iVOOMi i2 review: Budget smartphone with dual 4G VoLTE, good battery life

The iVOOMi i2 is a mixed bag of hits and misses. The phone's dual active 4G with VoLTE feature, coupled with good screen and camera output makes it a decent proposition in sub-Rs 8,000 segment

Chinese smartphone maker iVOOMi on May 22 launched the iVoomi i2, a successor to its famous budget smartphone the iVOOMi i1. Priced at Rs 7,499, the Flipkart-exclusive device boasts a 4000 mAh battery, Android 8.1 Oreo operating system and a 1.5GHz MediaTek MTK6739 quad core processor, paired with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of internal memory -- expandable up to 128GB via microSD card.

The dual-SIM iVOOMi i2 is one of the budget smartphones that supports dual active 4G with voice over long-term evolution (VoLTE) capability, which means an individual can use 4G connections on both SIM cards without having to swap the slots. This feature is quite unique at the given price range currently.

Powered by a rather modest quad core processor, the phone manages to multi-task with ease, but shows lag if there are multiple apps running in the background. The casual games such as Subway Surfer and Angry Birds Classic show no performance issue, however, heavy games such as Asphalt 8: Airborne slow down the performance and shows jitters.

The iVoomi i2 looks pIush in terms of design, thanks to 3D mirror finish on the back -- generally seen on high-end phones such as Vivo V9. The phone sports a 5.45-inch 18:9 display of 1440 x 720 pixels. Though smaller than what other smartphones in its segment offer, the screen looks sharp and has good colour reproduction, which comes to notice while watching videos on Amazon Prime, Hotstar, Netflix, YouTube, etc.

In terms of imaging, the i2 sports a 13-megapixel primary camera mated with a 2MP depth sensing camera on the back. On the front, there is an 8MP front camera with LED flash. The rear camera captures decent quality photos, especially in the daytime, but like many other budget smartphones, it tends to struggle in low light conditions.

The selfie camera doubles as face recognition sensor to unlock the screen and it works fairly well to do it. On the security front, the smartphone lacks a more-common biometric tool – the fingerprint scanner – which is disappointing.

Verdict

Priced at Rs 7,499, the iVOOMi i2 is a mixed bag of hits and misses. The phone’s dual active 4G with VoLTE feature, coupled with decent screen and camera output makes it a decent proposition in sub-Rs 8,000 segment. However, the underwhelming processor and lack of fingerprint scanner puts it behind the race in competition with InFocus Vision 3, Xiaomi Redmi 5 and Honor 7A.