Telecom Lead India: Whenever the top players such as Samsung and Nokia launch a pricey new smartphone, most consumers wait a while to see what cheaper alternatives manufacturers like Micromax and Lava will offer at a fraction of the cost.
After Xolo X800, which was the vehicle for Intel’s entry into the market and Xolo X500, the Xolo B700 is the manufacturer’s latest offering which is easy on the pocket without cutting too many corners.
Looks wise, the phone looks sleek and has a metal strip around the edges that gives it a pricey look. It is heavier than it looks, mostly due to its big battery. The textured back panel gives a good grip on the phone.
Its 4.3 touchscreen display with a resolution of 256 pixels per inch is impressive for a phone in its price range. Colors appear quite sharp at all viewing angles. The clarity almost made up for the lack of an AMOLED screen but for its price, that really would be asking for too much.
The phone uses what the manufacturer calls ‘IPS display technology’ which makes watching movies and games enjoyable because of wider viewing angles. It helps that the display is not reflective.
The interface is neat and uncluttered. Widgets and apps can be installed on the home page to personalize the home screen.
The Xolo B700 comes with Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Those who look for phones with a higher RAM may be disappointed with this phone’s 512 MB RAM although it did not seem to affect the phone’s capacity at all. The Xolo B700 a little over 2 GB of internal memory and allows up to 32 GB of external micro SD card.
We were able to play graphic intensive games as the phone has a PowerVR SGX 531 graphics processing unit and supports up to five point touch.
It takes a good hour and more to charge fully. Further, it does not hold charge as it should. For instance, within half an hour, it discharged twenty per cent despite the fact that we kept its brightness at minimum and had switched off its Wi-Fi as well as data connectivity.
The Xolo B700 comes with a dual core processor and has two SIM slots. For connectivity, it has WiFi and Bluetooth.
The 5 MP rear camera has an LED flash for low light conditions, and a 0.3 megapixel front camera. Of all the things, XOLO has compromised on the picture quality with this phone. Pictures taken with both cameras were grainy and of inferior quality even in a well lit surrounding. Not much can be said about the HD video captured either. The images and video lacked sharpness. The impressive display and sharp colors somehow do not translate into the pictures taken with the camera.
The Xolo B700’s battery makes it heavy to handle and takes almost an hour to charge once drained fully. But the battery life is pretty impressive. It lasted a good 13 hours on a 3G network while being used for gaming, calling and browsing the internet.
Our final verdict is that the although the phone is alright for those who aren’t fussy about RAM, picture quality and insist on using phones with the latest Android version, there are other brands that offer better value for money.
TelecomLead.com’s Rating: 5/10
Apoorv Sonane
editor@telecomlead.com
