Yu Yureka Black

I believe that innovation on the design front has plateaued in the recent past, especially in the budget segment. Most smartphones in this bracket look like slabs of metal, with some marginal differences in the edges or the back here and there. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that the Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 (review) and others of its ilk look bad. I just feel like I have seen that same design being implemented by a host of other mobile phone manufacturers. Clearly, the budget segment is looking for a messiah to guide them and I firmly believe that the YU Yureka Black could be it. The smartphone has been constructed entirely out of metal and has a glossy finish which screams premium. The entire smartphone has been coated in deep black paint which is impeccable and the Yureka Black looks exactly like a compact version of the Apple iPhone 7 Plus’ Jet Black variant (review), which is saying a lot about the smartphone’s stunning design. Matter of fact, the black finish of the smartphone gives it a pseudo bezel-less appearance and the design feels all the more seamless too.

The YU Yureka Black comes with a pair of 13MP and 8MP sensors on the back and the front respectively, with each sensor being aided by a dedicated LED flash module. The 13MP primary camera comprises of a Sony IMX 258 imaging sensor, has an aperture of f/2.0 and comes with support for PDAF and full HD video recording at 30fps. While the front-facing sensor of the smartphone captured some really nice selfies, the performance of rear-camera was a bit of a downer. But before we get into that, let’s look at the camera app.

I was pleasantly surprised with how refined the software on the Yureka Black is. A disclaimer - the smartphone is still running the dated Android Marshmallow which is simply unacceptable this late into 2017, especially since Android O is just around the corner. On the bright side, the UI is mostly stock and besides a redesigned home screen, isn’t too flashy. There are some nifty features bundled with the UI too, which add to the functionality of the Yureka Black. For instance, pulling down the notification bar from the top left opens up a panel which can be used to draw a gesture and assign it to an app.

Much like most of its competitors, YU has outfitted the Yureka Black with a quad-core Snapdragon 430 processor which works in tandem with 4GB of RAM. As is expected from any handset in this price range, performance isn’t going to be the snappiest. However, the Yureka Black manages to hold its own when it comes to day-to-day tasks and I found little to no instances of lag when I was using the handset as my daily driver. Be it browsing the web, or switching between different social media apps like Twitter and Instagram, the Yureka Black performed admirably. The app load times were slightly high, especially on applications like Chrome and Snapchat which take up a lot of resources, but that isn't much of a surprise given the smartphone’s spec configuration. Moreover, the Yureka Black is perfectly capable of some casual gaming too and SuperCell’s Clash Royale played buttery smooth on the smartphone.