Xolo from Lava International is the first Indian brand to launch an NVIDIA Tegra 3 based Smartphone. Clearly targeted at the gaming audience it’s in the budget range but is a high-spec. phone for the masses, currently only available in India.
Design & Build:
It’s a good looking, clean and simple designed phone. The edge-to-edge screen gives it a rich look and the black matte back cover gives it a good finish and firm grip. The XOLO and Nvidia branding with the logo on the back look appealing and are definitely unique for a budget phone. Both Power and volume rocker are on the right side of the phone, which takes a little getting used to. The Micro-USB and 3.5mm jack are on the top.
Display & Specs:
The device sports a 4.7” IPS OGS (One Glass Solution) display with HD resolution. Contrast is good, colours look bright even from wide angles and doesn’t disappoint up even in the sunlight.
It boasts a 1.5Ghz Quad Core processor with a 12-Core ULP GeForce GPU. Has a 8MP Rear cam, 2MP front cam, 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage. Battery is your average 2000 mAh but it’s unsure how long it can handle the powerful & high end gaming this device supposedly supports but it has incorporated a special 5th Gen Core to save power.
UI & Apps:
It’s got 4.1.1 (Jellybean) out of the box, which is not a good idea by Xolo since they have older devices, and lower specs that run 4.1.2 out of the box. The UI looks Nexus-ish & veers towards behaving as Stock Android. Scrolling is smooth without any hint of lag. TegraZone has all apps & games made especially for the Tegra devices. Xolo Secure, Xolo Care & Xolo Switch are the other in-house apps.
Multimedia & Gaming:
The phone supports almost all formats which include, avi, MP4, 3gp, mov, and mkv video and MP3, MIDI, WAV, 3GPP, AAC, AAC+, WMA audio. The default video player is very basic but you have the ability to choose from a lot of popular AV players on the Play Store. 1080p Videos play smoothly on the phone thanks to the quad core processing power. It plays 3D games much better than your average Quad core phone thanks to the Nvidia Chipset. The frame rate and rendering however are not top-notch but are still definitely better than most devices out there. The TEGRA Zone has apps and games which are optimised for these kinds of phones and should definitely be checked out.
Camera:
The phone comes with an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash. It has the basic settings and the default Scene modes you get in stock Android. It does have a BSI sensor, which should result in better-lit pictures, but there’s no proof of that in the pictures since the low light images still appear dark. The front cam is a 2MP shooter. Video recording is pretty good since it supports 1080p recording but saved in 3gp format, the playback is not as expected.
Battery:
With a 2000 mAh battery that is just about enough to last half a day (12 hrs) on a single charge. If you’re gaming, making calls or watching videos expect it to last less than 6hrs even though you have a power saving core built in. But this is what Android phones have come to in terms of standard usable battery life 6-8 hrs, so nothing radical here.
Verdict:
For the price it’s good value for money. When it almost 40% cheaper than the Nexus 4, no other phone comes close in terms of specs and the kind of gaming you get here. Although the Tegra 3 is not the latest Tegra, for its price you get a good deal – a full HD phone that packs complete entertainment.
Pritesh Khilnani
XOLO T1000 at CeX
