'DNA' digital: Micromax Superfone Canvas A100

We all love a little extra bang for buck in the stuff we buy. Every now and then, there comes along a product which raises the bar for what we consider ‘value for money’. Micromax’s A100 breaks all the conventions of a budget Android phone by offering great features at a bargain price.

The main attraction of the A100 is the massive 5-inch touchscreen which gives you plenty of screen real estate for browsing the web or catching up on your favourite flicks when travelling. Despite this screen size, the phone is surprisingly lightweight and not overly bulky as well, measuring just 11.9mm in depth.

The A100 is a dual SIM phone (GSM+GSM) with 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth v3 support. Micromax has come a long way since their first Android, and the A100 boasts a very good build quality and a modern design. Just like many budget phones, you get Android 4.0 out of the box along with a 1GHz CPU on board. The interface is not completely void of lags but for the most part, everything runs and functions smoothly, including apps.

You get about 2GB of internal memory along with a microSD card slot that’s expandable to 32GB. Media playback is dealt with the stock player itself and there’s support for just MP4 out of the box. The audio quality on the A100 is not too bad as long as a you have a good pair of in-ear headphones. Watching movies on this huge screen is especially fun and colour reproduction and viewing angles aren’t too bad either. The resolution of the screen is a little low, especially when you stretch it to this size but you won’t really notice it too much.

Micromax has fitted the A100 with a very decent camera as well. The 5MP shooter features auto-focus, along with an LED flash for capturing images in low-light conditions. The resulting images are above average with good amount of detail being captured in outdoor scenes. Under ambient light, there’s quite a bit of noise that creeps into the image but overall, it’s not too shabby at all, especially when you consider the price.

Coming to the battery life, this is one area that could do with some improvement. The A100 comes bundled with just a 2000mAh battery so when you pair it with a massive screen and an older SoC, the results aren’t very good. Under normal use, which involves EDGE, Wi-Fi, voice calls, a little music and gaming, the A100 will last you just about a day or perhaps even shorter if you’re on 3G.

However, when you consider the fact that the A100 retails for a little under Rs10,000, all these little niggles seem insignificant. For this price, you get a dual SIM phone, a massive touchscreen, ICS and a very decent camera which makes it a very good bargain if you’re willing to compromise a bit on battery life and the fact that the UI is not the smoothest of the lot.