Micromax Canvas Juice A1 (Q4251) smartphone: budget model with long battery life. Micromax Canvas Juice A1 (Q4251) smartphone: budget model with long battery life Information on the type of speakers and supported devices

Capacious battery and best sound in its class! This is how Micromax positions its Canvas Juice 2 Q392 smartphone, which costs an average of 7,990 rubles. All the pros and cons of the Micromax Canvas Juice 2 Q392 are in this review.

Specifications

• Screen: 5.0 ″, IPS, 293ppi, 1280 × 720;
• Operating system: Android 5.1 Lollipop;
• Processor: MediaTek MT6580, Cortex-A7, 4 x 1.3 GHz;
• GPU: Mali-400 MP2;
• RAM: 2 GB;
• Built-in memory: 8 GB, support for microSD memory cards up to 32 GB;
• Cameras: 8 MP (flash), front 2 MP;
• Battery: 4000 mAh, non-removable;
• Dimensions: 141x70x8.9 mm;
• Weight: 150 g;
• SIM slots: 2, Mini-SIM, Dual SIM Dual Standby;
• Communication: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 900/2100, WIFI, Bluetooth, GPS (A-GPS).

Packaging and equipment

The hero of this review is packed in a box made of high-quality thick cardboard. The design of the box is original and immediately makes it clear that something musical is waiting for us, well, at least the outlines of the speaker prompted me to think like that. In addition to the smartphone itself, the package also contains a power supply, USB cable, headset, film on screen and standard papers.

Design, assembly and ease of use

The design of budget smartphones Micromax does not stand out in anything special, before us is a typical candy bar. The front of the smartphone is completely covered with a protective glass, which is slightly recessed into a plastic frame, of course it is not so impressive, but reliable. Above the display is a front camera, a round speaker grill, which immediately reminded me of the Nexus 5, proximity and light sensors and an LED notification indicator. The space under the screen is empty, and the navigation keys have "crawled" onto the screen.

The back cover covers the side edges and literally covers the body. Most of the lid is made of metal, plastic parts are only from the bottom and top, well, by the way, this is done as standard in order to install antennas there. On the "back" of the smartphone there is a camera, LED flash, Micromax logo, and of course, a large, shiny grille for the main speaker, well, what would be noticeable.

The lid is removable, under it there is a non-removable battery, two slots for MicroSIM, a slot for MicroSD memory cards, and you can pay attention to a rather large speaker, of course not as big as the grill for it, but still.
The upper edge bears a headphone jack, the lower one - a MicroUSB connector and a microphone. The left side is free of elements, and the right side is occupied by the lock key and the volume rocker. The keys wiggle quite a bit.



You can find fault with the assembly: the case sometimes creaks even during normal use, although at first glance it seems that everything is quite neatly assembled.
There are no special questions for ergonomics: Canvas Juice 2 Q392 does not try to slip out of the hand, and with one hand you can control this smartphone without any problems.

Display

IPS matrix with a diagonal of 5 ″ has a resolution of 1280x720 pixels, the density of pixels per inch is 293 ppi. The display, to be honest, is not bad, but it feels like a budget one. The color reproduction is warm, by default reds and greens are faded, and if the lack of red can be corrected in the settings by turning on the "Vivid" display mode, then the green remains faded. In general, the picture is detailed and small fonts are readable without problems.
Viewing angles are maximum, while colors do not lose saturation when viewed from a wide angle. The brightness adjustment range is wide. The maximum brightness is sufficient for working with a smartphone in bright sun, and the minimum is comfortable for reading at night. But the automatic brightness control does not always work correctly. Sometimes it increases it too much, sometimes on the contrary it lowers it too much, in general, I did not succeed in explaining what it is guided by.

The sensor is sensitive, there is no mode of operation with gloves and in the cold the sensitivity of the sensor decreases, during speed dial with cold hands, light presses may not work.

Camera

The camera app is extremely simple with minimal customization options.

The main camera module is 8 megapixel with autofocus and one-color LED flash. The camera, as expected, is budget, the details of the pictures, although not bad, but in low or difficult lighting, it can make mistakes in the selection of the white balance and most often makes the photos cold. When the photo is enlarged, it becomes clearly visible that the camera sharpens the photo a lot.



The front camera is a 2 megapixel module, not enough, but honestly. We didn’t bother with interpolation. If you want and not bad light, you can get a good picture, but still this camera is more for video calls.

Performance

Canvas Juice 2 Q392 runs on a budget 4-core Mediatek MT6580 processor, the graphics core is an old Mali-400 MP, the smartphone is also equipped with 2 gigabytes of RAM and 8 gigabytes of built-in memory, of which only a little more than 4 are available to the user, fortunately - there is a connector for MicroSD. Synthetic tests show low results: in Antutu - 22979 points, and in Geekbench - 393 and 1137 points, in single-core and multi-core mode, respectively.

Despite the low performance in the tests, the smartphone works quite quickly, possibly because it has almost bare Android installed without a lot of unnecessary applications installed. The web browser as a whole works stably and only sometimes microfreezes appear when scrolling through large pages. HD video plays without brakes.

But what about games? It's bad, modern games like Asphalt Extreme or Asphalt 8 work only at low graphics settings, I didn't even try to launch World of Tanks: Blitz.

Software

As I said, this smartphone runs on practically "bare" Android 5.1, which is already quite old. Canvas Juice 2 Q392 retained the "features" of its fellow Launcher3 instead of the normal Google Start, icons from different Android versions etc.

Autonomy

The 4000 mAh battery lasts for a long time, without problems Canvas Juice 2 Q392, if you do not load it with 3D, games will live with you for 3 days without recharging in standard mode: calls, social networks, streaming audio and video. At the same time, the operating time of the screen is approximately 7-8 hours. And this is a lot.

From the pleasant - there is a power saving mode. It only allows you to make calls, write / receive SMS, and in this mode a fully charged Canvas Juice 2 Q392 can work for more than two weeks.

Sound

Another outstanding aspect of Canvas Juice 2 Q392 is the sound! The smartphone is very loud, its speaker is capable of delivering up to 96 decibels of sound. What would you understand, flagship smartphones like Huawei P9, Samsung Galaxy The S7 produces approximately 70 decibels of sound. Despite the loudness, you still want more low frequencies, but this is already a personal preference.

I want to draw your attention to one feature: the speaker of the smartphone, after the completion of the playback of any sound, emits a click at a volume of about 30 decibels, and during quiet playback, a hiss is slightly audible. This is a feature of the built-in speaker amplifier.

The speaker is average in sound quality. The sound in the headphones is also not distinguished by anything special, it is as quiet as that of other smartphones on budget Mediatek processors.

Impressions of Canvas Juice 2 Q392

I cannot call Canvas Juice 2 Q392 the best, after all - it is budget smartphone and one must immediately understand that there are costs in it. What really can distinguish Canvas Juice 2 Q392 is its very capacious battery and very loud speaker. In all other respects, it is very difficult to single out why you can choose it.

The obvious disadvantages of this smartphone are low gaming performance and lack of support for 4G networks.

Not made a choice? We have many more!

Accelerometer(or G-sensor) - sensor of the device's position in space. As the main function, the accelerometer is used to automatic change orientation of the image on the display (vertical or horizontal). Also, the G-sensor is used as a pedometer, it can be controlled various functions devices by turning or shaking.
Gyroscope- a sensor that measures the angles of rotation relative to a fixed coordinate system. Able to measure angles of rotation in several planes at the same time. The gyroscope together with the accelerometer allows you to accurately determine the position of the device in space. Devices using only accelerometers have lower measurement accuracy, especially when moving quickly. Also, the capabilities of the gyroscope can be used in modern games for mobile devices.
Light sensor- a sensor, thanks to which the optimal values ​​of brightness and contrast are set for this level illumination. The presence of the sensor allows to increase the operating time of the device from the rechargeable battery.
Proximity sensor- a sensor that detects when the device is close to the face during a call, turns off the backlight and locks the screen, preventing accidental presses. The presence of the sensor allows to increase the operating time of the device from the rechargeable battery.
Geomagnetic sensor- a sensor for determining the side of the world to which the device is directed. Tracks the orientation of the device in space relative to the earth's magnetic poles. The information received from the sensor is used in cartographic programs for orientation on the ground.
Atmospheric pressure sensor- sensor for accurate measurement of atmospheric pressure. It is part of the GPS system that allows you to determine the height above sea level and speed up the location.
Touch ID- fingerprint identification sensor.

Accelerometer / Illumination / Approximation

Satellite navigation:

Gps(Global Positioning System - Global Positioning System) - a satellite navigation system that measures distance, time, speed and determines the location of objects anywhere on Earth. The system is designed, implemented and operated by the US Department of Defense. The main principle of using the system is to determine the location by measuring the distance to the object from points with known coordinates - satellites. The distance is calculated from the signal propagation delay time from its sending by the satellite to being received by the GPS receiver antenna.
GLONASS(Global Navigation Satellite System) - Soviet and Russian satellite navigation system, developed by order of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The measuring principle is similar to the American GPS navigation system. GLONASS is intended for operational navigation and time support of land, sea, air and space-based users. The main difference from the GPS system is that the GLONASS satellites in their orbital motion do not have resonance (synchronization) with the Earth's rotation, which provides them with greater stability.

Information about the brand, model and alternative names of a specific device, if any.

Design

Information about the dimensions and weight of the device, presented in different units of measurement. Used materials, offered colors, certificates.

SIM card

The SIM card is used in mobile devices to store data that certifies the authenticity of mobile service subscribers.

Mobile networks

A mobile network is a radio system that allows multiple mobile devices to communicate with each other.

Mobile technology and data rates

Communication between devices in mobile networks is carried out using technologies that provide different data rates.

Operating system

An operating system is the system software that controls and coordinates the operation of the hardware components on a device.

SoC (System on a Chip)

A system on a chip (SoC) integrates all the major hardware components of a mobile device into a single chip.

Built-in memory

Each mobile device has built-in (non-removable) fixed memory.

Memory cards

Memory cards are used in mobile devices to increase the storage space for data.

Screen

The screen of a mobile device is characterized by its technology, resolution, pixel density, diagonal length, color depth, etc.

Sensors

Different sensors perform different quantitative measurements and convert physical metrics into signals that can be recognized by the mobile device.

Rear camera

The main camera of a mobile device is usually located on its rear panel and can be combined with one or more additional cameras.

Front-camera

Smartphones have one or more front cameras of different designs - pop-up camera, PTZ camera, notch or hole in the display, camera under the display.

Audio

Information about the type of speakers and audio technology supported by the device.

Radio

The radio of the mobile device is a built-in FM receiver.

Locating

Information about the navigation and positioning technologies supported by the device.

Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is a technology that enables wireless communication for transferring data over short distances between various devices.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a standard for secure wireless transfer of data between different types of devices over short distances.

USB

USB (Universal Serial Bus) is an industry standard that allows different electronic devices to exchange data.

Headphone jack

This is an audio connector, which is also called an audio connector. The most widely used standard in mobile devices is the 3.5mm headphone jack.

Connecting devices

Information about other important connection technologies supported by the device.

Browser

A web browser is a software application for accessing and viewing information on the Internet.

Video file formats / codecs

Mobile devices support different video file formats and codecs, which respectively store and encode / decode digital video data.

Battery

Mobile device batteries differ in their capacity and technology. They provide the electrical charge required for their function.

Specific Absorption Rate (SAR)

SAR level refers to the amount of electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the human body when using a mobile device.

Micromax Canvas Juice 2 Q392, recently released on domestic market, became a representative of the line of "long-livers" of this manufacturer. He was equipped with a 4000 mAh battery. But after all, only a large battery is not enough for a sophisticated user, so Micromax implemented several interesting tricks here. is the smartphone capable of offering users more than that? Let's figure it out.

Appearance

The front panel of the smartphone is black and covered with Gorilla Glass 3, so scratches do not need to be afraid... Around the entire perimeter, there is a border that is almost invisible to the eye, but protrudes slightly and is quite recognizable by touch. At the top is the speaker and the front camera peephole.

The back cover of Micromax Canvas Juice 2 is gray. From a distance it appears to be metallic, but plastic is immediately recognizable to the touch. The edges are smoothed, so as a result smartphone shape reminds Meizu devices, for example, MX5. But the elements at the top and bottom are reminiscent of Huawei and iPhone gadgets. You might think that these are overlays, but in reality they are part of the lid. As a result, you have to remove the entire panel to get to the SIM and microSD slots. At the bottom of the cover there is a slot for the speaker, and at the top there is a camera peephole and a flash.

The volume rocker and the power button are located on the right side, so that when using it, the thumb rests on them. A good solution in terms of ergonomics.

If you remove the Micromax logo, then the gadget will not be distinguished from many other smartphones. However, Micromax Canvas Juice 2 looks pleasant and, despite all the worn-out phrase, it fits perfectly in the hand, without inadvertently trying to slip out... He is very far from the delights of flagships, but do not forget that this is a state employee, and the use of more expensive materials would automatically raise its price.

Screen

Budget smartphone budget display. Micromax Canvas Juice 2 Q392 received a 5-inch screen with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels. The image quality is good: the display lacks stars from the sky, but there is nothing to complain about. Viewing angles and color rendition at the level Thanks for that IPS matrix. Those who wish can adjust the image to suit their taste, for this MiraVision technology is used. There are a couple of preset options in the settings: default and high brightness. And the user can also adjust the contrast, saturation, brightness, sharpness and color temperature.

The frames around the screen of the smartphone are quite thick, so that as a result, the dimensions of the smartphone are 141x70 mm. Sometimes it is necessary to intercept the device - fingers simply do not reach some parts of the display.

Hardware platform and performance

For the performance in Micromax Canvas Juice 2, a 4-core MediaTek MT6580 processor is responsible, to which 2 GB of RAM are given - reference set for the top of the budget segment. It has been used in a bunch of smartphones including Alcatel, Doogee and Asus ZenFone Go. But the chip that came out last year is one of the most budgetary ones from MediaTek and, as a result, the smartphone, unfortunately, cannot boast of high performance.

With all daily tasks the gadget copes well, but the slowness is felt. Undemanding and not the latest games work well: you can shoot Angry Birds without problems. There are already problems with more powerful applications - even Rayman Jungle Run no, no, it starts to slow down. It's better to just forget about modern hits like N.O.V.A.

Benchmark test results fully confirm subjective feelings. Micromax Canvas Juice 2 shows a consistently low result, which is easy to evaluate from the attached screenshots.

Smartphone works under control stock Android 5.1. The manufacturer decided not to use any of its own shells, limiting itself to several pre-installed applications... Among them are the already mentioned MiraVision, "Camera", as well as a number of others, less significant.

Cameras

The smartphone has a pair of sensors: 2 and 8 megapixels. The quality of the images is predictably average, but there are some positive aspects here. The main camera shows an average result in daylight, but if the shooting conditions are slightly worsened - and instead of a clear picture, we get a solid "soap". In addition, there are some color rendering problems here.

The manufacturer decided to compensate for not the highest quality with a wealth of modes and settings.

• « live photo"Resembles a similar mode for the new generation of iPhone, HTC Zoe and similar technologies. In fact, instead of a regular photo, a micro-video clip is taken for a couple of seconds.
• how exactly the mode “ motion tracking", It is not clear to the end. Most likely, we are talking about blur compensation when shooting moving objects, but there was not much difference with a regular photo;
• « polygonal view"Is an analogue of a panorama, but with its own nuances. The user will need to point the camera at the object, and then circle it with the camera in an arc. As a result, when viewing the image, a scroll bar appears, with the help of which you can look at the object from different sides;
• « Beautiful face"- almost a standard feature of Chinese devices, which improves selfies. With some simple settings, users will be able to smooth out the tone of the face, but it is worth overdoing it a little, and instead of the natural skin color, we get a chalky mask.

Users can set exposure, white balance, ISO and other parameters. Slow motion mode is available for video.

Communication and sound

Micromax Canvas Juice 2 received standard set wireless modules, that's just without LTE. On the one hand, this is a clear drawback, but with 3G connected instead of 4G, the gadget is able to work much longer, and the Internet speed is quite enough for watching videos from the Web. Downloading large and voluminous games is simply pointless - the device's performance will not be enough for them. But there are two slots for SIM-cards, and they work simultaneously.

The interlocutor is always heard well during the dialogue, on the other side there are no problems either. One of the main features of the smartphone, the manufacturer calls the ultra-loud speaker at 96 dB. Micromax Canvas Juice 2 is really loud. Unfortunately, this feature does not go hand in hand with quality. But you can hear the call under almost any conditions.

Autonomy

The strongest side of the smartphone. The 4000 mAh battery perfectly holds a charge, which, in everyday use, is enough for more than 2 days with GPS and Bluetooth on. During active use (for example, a game), the battery reserve noticeably sags, which can be seen in the screenshots. However, it is worth noting that the smartphone is unlikely to be used so often for this - after all, it is oriented somewhat towards something else.

Competitors

You can buy Micromax Canvas Juice 2 for 9,990 rubles. What can competitors offer for the same amount? If you put autonomy at the forefront - not much.

Of the more or less relevant models, there are Dexp Ixion EL350 Volt with 4000mAh battery. You can find it for 6 650 rubles, but given the Spreadtrum processor and 1 GB of RAM, it is not a fact that it will be able to cope as well even with everyday tasks.

ZTE Blade X3 costs 8,990 rubles and has a similar problem - not such a powerful processor and only 1 GB of RAM. But the front camera is 5 megapixels.

More compact Highscreen Power Four sells for the same 9,990. It has a 4.5-inch screen, a slower 1GHz MediaTek MT6735M processor, only 1GB of memory, and lower-resolution cameras. And the battery capacity in the case of Highscreen does not always mean good autonomy.

Summary

In general, Micromax Canvas Juice 2 leaves the impression of a sort of "workhorse". It cannot boast of any outstanding performance, or spectacular design, or high-quality cameras, but at the same time it is distinguished by a rare "endurance" for its segment. He will become a reliable companion for those who are not interested in games or ultra-fast Internet, for those who primarily need a smartphone for communication, periodic checking of mail and surfing the Internet. With this, the smartphone is doing well.

And if you look at the competitors, then everything turns out to be even more interesting. Yes, in this segment you can find devices with higher characteristics, but in their case, autonomy is at the expense. You can find smartphones cheaper and with an equally capacious battery, but their performance will leave much to be desired. Micromax Canvas Juice 2 has become the golden mean among them and clearly deserves the attention of buyers.

Advantages:

• high autonomy;
• reasonable price;
• good performance.

Disadvantages:

• lack of LTE support;
• not the best quality cameras.

Specifications:

• 5-inch HD screen;
• 4-core processor MediaTek MT6580 with a clock speed of 1.3 GHz;
• 2 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage;
• cameras for 2 and 8 megapixels;
• support for two SIM-cards;
• 4,000 mAh battery;
• operating room Android system 5.1.

Content

Micromax is not only one of the leading electronics manufacturers in India, but also a major player in the global mobile phone market. The Indian company settled in Russia a long time ago, so today we will talk about certified products officially supplied to our market. Having decided on the main priorities, in October last year Micromax announced a strategy to launch new lines, Warrior and Juice, on the Russian market. Each of the lines has a key feature: the Warrior line has an affordable price, and the Juice line - capacious batteries and, accordingly, a long time autonomous work... The novelties of the coming year in the Warrior and Juice lines are the inexpensive Micromax Bolt Warrior 2 (Q4202) and the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 (Q4251) smartphone with a powerful 4000 mAh battery. Both devices have already arrived to us for testing, and today we will start with detailed review A "long-playing" model called Micromax Canvas Juice A1.

Main features of Micromax Canvas Juice A1 (Q4251)

• SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 (MSM8909), 4 cores @ 1.1 GHz (ARM Cortex-A7)
• GPU Adreno 304 @ 400 MHz
• Operating system Android 6.0.1
• 5 ″ IPS touchscreen display, 1280 × 720, 294 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 1 GB, inner memory 8 GB
• Micro-SIM support (2 pcs.)
• MicroSD support is
• GSM / GPRS / EDGE networks (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• WCDMA / HSPA + networks (900/2100 MHz)
• LTE networks cat.4 FDD (Band 3/7/20)
• Wi-Fi 802.11b / g / n (2.4 GHz)
• Bluetooth 4.1
• GPS / A-GPS, Glonass, BDS
• Micro-USB 2.0, USB OTG
• 8 MP camera, f / 2.2, autofocus, 720p video
• Front camera 2 MP, f / 2.8, fixed. focus
• Proximity sensor, lighting, accelerometer
• Battery 4000 mAh, non-removable
• Dimensions 146 x 72 x 9.8mm
• Weight 179 g

Contents of delivery

Micromax Canvas Juice A1 comes in a fairly large flat square box with a hard cardboard dust jacket. Packaging different smartphones the companies are distinguished by this dust jacket, on which all the designations, logos and specifications are applied, and the inside remains absolutely clean and in all cases the same.

The scope of delivery consists of a connecting cable, powerful network adapter with an output current and voltage of 2 A 5 V, a wired headset with rubber pads of the in-ear type, a protective film on the screen and paper instructions in Russian.

Appearance and usability

For the exterior design of their mobile novelties in the new season, Micromax artists have chosen a single and rather unique design. It is slightly rude, uncomplicated, a kind of industrial type of design, where straightforward practicality prevails over the image component and where smooth metal is used in combination with rubberized plastic.

The case as a whole is not metal, for the most part it consists of plastic, only the central part of the back cover is made of real metal: it is a thin plate soldered into the plastic frame. All sidewalls, end parts, as well as upper and lower rear inserts are made of plastic.

A little metal is added here rather for decoration, since from a practical point of view, any part of the case will wear out and break over time - the ends, edges, even the front glass - but not the middle of the back side. Yes, and upon impact, this plate, soldered into the plastic, is more likely to fall off by itself than play any protective role, since it has nothing to do with the stiffness contour.

The device is rather thick and heavy, the reason for this is its very voluminous accumulator battery at 4000 mAh, so the increased weight is generally quite justified here. The plastic sidewalls have a ribbed texture, so the smartphone does not slip at all in the hands. The case is also not to be called a mark, fingerprints can be seen here only on the front glass.

In terms of dimensions, this five-inch device cannot be called large, and thanks to the thick case with the side curves of the back cover, the case fits securely and comfortably in the hand. However, for a trouser pocket, its weight of almost 180 grams is still quite noticeable.

In order to get to the card slots, you need to remove the back cover. There is no special protrusion for engagement, you will have to rest against the cutout for the Micro-USB connector. The cover can be removed quite easily, there are no problems with this, but it is also held on to its plastic latches surprisingly securely, the body as a whole is monolithic and strong, there is no backlash or squeaks when compressed.

Slots for all three cards are available quickly and conveniently, it is easy to insert cards in adapters into them, but here they may be needed, since both slots are designed for the outdated Micro-SIM format. One of the connectors is made in the old-fashioned version with a cover that opens upwards, pressing the SIM-card, and the other two - for the second SIM-card and memory card - are assembled with a sandwich one above the other. All three slots are available simultaneously and are completely independent from each other.

It is curious that although you do not need to remove the battery to access all three connectors, including the memory card, hot swapping is not supported here anyway. The device will not react in any way to any of the inserted cards until you reboot the device yourself. This is a rather rare option, especially considering that the battery is not removable here in principle.

The camera module does not stick out beyond the surface, and thanks to the almost flat back wall, the smartphone does not wiggle when you touch the screen, it lies on the table steadily. The flash next to the camera is one-segment, its brightness level can be described as below average.

The main speaker is brought out here, on the back side of the case, and this, of course, is not good, since the sound of the device lying with the screen up is noticeably muffled.

The side buttons are installed on the right side, the keys are large, protrude to a sufficient height, have a rather hard travel and a distinct response. It is quite possible to get used to a little excessive pressure.

The front panel is covered with flat glass without sloping edges. Upstairs there is a light sensor, a camera without flash, but unfortunately not LED indicator events. There is also no backlighting at the bottom, since there are no hardware buttons there.

Interface connectors are standardly placed on the ends: the top one is given for a 3.5 mm headphone output.

At the bottom end, asymmetrically, closer to one of the edges, a hole is made for a Micro-USB connector, external devices can be connected in USB OTG mode.

Micromax Canvas Juice A1 is produced in two color options: gray with a black side bezel and a black front panel, as well as gold, which has a gold front panel, but the side bezel is also black.

Screen

The Micromax Canvas Juice A1 smartphone is equipped with an IPS touchscreen display with On-cell technology and with dimensions of 62 × 110 mm with a diagonal of 5 inches, protected by a flat protective glass without sides and sloping edges. The screen resolution is 1280 × 720, the dot density is about 294 ppi. The frame around the screen cannot be called narrow: on the sides it is slightly less than 5 mm, and on the bottom - all 18 mm.

The brightness of the display can be manually adjusted or set to automatic settings based on the operation of the ambient light sensor. The AnTuTu test diagnoses support for 5 simultaneous multitouch touches. There are no additional ways to activate the display using a double click or other gestures.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the "Monitors" and "Projectors and TV" sections Alexey Kudryavtsev... Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the test sample.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is resistant to scratches. Judging by the reflection of objects, the anti-glare properties of the screen are better than that of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) (below just Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the switched off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Micromax Canvas Juice A1, then they can be distinguished by their size):

The screen of the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 is darker (brightness in photographs is 104 versus 114 for the Nexus 7). The doubling of reflected objects in the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 screen is weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix) (OGS type screen - One Glass Solution). Due to the smaller number of boundaries (such as glass / air) with very different refractive indices, such screens look better in conditions of intense ambient light, but their repair in case of cracked outer glass is much more expensive, since the entire screen has to be changed. On the outer surface of the screen, there is a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating, which is noticeably worse in efficiency than that of the Nexus 7, but still fingerprints are removed more easily, and appear at a slower rate than in the case of ordinary glass.

With manual brightness control and with the display of the white field on the whole screen, the maximum brightness value was about 420 cd / m², the minimum - 30 cd / m². The maximum brightness is not very high, but given the excellent anti-glare properties, on a sunny day outdoors, you can see something on this screen. In complete darkness, the brightness can be lowered to a comfortable value. In the presence of automatic brightness control by the light sensor (it is located to the left of the slot of the front speaker). V automatic mode when the ambient light conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. This function depends on the position of the brightness adjustment slider. If it is 100%, then in complete darkness, the auto-brightness function reduces the brightness to 150 cd / m2 (very bright), in an office illuminated with artificial light (about 550 lux) it sets to 420 cd / m2 (a bit too high), in a very bright environment ( corresponds to illumination on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more), the brightness rises to the same 420 cd / m² (to the maximum - this is what you need); if the adjustment is about 50%, then the values ​​are: 30, 420 and 420 cd / m² (the average value is too high again), the control for 0% is 30, 420 and 420 cd / m² (all the same). It turns out that the automatic brightness control function does not work quite adequately. At any brightness level, there is no significant backlight modulation, so there is no screen flickering either.

V this smartphone a matrix of the IPS type is used. The micrograph shows the subpixel structure typical of IPS:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of photomicrographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift, even with large gaze deviations from the perpendicular to the screen, and without tint inversion. For comparison, we present photographs in which the same images are displayed on the screens of Micromax Canvas Juice A1 and Nexus 7, while the brightness of the screens was initially set to about 200 cd / m2, and the color balance on the camera was forcibly switched to 6500 K.

White field perpendicular to screens:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field.

And the test picture:

The colors on the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 display have natural saturation, the color balance of the Nexus 7 and the tested screen is noticeably different.

Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors did not change much on both screens, but in the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 the contrast decreased to a greater extent due to the strong black lightening and a decrease in image brightness.

And a white box:

The brightness at the angle of the screens decreased (at least 5 times, based on the difference in exposure), but the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 screen is noticeably darker. The black field, when deviated along the diagonal, is lightened strongly and acquires a reddish or reddish-violet tint. The photos below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same!):

And from a different angle:

When viewed from a perpendicular view, the uniformity of the black field is poor:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1000: 1. The response time for the transition black-white-black is 20 ms (10 ms on + 10 ms off). The transition between gray tones of 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes 38 ms in total. The gamma curve, plotted using 32 points with equal intervals in terms of the numerical value of the shade of gray, did not reveal a blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.18, which is close to the standard value of 2.2. In this case, the real gamma curve deviates slightly from the power dependence:

We did not reveal the presence of dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the displayed image, which is very good.

The color gamut is close to sRGB:

The spectra show that the matrix filters moderately mix the components together:

As a result, colors have a natural saturation. The balance of shades on the gray scale is acceptable, since the color temperature is significantly higher than the standard 6500 K, but the deviation from the spectrum of the absolute black body (ΔE) is less than 10, which is considered an acceptable indicator for a consumer device. At the same time, the color temperature and ΔE vary little from shade to shade - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of the color balance. (The darkest areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since the color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

To summarize: the screen has a fairly high maximum brightness and has excellent anti-reflective properties, so the device can somehow be used outdoors even on a sunny summer day. For conditions of complete darkness, it is possible to set a comfortable level of brightness. A mode with automatic brightness adjustment is present, but it does not work well. The advantages of the screen include the absence of an air gap in the layers of the screen and flicker, high contrast, as well as a color gamut close to sRGB and an acceptable color balance. Among the significant drawbacks, we include poor uniformity of the black field and low stability of black to deviation of the gaze from the perpendicular to the plane of the screen. Taking into account the importance of characteristics for this particular class of devices, the screen quality is relatively high.

Camera

The front camera of the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 received a module with a resolution of 2 megapixels and a lens with an f / 2.8 aperture without autofocus and its own flash. The quality of shooting, even for the level of selfies, is rather modest: with such a low detailing, other characteristics will not play a serious role.

The main camera has a module with a resolution of 8 megapixels and a lens with an aperture of f / 2.2 (for some reason, the official specifications on the Russian-language site indicate a resolution of 5 megapixels). Autofocus is quite fast, the flash is not very bright, there is no stabilization function. The settings menu here is non-standard, it is much more convenient than the original one from the Android interface, intuitive and very easy to use. The structure of the menu is laconic: on the left, a vertical list with the main sections pops up, clicking on each of which on the right expands the second scroll with options related to this function. Convenient, but the camera has a strange "sticking" when it continues to take square 6 Mp (2448 × 2448) shots, even if the menu at that moment selected the maximum resolution of 8 Mp (2448 × 3264). As a result, we were helped only by a full return of the device to the factory settings, after which the camera began to behave adequately.

There are not so many manual settings in the menu, but everything you need is there. You can manually set exposure, sensitivity (up to ISO 1600), white balance, shutter speed, select additional modes and color effects, there is HDR. There were no such familiar features as face detection, smile detection and gesture-based shooting. You cannot transfer control of camera settings to third-party applications using the Camera2 API, there is no option to record images in RAW either.

The camera can shoot video in the maximum resolution of only 720p, there are no shooting modes at 60 fps, there is not only 4K, but even Full HD. There is no stabilization function either. The video camera shoots accordingly: miracles do not happen, and it is impossible to achieve good details from 720p resolution. The image is loose, but light and smooth, without noticeable artifacts, with natural color rendition. When recording sound in a noisy street, familiar distortions in the form of echoes and gurgling sounds may appear. With a less noisy sound background, distortion does not appear. Nothing is officially said about the presence of a noise canceling system in this smartphone.

• Movie # 1 (37 MB, 1280 × [email protected] fps, H.264, AAC)

	Good sharpness in the field of the frame and in plans.
	Quite good detail in the distant shots.
	The camera copes well with shadows.
	The immediate plans have been worked out well.
	The camera copes with macro photography.
	There are small areas of out-of-focus in the corners.

The camera is good. The optics provide decent sharpness in the field of the frame and in the plans, and the software processing does not spoil the details, even small ones, although it is noticeable in places. As a result, the camera can be used for documentary photography, and sometimes for undemanding artistic photography.

Telephone part and communications

The communication capabilities are as follows: the smartphone can work in 4G networks thanks to the Snapdragon X5 LTE modem, which allows you to receive data at speeds up to 150 Mbps and give up to 50 Mbps (LTE Cat.4). The device works in all three LTE FDD bands most widespread in Russia. At the same time, only one Wi-Fi band (2.4 GHz) is supported and there is no NFC. All wireless modules, including Wi-Fi, behave quite confidently, no problems with registration in networks, unexpected signal loss, and the like were noticed.

The navigation module, thanks to the Qualcomm platform, supports all three satellite systems - GPS, Glonass and BeiDou. The module is unhurried, the first satellites during a cold start are detected for more than a minute. The magnetic field sensor, on the basis of which the digital compass usually functions navigation programs, the smartphone, unfortunately, was not equipped. Micromax Canvas Juice A1 sensors are not rich at all: there are only light and proximity sensors and an accelerometer.

The phone app supports Smart Dial, while dialing phone number the search is immediately carried out by the first letters in the contacts. V phone book there are only staffing capabilities settings for displaying contacts. There is no built-in blacklist, but the function of automatic recording of telephone conversations from the line is present. In conversational dynamics, the sound is muffled, there is a slight effect, as if the interlocutor is “speaking into a trumpet,” but on the whole the familiar voice remains recognizable. The vibration alert unexpectedly turned out to be above average in strength, it is quite well felt, but manual settings does not have.

The smartphone platform does not support working with two SIM cards in 3G / 4G at the same time, that is, SIM cards of operators such as Tele2 will not work in 3G for voice communication if a card from another slot is assigned for data transfer in 4G (in 2G Tele2 cards simply do not know how to work). The standard interface allows you to select a specific card for each of the functions in advance or right during the connection. The cards work in Dual SIM Dual Standby mode, there is only one radio modem here.

Initially, a fairly large number of additional programs are preinstalled in the smartphone. Among them there are useful ones, such as file manager, navigator 2GIS, office suite WPS Office, but most of them are free simple games or demos of better quality games. All these applications, if desired, can be downloaded independently, that is, basically this is free garbage, which only clogs up the already catastrophically small storage. It's good at least that any third-party applications can be removed manually without any problems. The stock keyboard supports Swype-type strokes.

A music player with a pleasant-looking interface and fairly rich settings of the built-in equalizer is intended for listening to music. You can manually influence bass saturation and surround virtualization. The sound quality is average, it corresponds to the level of the device: both in the headphones and in the main loudspeaker, the sound is quite loud, clean, but unpretentious, unsaturated, monophonic, with a predominance high frequencies... If you manually add bass using the equalizer, the sound becomes dull, less sonorous.

The built-in microphone does not shine with special sensitivity, but the voice recorder records quite high quality sound sources located nearby. There is a built-in FM radio with the ability to record programs from the air, there are no complaints about its sensitivity, the radio is working properly.

Performance

Micromax Canvas Juice A1 hardware platform is built on SoC entry level Qualcomm Snapdragon 210, made on the 28 nm process technology. The configuration of this chip includes 4 Cortex-A7 processor cores, operating at a frequency of up to 1.1 GHz. For graphics processing, the Adreno 304 video accelerator with a frequency of up to 400 MHz is responsible. The amount of RAM is equal to 1 GB (LPDDR3), in reality, about 400 MB of them remain free. User storage is initially only 3.57 GB out of the total 8 GB, that is, you cannot do without a memory card here.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 - SoC is quite simple, even some alternative entry-level platforms show better results in tests, including the currently popular MediaTek MT6737. The Snapdragon 210 is equipped with low-power, low-frequency Cortex-A7 processor cores and the same entry-level video accelerator.

However, in real work there were no serious problems in the operation of the interface and applications. The device copes with its main tasks adequately, desktops scroll without sticking, applications open quickly, the interface does not "slow down". We even managed to play popular, albeit not the most recent games, such as Dead Trigger 2, World of Tanks, without noticeable slowdowns. However, the user must clearly understand that without the additionally purchased microSD cards this smartphone will constantly run out of memory for such purposes.

Benchmarking AnTuTu and GeekBench:

All the results obtained by us when testing the smartphone in the most recent versions of popular benchmarks, we have summarized for convenience in tables. Several other devices from different segments are usually added to the table, also tested on similar latest versions benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the resulting dry numbers). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison, it is impossible to present the results from different versions benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain "behind the scenes" - due to the fact that they once passed the "obstacle course" on previous versions test programs.

Testing the graphics subsystem in game tests 3DMark, GFXBenchmark and Bonsai Benchmark:

When testing in 3DMark for the highest performing smartphones, it is now possible to run the application in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for evaluating the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowances for the fact that the results in them significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so that the comparison can be truly correct only on the same OS and browsers, and this possibility is available when testing not always. In the case of Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

AndroBench memory speed test results:

Thermal imagery

Below is a thermal image back surface obtained after 10 minutes of battery test in the GFXBenchmark program:

It can be seen that the heating is localized in the upper part of the device, which, apparently, corresponds to the location of the SoC microcircuit. According to the heat chamber, the maximum heating was 36 degrees (at an ambient temperature of 24 degrees), which is relatively little.

Video playback

To test the "omnivorous" video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats that make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that it is important for mobile devices to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is often impossible to process modern versions using processor cores alone. Also, do not expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are tabulated.

According to the test results, the subject, as is most often the case, was not equipped with all the necessary decoders that are needed to fully play most of the most common multimedia files on the network. this case, sound. To play them successfully, you will have to resort to using a third-party player - for example, MX Player. True, it is also necessary to change the settings and manually install additional custom codecs, because now this player does not officially support the AC3 audio format.

Further video playback testing was done by Alexey Kudryavtsev.

We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see "Methodology for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices).) Red marks indicate possible problems related to the playback of the respective files.

According to the criterion for outputting frames, the quality of video playback on the screen of the smartphone itself is good, since in most cases frames or groups of frames can (but are not required) to be displayed with a more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without frame drops. When playing video files with a resolution of 1280 by 720 pixels (720p) on a smartphone screen, the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the edge of the screen, one to one pixel by pixel, that is, in the original resolution. The brightness range displayed on the screen is standard range 16-235: Displays all shades in shadows and highlights.

Battery life

The non-removable battery installed in the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 has a large capacity of 4000 mAh, and this is the main trump card of this model. The device logically demonstrates a very high level autonomy, the results of work in all tests are impressive. And if you take into account the undemanding SoC and the screen with a low resolution, then in real operating conditions the smartphone will adequately cope with daily tasks for a couple of days without recharging. In general, such a smartphone is indispensable on a long journey, which was the focus. But, of course, everything will depend on your use case. The developers themselves promise up to 6 hours of talk time and up to 350 hours of standby time, and this is generally close to the truth.

Testing has traditionally been conducted at typical power consumption levels without using power saving features.

Continuous reading in the Moon + Reader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (the brightness was set to 100 cd / m2) with auto scrolling lasted until the battery was fully discharged for 19 hours, and with continuous viewing of high quality video (720p) with the same brightness level through the home Wi-Fi network the device operates for about 14 hours. In 3D games mode, the smartphone worked for 7 hours.

At the same time, the voluminous battery is charged quite quickly: the battery is completely filled from the supplied mains adapter within a little over 2.5 hours with a current of 1.9 A at a voltage of 5.5 V. Wireless charger not supported.

Outcome

Micromax Canvas Juice A1 is already available in the official Russian retail at a price about 8 thousand rubles. Someone may consider this price too high for a smartphone, for which, at least, you still need to buy a memory card. Micromax Canvas Juice A1 has an entry-level hardware platform (but still Qualcomm) and modest sound capabilities, a high-quality rather bright screen, an unexpectedly decent camera for its level, as well as a basic set of communication capabilities with support for three navigation systems and all frequencies common among Russian operators. LTE. The device is solid, with a practical body, there are not enough stars from heaven, but as a reliable workhorse with a guaranteed long battery life without recharging, it may well arouse interest among a certain part of the audience, for which these qualities are in the first place.

For those who lack the fingerprint authentication function, an improved modification of this model was later announced, called the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 plus (Q4260). It is curious that it is not only equipped with a fingerprint sensor, but also operates on a different hardware platform - MediaTek MT6737V with a frequency of processor cores up to 1.25 GHz (but the same 1 GB of RAM). Apparently, it will be a slightly more productive model, but it will also cost a thousand more than the original one.

In conclusion, we suggest watching our video review of the Micromax Canvas Juice A1 (Q4251) smartphone: