Karbonn smartphones seemed to be out of the limelight for quite a some time. With the likes of Xiaomi, Meizu and Micromax in the market selling phones of premium quality at an affordable price, can Karbonn make a comeback with its Mach 2 smartphone (priced at Rs.18,153)? Let’s find out on our review.
Built Quality:
We must admit Karbonn Mach 2 is a very good looking phone. In fact, it is a lot identical to the iPhone 5s if you look it from the side view. The phone we got was black all the way through and it feels really premium on hand. On the front, we’ve got the 8MP front Camera, and the capacitive touch buttons on the bottom but they are not backlit which can be a turnoff for some users. On the right side of the
On the right side of the phone, we have the volume rockers and the power button which are really solid and tactile. On the top, we have the standard headphone jack and the micro USB port. There’s nothing on the left side. And on the bottom we have dual speakers which sound pretty okay, you can’t complain much about a budget phone. On the back, there’s the 8MP rear camera with dual flash and the Karbonn branding.
The back of the phone is also protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 like in the front. We can clearly see how much effort Karbonn has put on the build of this phone and without a doubt this is the best looking Karbonn phone till date.
Display:
Talking about the display of this phone, it’s a 720p HD display and it produces really sharp and vibrant colors. Viewing angles are great and you get a pretty good outdoor visibility. There’s nothing so special about this screen, it just looks nice. And one think I have to mention about the display is that it’s really really smooth, but we’ve been facing some touch issues during our use. It seems like a minor bug which could be solved by a software update. And yes! This phone would be getting a software update to the Android lollipop.
Performance:
Talking about the performance of this phone, it sports a 1.4GHz Mediatek Octacore MT6592 CPU and 1GB of RAM. Which in our experience performed really well. Multitasking was okay in this device. You could do your everyday regular stuff easily with this device. Also, you can play high-end games in medium settings and other casual games with a breeze. And like you may have already guessed this phone has some heating issues as it uses a Mediatek chipset. Device tends to get hot near the camera section while playing games, so you might have to leave the device to take some air once in a while if you play heavy games otherwise there won’t be any heating issues.
Camera:
So this phone comes with a dual 8Mp camera on back and front. It might look good on the specs sheet, but this is where we were really disappointed with this phone. It takes really decent and saturated photos from the back camera, images tend to get grainy if the lighting conditions are just slightly off. And the front camera is even more disappointing, you get pretty grainy and dark pictures like the rear camera. But in good light it takes really good pictures though the images produced seemed a bit washed off. By far, we this is the worst 8MP shooter we have seen.
Battery:
And the battery is yet another thing that bothers us about this phone. It packs just 1900mAH of battery and it’s terrible. Manufacturers are sacrificing battery in almost every device nowadays for the sake of design and thinness of the phone. And as you might have notice it’s a sleek phone and battery has been terribly compromised here. With normal usage, you might hardly get a day of usage and if you check your phone regularly you might have to grab a charger few times a day.
Connectivity:
Talking about the connectivity of this phone, it comes with dual micro Sim with 3G support. The phone also comes with Wi-Fi, Hotspot, and GPS. All the connectivity works perfectly fine on this phone, and you will not have any problems with that. Also we made some calls through this phone and it worked just fine, signals were good, call quality was nice.
Verdict:
And once again this is the best looking phone Karbonn has designed till date. You’ll just love holding this device and looking at it. Apart from the design aspect we don’t see anything special going around with this phone. We really appreciate the design, but the camera of this phone is bad, not to mention its average performance, they could have got a snapdragon 400 or 410 chipset which is a standard for the device at this price point, also the audio is just fine for dual speakers. Everything is just mediocre, except the design and built quality. If you’re looking for a really good looking phone with the best protection you could get, this is the phone for you in a budget, that won’t hurt your pocket. To summarize, here are the pros and cons of the smartphone.
PROS
- Best Looking phone at this price
- Good Display
CONS
- Mediocre camera
- Touch issues
- Below average Battery life
