Micromax YU Yuphoria review: A great looking smartphone for under 10K

We’ll admit it, we broadly dig the brand philosophy of YU. It’s a rare attempt to build an Indian smartphone brand with a certain ‘cool quotient’. A year or so ago, most customers bought inexpensive phones because they were, well, inexpensive. Across price points, price is no longer the only driver – whether it’s Xiaomi or OnePlus, customers are seeking to embrace a brand because it makes a deeper connection. Whether it’s the sales review meeting or the pub, customers want to proudly show off their devices even if they didn’t break the bank to acquire them. The dual-SIM Yuphoria is the second chapter in the YU story and the brand name was chosen through a mighty cool crowd-sourcing exercise. It joins an intense battle brewing at the bottom end of the price pyramid for Android supremacy. Does it bring enough to this fight?

For a phone with a Rs 6,999 price tag, the Yuphoria is rather well designed. If there’s a slight sense of déjà-vu it’s because the plastic back is reminiscent of the Lumia 830’s polycarbonate shell. Whether it’s the speaker perforations (above the YU logo) at the bottom or the large, accentuated camera lens on top, the similarities are not difficult to miss. The entire rim has a metal finish – champagne gold in the case of our review unit (that complements the white back). We like the black highlights on the top and bottom of the rim – for the micro-USB slot and the standard 3.5mm headphone socket. At 143g it’s almost the perfect heft for a 5-inch device and the Corning 3 glass protection is a bonus at this price point. With a 66.3% ‘screen to body ratio’ there is obviously a lot of wasted real estate, and yet the Yuphoria is more pocketable, less unwieldy compared to its predecessor – the 5.5-inch Yureka.

The IPS LCD 5-inch screen (1280x720p) on the device crams in 294 pixels per inch (PPI). The results are surprisingly good, the display is one area where the Yuphoria clearly punches above its weight. It’s the slightly tinny sound quality on the rear speaker that lets its down somewhat. The Yuphoria’s 8MP primary shooter comes with some nifty tweaks – a menu option allows you to convert the device’s power button into a power shutter. It’s not quite a camera hotkey but reduces the incidence of shakes while you are clicking images.

The camera produces acceptable results with minimal noise in ambient, bright outdoor conditions. Not surprisingly, low-light photography is a challenge. We also experienced an occasional bug that kept ‘force closing’ the camera every time we tried to access the camera settings menu. The 5MP front cam is ‘selfie-proof’ with an 86-degree wide-angle lens.

The Yuphoria boasts a 1.2GHz quad-core 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 under its hood. There’s a generous (for this price point) 2GB of RAM that gives this device some decent firepower. The device clocked an acceptable 23331 on Our AnTuTu Benchmark scores – in the same league as the Xiaomi Mi 2 and the Zenfone 5; the corresponding PC Mark (Work performance) score was 3233. Multi-tasking was smooth while the Cyanogen OS (OS 12) gives the device an extra spring in its step. While it resides over the Android 5.0 (Lollipop) build, Cyanogen offers a great degree of customisation, whether it’s cool themes or skins. The colours and icons are vibrant, breaking away from the Android mould somewhat. YUniverse, the device’s custom browser, is essentially Opera in disguise, bringing some of the cool Opera features like ‘Speed Dial’. The device packs 16GB of onboard memory with a Micro SD slot (up to 32GB). The 2330 mAh battery is fairly robust; it should comfortably last a whole day even with slightly heavy usage.

The YU Yuphoria is certainly not short on ‘cool quotient’. We like the form factor and the overall build quality, while the spec sheet delivers serious value for its price tag. If you are willing to ignore some of the inherent bugs and disappointing low light photography, the Yuphoria is one of the better sub Rs 10,000 Android devices out there. You might not be ready to play god (as the YU brand credo goes) but you certainly won’t hide this device in your pocket when you hang out with your buddies.