At around Rs 19,000, Canvas Turbo is currently the flagship smartphone of Micromax. The handset comes with a metal body and has top class features. We used it for over a fortnight and here is what we discovered.
Design
The Micromax Canvas Turbo is truly the flaghship product of the handset maker, at least in terms of design. It eclipses all its other siblings with a metal unibody; and despite that it feels so light that you will confuse it for a plastic phablet. The anodized aluminium body not only secures the internals well but also doubles up as an Antenna and boosts signal strength. The phone is quite thin with 8.6 mm thickness (it measures 71 x 128.3 x 8.6 mm). Most importantly, it has a curvy body with most of the bulk in the middle that makes it fit the palm quite nicely.
Also, unlike in Doodle 2 where the upper part of the back panel harboured the SIM and micro SD card slots, in Canvas Turbo the slots are along the sides. Both the micro SIM and micro SD card slots are well covered and to access them there is a pin which you have to insert in the adjoining hole and press gently.
The power and volume rockers are placed side by side along the right EDGE with sufficient gap in the middle, while the 3.5 mm jack is at the bottom. The micro USB port is at the top.
Display
The Micromax Canvas Turbo comes with a 5 inch touchscreen. The display has full HD (1920 x 1080 pixel) resolution. Thus you would definitely like to watch your HD movies on it. The touch response of the display is good but while playing games the screen failed to respond to certain touches. That is perhaps an issue with performance and not display.
Camera
Micromax Canvas Turbo comes with a 13 Megapixel auto focus rear camera, which is said to be capable of recording full HD videos. There is a huge 5 megapixel camera in the front as well.
The phone is loaded with camera features. The best among them is the 3D panorama feature. Though it is not unique to Canvas Turbo (in Google Play Store there is an application that claims to provide the same effect), but Micromax should be lauded for enabling this feature in the native camera application of Turbo itself. Contrary to any apprehensions, the 3D panorama option is quite easy to use. Actually it is a combination of horizontal and vertical panorama, which allows you to capture things in totality. There is a video in Micromax Canvas Turbo’s official website that explains the same in a very lucid manner.
Other highlighted features of the camera App of Canvas Turbo are GIF animation, object remover, 4x digital zoom, and 99 or 40 continuous shots.
The camera application is also quite easy to operate. On the right there is a still-video switch along with capture button and gallery shortcut. At left there is a flash, and a front-rear camera switch button along with other setting options. From the settings you could change: the ISO, preview size, picture size (13 megapixel, 10 megapixel etc), number of shots (99 or 40), or the self timer and face detection options. Above the settings icon there is a shortcut to change the scene mode among normal, HDR, panorama, scene detection, and smile shot. Above that there is the option to choose from GIF animation, 3D panorama, and the remove object option.
As far as quality goes, we do not have any grudge against the Micromax Canvas Turbo. The front camera is especially outstanding while the rear camera is perhaps one of the best in its segments.
OS and performance
The Canvas Turbo comes with a 1.5 GHz Mediatek MT6589T quad core processor, Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean operating system, and a PowerVR SGX544 graphics processing unit. Most importantly, it has 2 GB RAM. This is an impressive combination and produces like results. There is no lag no matter how many applications you open simultaneously. However, in opening very high end games like Injustice: Gods Among Us, the phone slows down. And though it managed to play the game, there was some lag.
Storage
Micromax Canvas Turbo comes with 16 GB ROM, of which about 12.47 GB is available for users to store their content. There is no expandable memory slot in the Turbo, though, which is disappointing considering the fact that many of its competitors now come with up to 64 GB micro SD card slots.
Battery
Canvas Turbo comes with an average looking 2000 mAh battery. However, the phone has good battery life despite its full HD display and quad core Processor – two chief reasons for below par battery output. With average use, it comfortably lasts a day. Even heavy users would get seven hours of talktime as promised. To give you a definite idea, we used the phone to play games at maximum brightness with WiFi on and at medium volume, and the phone discharged 10 per cent in half an hour.
Connectivity and others
The handset has dual SIM slots, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a micro USB port for connectivity. There is also GPS for navigation.