Yu Yureka Review: Yes, Yu Can!

Seldom has a phone arrived in the Indian market with so much controversy. When Micromax announced its exclusive tie-up with Cyanogen (a company known for making a highly customized version of Android) and the launch of a new brand, YU, to represent it, the market had been buzzing in anticipation about what the devices under the new brand would be like. Then towards the end of the year, the Yureka was unveiled, complete with CyanogenMod, decent specs, and a surprisingly low price of Rs 8,999 (about USD 150). It goes on sale, exclusively online on Amazon India, from January 13. The big question of course, is: is it worth investing in?

Looks smart enough

We had covered the appearance of the Yureka in our first impressions of the device, but to summarise once again, it is a phone that looks smart rather than spectacular. It is definitely not a head turner but is not an eyesore by any means either. We certainly cannot see people turning their noses up at it. It is slim enough at 8.8 mmand at around 150 grammes, relatively lightweight too. The front is jet black barring a small sphere for the home button, which gets flanked by the back and theme setting buttons when you power on the display. Design is largely minimalistic – volume rocker on the left, power/display button on the right, 3.5 mm audio jack on top, and micro USB port on the base. The back has the camera with a flash on the top and a speaker grille on the lower part.

We said it in our first impressions and we repeat the point – we really think Micromax missed out on a chance to cash in on the YU branding on the back of the device. The light blue YU logo on the greyish (moonstone grey is the official name) back does not really grab attention. In sum, the Yureka is not an ambassador of smartphone style by any means, but it is certainly a decent looking device. Yes, we have heard that it is in fact a rebranded version of another Chinese device, but honestly, we do not see how it retracts from its appearance.

Packs in the hardware

In terms of hardware, the Yureka is very well stocked for a device at its price point. That 5.5-inch display is a 1280 x 720p affair, giving it a reasonable pixel density of267 ppi and has an oleophobic coating as well as Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to stave off smudges and scratches. Powering it is a 64-bit octa core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor clocked at 1.5 Ghz, with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB storage, which is expandable using a memory card. There are twin cameras on the phone – a 5.0-megapixel front facing camera and a 13.0-megapixel one which has Sony’s IMX 135 CMOS sensor. The phone also supports dual SIM connectivity (both slots support micro SIM cards), and ticks off all the connectivity options that you would need: 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Making sure all this keeps working for a while is a 2500 mAh battery, which does seem a bit on the lower side, given the display size, but probably accounts for the relative slimness of the device. There have been a few complaints that the phonelacks a magnetometer compass (something we are confirming from YU at the time of writing) which could have aided it in navigation, but at this price point, we would not call it a deal breaker – the device handled navigation and geo-tagging well enough for us even without it. All in all, the hardware on the Yureka is very good for its price and a close match to that seen on the much more expensive HTC Desire 820. The closest thing to it in terms of spec-price ratio is perhaps the recently released Xiaomi Redmi Note 4G, which costs Rs 1,000 more, packs in a display of a similar size and resolution, and has a similar dual camera set up. And while that worthy is powered by a quad core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor, it compensates with a larger battery (3100 mAh). But even then, the Yureka scores in being a dual SIM device (the Redmi Note 4G is a single SIM one) and in having 16 GB storage as opposed to the 8GB onboard storage on the Note 4G (the Note 4G can support upto 64 GB of expandable memory though, as against 32 GB on the Yureka). Any way you look at it, the Yureka is offering some very decent hardware bang for not too many bucks. (Note: before you ask, we are working on a comparison between the Redmi Note 4G and the Yureka. Stay tuned!)”