A turbo-charged experience

The Canvas Turbo A250 smartphone from Micromax might be the company's best offering till date, but there is still scope for improvement

Micromax turned quite a few heads when it signed Hollywood actor Hugh Jackman as its brand ambassador. The Indian company seems to have pulled a marketing coup of sorts by getting the Australian actor, famous for his role as the Wolverine in the X-Men film series, on board. The Wolverine's and Micromax's first offering together is the chic Canvas Turbo A250. Is it really nothing like anything? Let's take a look.

Design and build quality
The Canvas Turbo is an intricately-crafted device, with impressive build quality. Encased in a tough full-aluminium body, it is sturdy and incredibly light. All the three capacitive touch screen keys rest on the front, along with the primary sensors, front camera and the earpiece. All the physical keys - power/lock key and volume rocker - are on the right. Flip the device and you see Micromax's trademark design, with the backside divided into three compartments. The gap between the power/lock key and the volume rocker is small, so we often ended up locking the device when we wanted to control the volume. Two microSIM card slots, on the left, were a disappointment. The trays designed to hold the SIM cards are simply not good enough. Also, strangely, the 3.5-mm audio jack is at the bottom, whereas the USB port is on the top.

Display

The Canvas Turbo is Micromax's first smartphone with a full high-definition (HD) display. It features a 12.7-cm (five-inch) Continuous Grain Silicon screen. With pleasing viewing angles and a crisp colour output, the Canvas Turbo is a delight to look at. Sadly, the screen is a fingerprint magnet. There were incessant smudges across the screen after a day's usage. You might want to keep that wiping cloth close. Playing HD videos, online and offline, was not an issue.

Processor, memory and operating system
The Canvas Turbo runs Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1, coupled with a 1.5-GHz Mediatek quad-core processor. Make no mistake, the processor is pretty strong and despite the occasional lag, it performed well. Multi-tasking and gaming on the Canvas Turbo are a delight. And, if you are not satisfied with the processor, the two-GB RAM in the Turbo will surely do the trick. Micromax promised 'Turbo' and it has duly delivered.

Battery and storage
The 2,000-mAh battery will provide you enough juice to last the day. The battery put in a commendable shift. The most important thing is the battery doesn't give in easily and charges quickly. However, do keep in mind the battery is not removable. The Turbo comes with 16-GB inbuilt storage, with no scope for expansion. Of the total storage, around 12.47 GB is at the user's disposal.

Camera
A 13-megapixel rear camera with flash versus a five-megapixel front-facing camera. Which prevails? Surprisingly, the front-facing camera outperforms the rear one. The latter yielded average pictures, often grainy, but can record HD videos at a resolution of 1,920x1,080. The front camera, on the other hand, can produce excellent self-portraits, even in dull-light conditions.

Juggling, performance and all that
If you have seen the Turbo's TV advertisement, you must have noticed the juggling act. Well, the Turbo does pretty much the same. It allows you to juggle from one function of the phone to another, with iFloat Tray, a pop-up multitasking application. It helps the user to move from, say, the messaging application to the phone application. Users can also juggle between the internet and entertainment. While this application is helpful, it's not something that would tilt the balance in Turbo's favour.

Other areas that need to be shored up are the user interface and music application, which could have been more attractive.

Overall, the Turbo A250 offers stuff which is better, but not new. The specifications are more or less on the lines of the Canvas 4 A210. At Rs 19,999 and promoted by the oh-so-popular Hugh Jackman, the Turbo is a good option, but not the only one, unless you fancy a juggling act.

MICROMAX CANVAS TURBO A250
Screen: 12.7-cm (five-inch) Continuous Grain Silicon
OS: Android Jelly Bean 4.2.1
Processor: 1.5-GHz MediaTek Quad-Core
Camera: 13-mp rear and five-mp front
Battery: 2,000 mAh
Price: Rs 19,999
RAM: 2 GB
Storage: 16-GB internal