Smartphones with large screen seem to have been flooding the market
in past few months, as most of the major brands have some or the other
offerings launched in this arena. While it is not just the biggies like
Samsung getting big in this segment, players like Micromax and Karbonn
are not far behind. In fact these local yet potential brands are
tightening their grip on the market for bigger screen devices by
bringing out feature packed large screen devices at a relatively lower
price point. And considering that India still is a price conscious
market, these brands are grabbing a decent market share by offering the
consumers Android based devices similar to the ones made by the likes of
Samsung and HTC, however at an affordable price point.
Keeping the needs of users alongside price point in mind, Samsung
recently has brought the Samsung Galaxy Grand to the Indian market. The
device does pack in an array of interesting features, but at a price of
Rs 21,500 will it really be able to give its desi competitors, Micromax Canvas HD A116 and Karbonn A30, a run for their money, we take a look at the specs.
The screen size is the most prominent factors that keeps the three
devices running in the same line. Micromax’s latest addition to its
Canvas series, the Canvas HD A116 is one feature laden smartphone as it
comes with a 5.0-inch 720p HD IPS display. The Karbonn A30 boasts of a
massive 5.9-inch TFT display with a WVGA resolution. The Samsung Galaxy
Grand carries a 5.0-inch TFT display with a WVGA resolution. It supports
HD playback. In terms of dimensions Karbonn’s A30 is the largest of
the three, in terms of the display resolution the Micromax Canvas HD
holds the edge.
On
software front, the Micromax HD A116 and Samsung Galaxy Grand run on
the Android Jelly Bean, while the Karbonn A30 lags behind in this race
with the Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Apart from this,
as the processor plays a vital role to boost up the performance of any
device, the Samsung Galaxy Grand rocks a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and
Karbonn’s A30 also works on 1GHz dual-core processor. The Micromax
Canvas HD A116 surely comes with a surprise as it has a 1.2GHz quad-core
processor.
Now the big deal out here is that the Micromax HD A116 leverages a
quad-core MediaTek CPU that leverages the ARM Cortex A7 platform. Cortex
A7 has a lower thermal footprint than Cortex A9 in the Galaxy Grand,
but at the same time it’s not as powerful. That means we can expect the
performance and battery longevity to be comparable, even though one is a
quad-core smartphone, while the other one has a dual-core
processor. That said, the Micromax HD A116 does have a PowerVR series
5XT GPU that allows for full-HD video, and 720p display resolutions. We
don’t have any details about the CPU and GPU configuration of the
Karbonn A30.
Apart from this, all three devices come with dual-SIM compatibility
(not dual-active), feature an 8.0 megapixel camera and offer an
expandable memory space.
Here is a spec sheet of the three devices:| Samsung Galaxy Grand | Micromax Canvas HD A116 | Karbonn A30 | |
| Dimension | 143.7x77x9.6 mm | 144x74x10.7 mm | 166 x 91 x 10.7 mm |
| Display | 5-inch WVGA TFT LCD display (480×800 resolution) | 5-inch 720p HD IPS display (1280×720 resolution) | 5.9-inch TFT display (480X800 resolution) |
| OS | Android Jelly Bean OS, v4.1.2 | Android Jelly Bean OS, v4.1.2 | Android Ice cream Sandwich OS, v4.0.4 |
| Processor | 1.2GHz dual core processor | 1.2GHz quad core processor | 1GHz dual core processor |
| Memory | 1GB of RAM, 8GB internal memory | 1GB of RAM, 4GB internal memory | 512 MB RAM, 4GB internal memory |
| Battery | 2,100mAh | 2,000mAh | 2,500mAh |
| Storage | MicroSD card slot (up to 64GB) | MicroSD card slot (up to 32GB) | MicroSD card slot (up to 32GB) |
| Camera | 8-megapixel rear camera, 2-megapixel HD front facing Camera | 8-megapixel rear camera, VGA front-facing camera | 8-megapixel rear camera, 1.3-megapixel front facing camera |
| Price | Rs 21,500 | Rs 15,000 | Rs 11,500 (approximately) |
A previous version of the post indicated that the Micromax Canvas HD had a dual-active SIM system, but we have confirmed that it indeed does utilize a dual-SIM system in which both SIMs are not active.
