Lava today made available its latest Iris X1 Grand smartphone in n India for the best price of Rs 7,326. It comes in white-silver, white-gold, and black colours. The Lava Iris X1 Grand features a 5 inch IPS screen which has 854 X 480 pixels resolution. The phone offers a 1.3 GHz MediaTek quad core processor, It is based on Android KitKat operating system but is upgradable to Android 5.0, Lollipop version; though the company has not announced any specific date for the same.
The Lava Iris X1 Grand features an 8 megapixel auto focus rear camera with BSI sensor and two LED flash lights while a 2 MP camera is in its front for video calling and selfies. On connectivity front the phone supports micro USB v2.0, Bluetooth v4.0 and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n), ensuring full time connectivity for people on the move. The phone has dedicated 1GB RAM and 8GB of inbuilt memory that is expandable up to 32GB. It has a 2200 mAh high capacity Li-Polymer battery.
Here is a detailed analysis of the Lava Iris X1 Grand which we were using for quite some time.
Design
Simply speaking, the new Lava Iris X1 Grand is a bigger version of its cousin, the Lava Iris X1 which got rave reviews from all quarters (including us) for its looks.
Like the older phone, the new X1 Grand has thick side metal plates and glossy finish back panel. It too has the volume rocker on the left hand side while the power key is in the right. At the top lies the micro USB port and a 3.5 mm jack. On top of the display lies a speaker grill, flanked by a camera module and couple of Sensors on right and left respectively. The back panel has a clean look with the 8 megapixel camera unit and two LED flash lights at the top. The camera mode has a Chrome ring that adds a bit of zing to the phone.
Note that the back panel is removable and is made of plastic, there is though a coating of glossy plastic that gives impression of glass. Due to glossy finish, the back panel is a bit slippery but the problem is not that acute. Infact due to its thick side panels, the phone offers good griping. 
As an alternative, Lava is offering a flip cover with matte finish. So those who don’t like the glossy finish back panel can opt for this. There are other benefits of this cover as well. Called as “intelligent flip cover”, it has a circular opening that shows time and date. Also without even opening the phone you can receive calls, check messages, open music, and open camera to click pictures.
Below this back panel lies a micro SD card slot, one micro SIM slot and one full size SIM slot and a 2200 mAh battery which is removable.
All in all, like its predecessor, the Lava Iris X1 Grand has the looks to kill and is quite light.
Display
The Lava Iris X1 Grand offers a 5 inch touchscreen, 0.5 inch bigger than its predecessor, the Lava Iris X1. However, the display of X1 Grand has the same 854×480 pixels Resolution as the Lava Iris X1. The lack of resolution though isn’t apparent in normal tasks, it pinches a lot during high end gaming and video playback. Brightness levels are not that high enough and thus in bright outdoors like we have in Delhi during summers, it is quite difficult to operate.
Thankfully, the Iris X1 Grand has an IPS panel so viewing angles are decent and so is its touch response.
Camera
The Lava Iris X1 Grand offers an 8 megapixel rear camera with BSI II Sensor and usual camera features like Auto Focus, HDR, Face Detection, Panorama, Geo Tagging, and Face Beauty Mode. There are two LED flash lights in the back panel too while a 2 megapixel camera is in the front.
But don’t expect much from the X1 Grand when it comes to camera output. The 8 megapixel camera though sounds pretty good, doesn’t offer much detail and images does look a bit dull. Ofcourse that doesn’t mean that the X1 Grand is at the bottom of the pyramid; its just that there are few better camera phones in this price segment. The front camera is though decent for video calling and selfies.
Performance
The Lava Iris X1 Grand has the 1.3 GHz Mediatek MT6582 quad core processor, Mali 400 MP graphics Processor and 1 GB RAM. The combination is competent enough to run high end games like ‘Nova 3 freedom edition’ (ofcourse a slight lag was visible but that was expected considering that the game is pretty loaded with graphics). So I can safely say that the phone can run almost all games available on Google Play store.
Here I should like to point out that the phone currently is based on Android 4.4 KitKat version and is upgradable to the latest Android 5.0 which definitely would further boost its performance.
The phone has also pretty loud sound as claimed by Lava due to its dual speakers and offers fast internet connectivity with its WiFi and 3G. There’s Bluetooth and micro USB port for file transfer.
The Lava Iris X1 Grand also offers decent 8 GB of internal storage of which 5.93 GB is available for users. The micro SD card slot can also handle a 32 GB micro SD card.
Images By Sushil Kumar