Micromax Canvas 5 E481 3GB RAM

Size: 5.2 InchResolution: Full HD (1080 x 1920 pixels)Display Type: IPS LCDPixel Density: 424 ppiThe 5.2-inch display of the Micromax Canvas 5 makes it an easy device to operate with one hand, while providing ample screen space to enjoy content nicely. The touchscreen is very responsive. Screen brightness won’t be an issue for you as long as you’re indoors. Colours just pop on the Canvas 5’s display and the texts and icons appear really crisp. However, the display looks washed out as soon as you step out into bright sunlight. If you do not find the default colour settings pleasing, there’s MiraVision, to let you customise the display picture quality and colours. You can choose between Standard, Vivid and User modes. The User mode gives you control over the contrast, saturation, picture brightness, sharpness and colour temperature. There’s also a preset option to improve contrast, called Dynamic Contrast. The mode does improve the colour quality dramatically. Overall, the Canvas 5’s is a decent display and content consumption is a delight on the phone, save for the issues with sunlight legibility.

Primary camera: 13 MPFlash: LED FlashSecondary camera: 5 MPSince smartphone makers realise how pictures play a crucial role in getting your Instagram followers count up and henceforth in establishing your awesome social life, they cram up a lot of megapixels in the camera sensor. However, that does not necessarily translate into the expected picture quality. This is the case with the Canvas 5’s camera as well. 13-megapixel is the standard and it is exactly what the phone sports. However, pictures taken with the Micromax Canvas 5 were a tad disappointing.The default camera app is pretty loaded. The viewfinder is flanked on the right with photo and video mode buttons. On the left you will find the regular set of option like camera settings, a bunch of shooting modes, flash options and front camera button. Shooting modes include a Pro mode which lets you manually tweak all the settings, HDR mode, Sport and Night mode. There’s also a DualView mode which lets you capture from the front and the primary cam all at once. A smaller window, which you can choose from a bunch of shapes, features the image shot from the other camera, while the background image comes from the shooter mode you’re already in.Be it long shots, macro shots or night shots, none of the images taken from the primary camera of the Micromax Canvas 5 can be described at sharp. However, in abundant lighting, the night images turned out usable. The flash works well in low-light conditions and doesn’t burn out the subject. The front camera on the Canvas 5 performs decently well though. 5 megapixels, the crazy beautification mode and the LED flash working together should be able to deliver Instagram-ready selfies.Here are a few pictures clicked from the Micromax Canvas 5’s primary camera (right click and open in new tab to view in full size).  Here’s a look at the front camera performance.   

Operating System: AndroidOS Version: 5.1, LollipopThe Canvas 5 ships with Android Lollipop v5.1 with Micromax’s custom skin running on top. As a result, you don’t get an app drawer and all the apps come scattered over a bunch of home screens. The Canvas 5 comes crazily loaded with pre installed apps like Scandid, Quikr, hike, Chaatz, Citrus Cube, hotstar, Amazon’s Kindle, Saavn, Snapdeal and Amazon, along with all apps from Google. The Micromax browser looks crowded with a great deal of ads and a bunch of download links to some apps. There’s nothing special about the software, apart from a few screen-off gestures. You can double tap to wake the phone from standby, and also launch the camera directly by drawing the letter ‘c’ on the screen. Drawing ‘m’ launches the music player and drawing ‘o’ turns on the flashlight. The UI is pretty simple and looks like what you’d find in any other smartphone. The only downside is the plethora of preloaded apps.

CPU:  Octa core, 1.3 GHz, MediaTek ...GPU: Mali-T720 MP3RAM: 3 GBMemory: 16 GB + Up to 64 GBSIM Slots: Dual SIM , GSM+GSMBattery: 2900 mAHWith 2GB of RAM fast becoming the standard on most smartphones (barring the entry-level ones), regular usage on any phone is smooth and stutter free. The engines can really only be tested when stressed however. We chose heavy games like Dead Trigger 2 and Riptide GP2 as the testing hurdles and the Micromax Canvas 5 came out with flying colours.Even on the maximum graphics quality, there were no jitters whatsoever. Performance was one of the most delightful things about the smartphone during the whole review period. The device used either one core at the highest clock frequency, which is 1.3GHz or a couple of cores clocked at 300MHz during regular usage, while the number jumped up to five or six during heavy browsing or game play. There was slight heating as well. While it might not get you worrying about the device, it was not easy to ignore either.As much as the processing capabilities of the Micromax Canvas 5 are impressive, the battery nullifies the experience. Although, the smartphone comes with a hefty battery for a 5-incher, the battery drains pretty fast. With mixed usage, the Canvas 5 somehow managed to last us through the day, but you will have to go running to look for a charger by evening if your treat yourself to long gaming or browsing sessions. On our standard battery test, which involves running a 720p video on loop, with brightness and volume set to 50 percent, till the battery drains completely from full to zero, we recorded a video playback time of eight hours, which is just about average.