Dubai: XTouch’s new smartphone — A3 — is a budget smartphone targeted at emerging markets. It does look premium with slim design and fingerprint sensor.
The five-inch 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) IPS device (320 pixels per inch density) is powered by quad-core 1 GHz MediaTek MT6735 processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage capacity. It houses dual SIM card slots (one micro and one nano). Out of the 16GB, only 11.48GB is available for users. It weighs 130 grams. The memory can be expanded up to be 128GB using a microSD card.
The device can accommodate dual SIMs or one SIM and a microSD card.
It runs on old Android 5.1 Lollipop OS. XTouch has tweaked the user interface a lot with lot of features and shortcuts on top of the OS.
The fingerprint sensor at the back is easy to set up and it is fast to unlock the device. Different fingerprints can be stored to open different apps and to take selfies. The fingerprints can be also used to answer call, browse photos, play music and videos.
The gesture unlock feature allows users to open the gallery app by sliding up, start clock by sliding down, start music by sliding left, start camera by sliding right, start messaging by drawing m, start phone by drawing c, start settings by drawing O, start contacts by drawing w and start calculator by drawing z. It is a useful feature and these are the defaults. Users can assign an app to an alphabet depending on their needs. Only thing is to remember what is for what.
All these features work fine but if you are using a fingerprint or a password to open the device, then you need to first draw the pattern and use the finger to unlock the device, it then takes you to that app.
The power button and volume rocker are on the left side of the device while the SIM card and microSD slots on the right.
On the top is the headphone jack and microUSB is at the bottom. The mono speaker is placed the lower end of the back side.
The apps take an extra second to open and there is also a bit of delay when pressing keys on the capacitive keys and it may be due to the user interface or the processor.
The 13MP rear autofocus camera with single LED flash surprisingly takes solid pictures and videos for the price and the pictures come out sharp in well-lit settings with colour reproduction that looks good. There is no optical image stabilisation and you cannot expect all of these on a budget phone. The camera can shot videos in Full HD.
It also supports Live Photos mode in the camera, which brings the photos to life.
In lowlight conditions, the camera suffers with grainy images.
The camera app is clean and simple and no major filters, apart from HDR, are available. Face Beauty feature is set as default.
The 5MP front-facing camera takes decent shots in terms of tone and clarity but in daylight conditions which is decent for a selfie.
Regarding connectivity, it has dual-band 802.11b/g/n WiFi, WiFi Direct, 4G LTE and Bluetooth 4.0. The low pricing does come with some trade-offs like NFC.
The phone comes preloaded with demo games like Asphalt Nitro, Bubble Bash and Spider Man but it takes time to load as the processor speed is not good enough. When playing graphic-rich games like Dead Trigger 2 and Modern Combat 5: Blackout, it slows down a lot due to the weak processor.
You cannot expect everything to work fine for this price.
The 2,800mAh battery gave nine hours of video playback, which is pretty good. It gives a full day of use for normal users and more than seven hours of web browsing as it is not a Full HD screen.
It comes in grey, gold and rose gold colours and is priced at Dh399. XTouch is also offering A3 with a VFit smartband (which costs Dh499) bundle for Dh599.
Pros
• Attractive price
• Premium finish
• Fingerprint sensor
• Good battery life
• 4G LTE connectivity
Cons
• Weak processor
• Camera needs improvement
• Performance issues
• No NFC
• Average speaker
