Lava Iris 406q

The Lava Iris 406Q sports a 4-inch display with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. With a pixel density of 233ppi, the display is sharp enough with no visible pixelation. Colours tend to look washed out, but the device gives you a choice of standard, vivid and custom options to change the colour scheme. Automatic brightness doesn't seem to work most of the times, so it’s better to set the level yourself. Under sunlight, the display is legible, though you might have to struggle a bit.The screen accepts two-point multitouch and is responsive, although we did notice occasional lags while typing.

When it comes to the Lava Iris 406Q's camera performance, the entry-level pricing didn't help in getting our hopes up. We were disappointed with the fact that the camera is fixed-focus. The camera interface is slightly different from the stock Android app, but offers almost the same set of options. It allows you to take normal images, panorama, photos in continuous mode, HDR, and add various effects. The settings menu gives you a ton of options to adjust exposure, white balance, sharpness and ISO, among others.  In ample lighting conditions, images display satisfactory detail. But in indoors and low-light situations, the quality is very poor.The rear snapper is also capable of recording videos at 720p resolution. The VGA camera in the front is able to shoot images and videos in 640 x 480 (VGA) resolution and can be used for video calling. But selfies, a trending feature nowadays, don't really look too good.Here are a few images taken from the Iris 406Q (click on them to see them in full resolution).  

The smartphone is powered by Android Jelly Bean 4.3. Although the vendor has promised an upgrade to 4.4 KitKat, it’s yet to arrive. The Iris 406Q may not feature heavy customisations like other offerings, but it does sport a few differences when compared to stock Android UI. In fact, we were little surprised as these subtle, yet useful changes weren’t present in the brand’s premium Iris Pro range – the Iris Pro 20 and Iris Pro 30. The device sports a custom theme and also provides an option to change it (there are two more themes available). Though the default theme retains the standard Android icons, other two themes change them. The custom launcher isn’t too different from the stock one, but does feature some useful options like hiding apps or adding animations while scrolling through home screens.There’s a small change in the dialer interface as well, giving you an option upfront to call via a specific SIM. This comes very handy, as most dual-SIM phones require you to preselect the default calling SIM. There’s also an extremely useful option to take notes while on a call. The notification panel on the top and quick settings menu are same as on other ‘droids. There aren’t many preloaded apps on the device, except for OfficeSuite to view documents, Flashlight (accessible from quick settings as well) and WhatsApp.

There’s no doubt that Lava has packed strong hardware into the Iris 406Q for its asking price. It’s one of the very few devices in this price band powered by a Qualcomm SoC instead of MediaTek. It packs in a 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 200 chipset and a gigabyte of RAM for multitasking. The device performs well and there’s no sign of lag while navigating screens, opening and closing apps and even playing games. The integrated Adreno 302 GPU renders good graphics. Games like RipTide GP2 and SmashHit ran well, though there’s a noticeable lag when heavy graphics are being displayed. But the good news is that the handset doesn’t heat up while playing. For storage, the device offers 4GB internal memory, which is quite measly considering only 1.5GB is user-accessible and the rest is taken up by the operating system and other stuff. It goes without saying that if you’re a heavy gamer or install too many apps, the internal storage will fail to meet your requirements. The microSD card slot gives you an option to expand the storage further up to 32GB. Sadly, the device doesn’t support USB on-the-go.When it comes to connectivity, the Lava Iris 406Q offers standard options such as 3G (accepts regular-size SIM cards, but 3G is supported only on the first slot), Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and GPS. However, we faced afew issues with call reception, with callers not able to hear to our voice and several disturbances marring the experience. This could be an issue with our review unit, but it happened frequently.  The smartphone is driven by a 1,700mAh battery, and should give you a day’s backup if your usage is very basic. But if you’re using it heavily for watching movies, playing games or even navigating via GPS and 3G, the battery drains very quickly. When we ran our usual battery test of playing an HD video on loop at 50 percent brightness and volume, the Iris 406q resulted in an average output of around six hours. The smarphone comes preinstalled with the BatteryGuru app, which learns from your usage and optimises the battery life accordingly. However it remains in learning mode for a couple of days to understand your usage patterns when it comes to apps and connectivity options like Wi-Fi. Like many other battery saving apps, it automatically starts when the battery falls below a certain point, and can also change the sync interval of apps to improve efficiency, which means that you may not get push notifications instantly. This shouldn't be a concern, since you can manually control the apps and their sync intervals. Another useful feature is Charge Reminder, which will alert you to charge the device if the app feels that it can’t last until your usual charging time.

Dimensions 124 x 64.5 x 10.3 mm Display 4-inch Display resolution 800 x 480 pixel, 233 ppi Processor 1.2GHz quad-core RAM 1GB Primary camera 5-megapixel with LED flash Secondary camera VGA camera Internal memory 4GB External memory support microSD cards of up to 32GB Network support 2G / 3G (3G is supported in one slot only) Connectivity Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS Battery 1,700mAh Li-ion Operating system Android 4.3 Jelly Bean Photos by Pratik Vyas