Micromax Evok Power

For Micromax to succeed, it was imperative that the company stood out from the herd of metal unibody smartphones and to some extent, the brand has achieved that feat. On the face of it, the smartphone does little to differentiate itself from the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (review). What’s interesting, however, is the presence of a rubberised band which covers all four sides of the Evok Power, giving the smartphone not just a distinctive character, but also acting as a bumper ensuring that the device remains intact even if you accidentally drop it. Having said that, I personally didn’t drop the phone so I can’t attest whether the bumper case works as was intended. Even though the smartphone has been constructed mostly out of plastic, it still has a substantial weight to it and feels sturdy in the hand. The back panel of the smartphone is removable which opens to give users access to two SIM card slots and a dedicated microSD card slot. Unfortunately, the battery is not removable.

If you thought that the bezels on the Evok Power were bad, then buckle up, because the software is nothing short of a train wreck. Although the Evok Power runs a near-stock version of Android Marshmallow, it comes loaded with bloatware. Fortunately, most of it can be deleted and that is the first thing that I did (as should you). Strangely enough, every time I ‘unlocked’ the smartphone with my fingerprint, the device didn’t take me to the home screen but instead diverted me to the lock screen. Why, you might ask? Well, besides showing the amount of RAM that’s being used and the current brightness of your display, the lock screen also displayed ads from various developers prompting me to install their apps. It was like an ad screen over my lock screen (Inception, anyone?). Thankfully, the ad screen was part of a pre-installed app dubbed Superb Cleaner and could be turned off relatively easily. However, since it comes with the smartphone from the get-go, many users might be led to believe that the ad screen is in fact, normal. The smartphone also suffers from poor touch responsiveness. On several occasions, it took me a second to get a feedback from the device as a consequence of my input.

A smartphone with a 20MP camera sounds good on paper and it might even click stunning pictures, but the pixel count is but a small cog in a big machine. There are a lot of other variables which work harmoniously together to output pictures which are rich in colours and details. On paper, the 8MP rear-facing sensor and the 5MP selfie-shooter of the Evok Power look really promising, considering the price of the device. Unfortunately, they don’t translate into good digital stills and there are several problems I faced with the Evok Power’s camera. But before we get into that, let’s look at the camera interface first.

Driving the smarts on the Evok Power is a quad-core MediaTek processor clocked at 1.25GHz which works in tandem with 2GB of RAM. Being a budget smartphone, I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by the Evok Power’s spec sheet. What surprised me, however, was the smartphone’s performance while running graphics-intensive games. Even though there were several instances when the smartphone lagged during day-to-day usage, gaming on the Evok Power was a completely different story. I didn’t come across any frame drops whilst playing Dead Trigger 2 on high settings. I did have to tone the settings down to medium to get playable frame rates on Asphalt 8 but overall, the gaming performance of the smartphone is solid.

The Micromax Evok Power isn’t a bad smartphone for Rs 7,000. It has a decent build, a decent display and decent performance. However, in a world where smartphone manufacturers are fighting tooth and nail to acquire buyers, decent isn’t going to cut it for Micromax. Especially when the Evok Power has to go up against the likes of Xiaomi Redmi 4A (review), which offers better cameras, smoother performance and similar battery life at a cheaper price point. Therefore, Micromax's attempt to woo the lazy consumer which only shops online just might end up backfiring on the company.