, the J7 packs better features and off-course higher price.
Design wise, the J7 looks good, it has got chromium edges on the side
and the plastic back with sort of matte finish, the build quality is
decent. It sports a 5.5 inches HD Super AMOLED display and although it’s
just 267 ppi pixel density, the Super AMOLED display is quite vibrant
& colourful, it will not disappoint. It runs on Samsung’s own 1.5
GHz Exynos 7580 Octa Core Processor coupled with 1.5 GB of RAM, the
phone actually has a good performance and it handles games well. Cameras
have been the strength of Samsung phones, the J7 packs a 13 MP rear
camera with f/1.9 aperture and the camera is very good. A great news for
selfie lovers, the 5 MP front camera of the phone also comes with a LED
flash and lots of tools which make it a very good phone for selfie
lovers. It runs on the latest Android 5.1 Lollipop with Samsung’s
Touchwiz UI on top of it. It has 16 GB internal storage which is
expandable upto whooping 128 GB’s. The phone supports Dual sim and 4G.
The 3000 mAh battery gives it a very good battery life. Overall,
the Galaxy J7 offers all the latest features and with a great
selfie camera it becomes a complete package with the trust of Samsung, a
very good buy at this price.
8. Xiaomi Mi 4i:
The Xiaomi Mi 4i is the Flagship phone of Xiaomi in its Indian portfolio. Xiaomi launched the phone globally at an event
in New Delhi, a first of its kind event for Xiaomi. The Mi 4i has a
7.8mm thickness and a unibody design with polycarbonate body, it also
has a soft touch matte finish with an anti-grease coating. Even though
it’s a plastic body, it looks and feels good. It runs on the 2nd
generation Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core 64-bit processor clocked at
1.7GHz. The Snapdragon 615 processor already has a good performance
and on top of it, the 2nd generation 615 processor used in this phone is
even better in terms of speed and performance. The phone also has a 2GB
LPDDR3 RAM. It sports a 5-inch Sharp/JDI Full HD display with 1920×1080
pixels resolution which turns out into a great 441 PPI pixel density,
the screen is protected with scratch resistant Corning OGS Glass. The
screen also offers better readability under direct sunlight. The Mi 4i
features a 13 MP rear and 5 MP front cameras, Xiaomi has used f/2.0
& f/1.8 aperture lenses respectively, which click better and cleaner
images. The phone also houses a dual-LED flash at the back. It is a
Dual Sim phone and supports 4G on both the Sim. It comes with two
internal storage options 16GB and 32GB however, it misses out on the
microSD slot, so buying the 32GB variant will be a much wiser decision.
It runs on MIUI 6 on Android 5.0 Lollipop. It has a 3120 mAh battery
with fast charging technology & other battery saving features. Overall,
the phone has a very good performance with one of the best displays in
this range, it just lacks the microSD slot, if it’s fine with you, it
can be another great choice under 15000 Rs. The Xiaomi Mi4 with Snapdragon 801 Processor and 3GB RAM is a performance powerhouse and is available at 14,999 Rs. for 16GB storage and 17,999 Rs. for 32GB storage, it can also be a good choice but it misses out on Dual Sim, microSD slot and 4G.
9. Gionee Elife S7:
This is another slim phone launched by
Gionee. The first thing you can notice when you get the phone in your
hands is that, it’s very slim and it feels premium. The Gionee Elife S7
is just 5.5 mm thick. The phone has a pretty good and strong build
quality, it comes with glass at the back like the Sony Flagship phones,
and the sides of the phone have metal linings. The phone not only looks
beautiful from outside but the Amigo 3.0 UI running on top of Android
Lollipop makes the phone beautiful from inside as well. It runs on
the Octa-core 1.7 GHz Mediatek MT6752 Processor coupled with 2 GB RAM.
It has very good performance and everything runs smoothly. It sports a
great 5.2 inches Super AMOLED display with Full HD resolution. The
display of the phone is very good with great viewing angles. It has 13
MP rear and 8 MP front camera and the picture quality of both the
cameras is good. The phone is very slim and at the same time the camera
unit doesn’t pops out from the back, it’s inline with the back and thus
the camera lens is prevented from additional scratches. It supports Dual
sim and it is also 4G capable. It has a good 2750 mAh battery. One
thing which can be a turn off for many is that it has only 16 GB of
internal storage which can’t be expanded. Overall, the phone has a great slim design and good performance and can be a good choice if 16 GB is enough for you.
10. Obi Worldphone SF1:
Obi Worldphone, founded by former Apple
CEO John Sculley has launched its first smartphone Obi Worldphone SF1 in
India after renaming its brand from Obi Mobiles to Obi Worldphone.
The Obi Worldphone SF1 stands out from the crowd due to its unique
‘floating glass display’ design. The company calls it floating display
because, the display of the smartphone pops out 0.2mm from the body of
the phone, while it definitely looks different, there is a mixed opinion
throughout the world about whether it looks good or bad & whether
it serves any purpose or it is just there to make the phone look
different. The build quality of the smartphone is good, the company has
used plastic in the body but the top and bottom edges are metallic. The
phone is 8.0mm thick but due to its unique design, it has a larger form
factor. The 5 inches display of the phone comes with Full HD resolution
and has decent but not the best quality. The phone runs on 1.5 GHz
Snapdragon 615 Processor and comes in 2 GB and 3 GB RAM options. It
delivers decent performance most of the times. The 2 GB RAM variant
comes with 16 GB internal storage and the 3 GB RAM variant comes with 32
GB internal storage, the phone supports microSD card upto 64 GB but it
uses the second sim slot. The phone has got 13 MP rear and 5 MP front
facing cameras and both have a little better than average image quality.
The phone’s camera app is powerful and allows you to change all the
camera settings manually. The phone runs on Android v5.0.2 Lollipop with
few tweaks and design changes from the company. The phone is backed by
a Non-removable 3000 mAh Li-Po battery with Quick Charging support. Overall,
the phone is only unique in terms of its design so, if you like the
design and want to flaunt it you can go with the phone otherwise, much
better phones are available at this price range.
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