Micromax seems to have taken a cue from
Samsung by steadily launching a stream of new
phones for different market segments and prices.
One of the recent additions to their rapidly
growing portfolio is the Canvas 3D. Micromax is
not the first company to dabble in 3D
smartphones. HTC and LG have already tried
their hands at it but the high price and the lack
of 3D content was what killed them. The Canvas
3D on the other hand aims to offer similar
features but at less than half the price. Will the
A115 manage to popularise 3D phones or has
Micromax compromised too much for a bargain
basement price tag? Let’s find out.
Design and Build
The Canvas 3D looks and feels ginormous and not
in a good way. The handset reminds us of the
Canvas 2 A110 , which had shoddy aesthetics and
the A115 feels similar. The handset is quite thick
at 11mm and heavy too at 188g. The only positive
remark about the design is the matt finish for the
back and new chrome logo, which looks a lot
more presentable compared to their older
handsets. The buttons fall in place along either
side of the phone but lack a very good fit. The
tactile feel could have been better too. Upfront,
we have a 5-inch TFT display with Naked Eye 3D
technology. Basically, it functions using the
parallax barrier method for creating an effect of
depth without the need for special glasses. The
problem is that the clarity of neither the display
nor the viewing angles are very good, for both 2D
and 3D viewing. The HTC Evo 3D for instance
had a 4.3-inch display with a 540 x 960 resolution
(256ppi) so 3D content still appeared crisp and
relatively pixel-free. The A115 has a measly 480 x
800 (188ppi) resolution on an even larger display
so you can imagine the reduction in sharpness.
The A115 is a dual-SIM phone along with a
microSD card slot for expansion. The card slot
does not support hot-swap however. Despite the
gigantic proportions of the phone, we only have a
2000mAh battery, which feels too little.
Features
The Canvas 3D is powered by a MediaTek MT6577
SoC, the same chipset used in the Canvas 2 A110.
The CPU runs at 1GHz and is accompanied by
512MB of RAM. The OS of choice is Android Jelly
Bean 4.1.2, which runs smoothly without any
hiccups. You get the same light skinning we’ve
seen on all Micromax handsets along with some of
their own apps like M!Live, MZone+, etc.
Onboard storage is very less. Despite having a
4GB ROM, the actual usable memory is only
930MB.
Micromax has a special gallery app called 3D
Space which lets you access photos, games,
YouTube and videos in 3D. The gallery is heavily
‘inspired’ by LG’s implementation on the Optimus
3D. Native 3D content looks good but the sweet-
spot for viewing it properly without ruining your
eyesight is very limited so two people cannot
comfortably watch a 3D video together. The
screen also darkens quite a bit when the parallax
barrier kicks in to create a 3D effect. Unlike
active shutter glasses, where both eyes see a
complete frame, here one eye only sees half the
horizontal pixel count which cause loss in detail.
The chipset can easily handle a 3D 1080p movie
though and with very minor stutter, the video
plays just fine. You also have the option of
converting existing images to 3D with the press of
a button. The depth can be adjusted too. The
display is unable to produce a crisp 3D image due
to the low pixel count, which is a shame; given
this is the main selling point for the A115.
Media
The music player gets a slight facelift but
underneath, it’s the same Jelly Bean music
player. The quality of audio is strictly average
even with a good pair of earphones. The rear
speaker is quite loud so you won’t miss any of the
alerts even in a noisy place. Video playback
leaves a lot to be desired. First of all, the Canvas
3D can only handle up to 720p video playback
smoothly. MP4 files play well in the stock player
but AVI, MKV, etc. have trouble playing back
even in MX Player. The colours aren’t too vibrant
even in 2D mode and the viewing angles are not
great either.
Connectivity
The Micromax Canvas 3D only supports two bands
for 2G and just one for 3G, which means you
won’t be able to use this on all networks around
the world. Other connectivity features include
Wi-Fi ‘n’, Bluetooth v4.0 and USB plug-and-play
support. Other than the Play Store, Micromax also
bundles their M! Store and M!Zone for added
content. The bundled apps include some games
like TheDarkMan, Fruit Devil along with some
productivity apps like File Manager, M! Buddy and
HookUp.
Camera
The Canvas 3D gets a measly 5MP sensor on the
back and just a VGA sensor upfront. We also have
just a single camera sensor which means in order
to shoot in 3D, you need to capture once and then
move the camera towards the side for the second
image for the final 3D image. The software
automatically fixes the depth as long as you don’t
move too much while shooting. You can’t record
3D videos since there’s only one camera lens.
Image quality is strictly average for outdoor
photography but not so good indoors. Video
recording maxes out at 720p. Our unit had some
focusing issues in macro shots which is why most
of the images are blurred. We hope this is an
isolated case and if not, Micromax should issue an
update to fix this.
Battery Life
The 2000mAh battery managed to last our full 8-
hour loop test with about 20 per cent battery to
spare. This was with a SIM card, brightness turned
down to medium and Wi-Fi enabled.
Verdict and Price in India
The Canvas 3D A115 tries to be jack-of-all trades
but ends up being a master of none. Everything
about this handset feels half-baked and
unpolished and for an asking price of Rs 9,999,
feels very expensive. Today, you can buy Android
phones with IPS displays and quad-core chipsets
for this price. The 3D support is the only
differentiating factor here but it’s honestly not
worth it. Even if the price dips further, we
wouldn’t recommend the Canvas 3D.
