Yu Televentures (a Micromax arm) is back to redefine flagship like they did earlier this year in Jan with their Yutopia ( which disappointed over a period of time owing to multiple hardware and software failures! ) . Tjis time they’re out with their Yunicorn which is a similar spec device but half the price of the Yutopia, let’s see how they achieved this and is it any good?
Design , Display & Hardware
Out of the box , this is one of the best looking Yu devices with the brushed Aluminium (very slippery! ) look at the back. Only colour available now is the Rush Gold and no updates on any other color availability. The front is still white though and isn’t all gold but it’s a unibody design. It’s not a slim device at 8.5mm and 172 gms but has good weight distribution. The design definitely looks “inspired” from the likes of Apple, Xiaomi & Oppo! The phone has a 5.5” full HD display but does not mention the ppi (looks like it’s becoming irrelevant for most manufacturers now ) .Screen is pretty bright & protected by Nippon Electric Glass and no legibility issues during bright sunlight. At the bottom on the front is the home button cum fingerprint reader which is a change in the design language from the Yutopia that had the fingerprint unlock button at the back. The top of the screen has the 5MP front cam and a notification LED .The right edge has the volume rocker and power button below it while the left edge has the hybrid dual SIM slot that can accept either a 2nd SIM or a Micro SD card upto 128GB.At the top is the 3.5mm headphone jack and the bottom has the Micro USB charging port flanked by grills on both sides though only one of them is a speaker.
The back has the 13MP camera with dual LED flash and the Yu branding at the bottom. The box contains Yu branded earphones , a power adaptor and cable. Hardware in the phone is overall a downgrade with the octa - core Mediatek Helio P10, 4GB RAM, 32GB ROM . USB OTG is supported while FM & NFC are missing. The 4000 mAh battery is non removable and definitely an improvement.
Software
The Yunicorn boots up with Android 5.1.1 nicknamed as “Android on Steroids” as it has a custom launcher and an upgraded software on the Around Yu home screen. It now supports new options like recharging your phone, DTH etc and adding money to Yu Wallet. There’s also a unique Doctor assistance on the phone for which they’ve teamed up with Lybrate. Software update is expected in a month but I don’t believe that , best part end of the year maybe. They promised the same with Yutopia which had Cyanogen and they’ve rolled out CM13 for most devices except the Yutopia . There are additional free cloud services for backing up your files and data .
Gaming & Multimedia
With a benchmark AnTuTu score of 37345 it again proves my theory of how useless these scores are in the real world. That kind of score is below what devices with 2GB RAM and 2014 flagships would score. It is clear when playing games like Mortal Kombat X, Dead Trigger there wasn’t an issue and no noticeable lag. Gaana is the default music player but there’s also Google Play Music but no FM Radio. The speaker is pretty loud and clear while music with the earphones isn’t bad either. The battery does a pretty good job of lasting 15 hrs and 20 mins with 4G, Youtube, Wi-Fi and long hours of gaming. Surprisingly no fast charger or quick charge support and you’ll have to wait almost 2 hrs to get from 0 to 100 on your battery!
Camera
The 13MP rear camera has Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) which is similar to OIS. It still doesn’t help if your camera isn’t clicking detailed photos and macros. Low light images are average at best and flash does very little to improve it. Focussing needs to improve and the overall camera app is sluggish just like it was on Yutopia which had a 21MP Sony sensor , still didn’t do justice. You have the usual Burst ,HDR, Panorama modes while video recording supports slow motion at 640fps . Again nothing to write home about. The front camera does a decent job of selfies in daylight and average at night.
Conclusion
No Quick charge, FM, NFC , Average camera and a bulky phone are not features you associate with a Flagship device. Yunicorn is competing with Moto G4 plus, Redmi Note 3 , Lenovo Z1 etc. which are better overall devices in the same price range. Look elsewhere if you want good bang for your bucks !
Rating- 2/5.
★★☆☆☆
Pritesh Khilnani
Yunicorn at CeX
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