Earlier this year Karbonn came out with the Mach One, which was praised by all and sundry for its beautiful looks. Now, Karbonn has come out with its successor – the Karbonn Mach Two – with much-improved looks. Here is our take on the Karbonn Mach Two.
Specs
The Karbonn Titanium Mach Two has a 5 inch display with high definition (720p) resolution, 1 GB RAM, 32 GB expandable storage slot, 1.4 GHz octa core processor, Android 4.4.2 KitKat operating system, 1900 mAh battery, and 8 Megapixel auto focus rear and front camera with BSI sensor. This dual SIM smartphone offers 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, and FM radio as well.
Now let’s check out how it behaves in real world situation.
Design
Karbonn Mach Two is undoubtedly the best smartphone of the company till now in terms of design. Unlike Mach One, which has a removable back panel made of matte finish plastic, the Mach Two has a unibody with Corning Gorilla Glass covering on both sides. But the sides have a matte finish for better grip. The glass covering though makes it a finger print magnet, it definitely adds the oomph factor which is usually absent in the sub-Rs 10K smartphone segment. Karbonn is also offering a back cover for those who are not comfortable handling a glass body.
The overall treatment of the phone, especially its buttons, infact make it look like the iPhones. At just 112 grams, the phone is one of the lightest 5 inch phablet too. Also, note that it is just 6.3 mm thick (Dimension: 138 x 70.5 x 6.3 mm), making it the thinnest phone as well.
Since it has a unibody, the SIM and micro SD card slots are located on the sides. Two speaker grills are located at the bottom while the 3.5 mm jack, Micro USB port and a microphone hole are at the top.
Overall, I loved the Karbonn Mach Two for its design. Its beautiful, great to use and flaunt. Just wanted to give a word of advice to Karbonn: the Mach Two has two speaker grills and both are at the bottom panel so while playing games and watching movies these are get covered and hence the volume output gets decreased significantly.
Display
The Mach Two’s 5 inch display has high definition resolution. Furthermore, it is an IPS panel. The display thus manages to produce crisp pictures and owing to decent brightness, it can be operated outdoors under bright sunlight. The touchscreen’s response was also satisfactory.
During our review, I found in a bug in the system that prevents the phone from getting autolocked despite the fact that I had choose it to sleep after 15 seconds.
Storage
Like most leading phones in the sub-Rs 10,000 segment, the Mach Two also offers 8 GB of Internal Memory and an additional expandable storage slot that can accommodate a 32 GB micro SD card. In our case, it even managed to hold a 64 GB card. However, it doesn’t accept external storage devices (no USB OTG functionality).
Operating System and UI
The Karbonn Titanium Mach Two comes pre-installed with Android 4.4.2 operating system and has the basic Android interface which apart form others offers few gesture inputs. Notably, Karbonn promises the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop software for the phone as well but hasn’t revealed any timeframe.
Since most of the phones in the sub-Rs 10K range are based on Android KitKat, the lack of latest software won’t go against the phone but we hope Karbonn to release the latest software for the phone soon.
Camera
Karbonn Titanium Mach Two is among few smartphones (irrespective of price) to offer an auto focus front camera. It has infact the same 8 megapixel camera with BSI sensor on both its front and rear panel. So not only you can click high Resolution selfies but you can also take advantage of is 8 megapixel auto focus front camera for a superior video calling experience.
The rear camera though isn’t that impressive. It can capture decent images in good lighting but in low light its performance dips to a great extent. Colour output and focussing though isn’t an issue with the rear camera.
Performance
Karbonn Titanium Mach Two has a 1.4 GHz octa core processor as well as 1 GB of RAM – one of the best combinations in the price segment. The combination is good enough for multitaksing and even running decent games like Mortal Kombat X.
The Mach Two though is not that impressive when it comes to battery life. For instance, it lost almost 75 per cent of its charge in just one hour of gaming during which we were not using any SIM card but had kept our WiFi on and brightness at maximum level. While using just one SIM with active internet connection through out the day, the phone’s 1900 mAh battery never gave us more than 12 hours of back up. So definitely if you use two SIM cards with active internet connection and do other normal stuff like few minutes of calling, texting, internet surfing and gaming, don’t expect more that 5-6 hours of back up on the Mach Two.
Connectivity
The Mach Two has two SIM card slots offering 3G connectivity. There is also GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, WiFi Hotspot, 3.5 mm jack and a micro USB port. Note that it has micro SIM slots.