The market is a blaze with possibly the two best dual sim smartphones of this quarter, The Micromax A116 Canvas HD and the Samsung Galaxy Grand I9080. The question that everyones asking is what is really the difference between the two.
Brand Names
Apart from being manufactured totally differently, the two phones come from two different type of manufacturers. Micromax up until recently was known as a “Budget/cheap” phone maker for India, whereas Samsung has enjoyed the market name and snob value of a luxury phone brand.
SOC
The Micromax A116 is built on a Mediatek SOC, a relevantly newer company formed in 1997, that also builds components for “Budget and Chinese” devices. The company has made some breakthroughs in technology in the past two years and shares a considerable chunk of the marketshare.
The Galaxy Grand is built on a 1.2 GHz processor which remains unknown as of now. Several indicators point to the use of a Broadcom BCM28155 SoC. It comprises a pair of ARM Cortex-A9 cores and Broadcom’s own VideoCore-IV graphics engine for 2D and 3D acceleration. Whether this performs any better than the Mediatek processor is currently unknown.
Sim Cards
Both the phones have Dual Sim, The Galaxy Grand has a slight advantage here, because it has smart autoforward, so it allows a busy Sim Card’s calls to be sent to the other phone, keeping both sims active at once. Although the chip inside the A116 is capable of similar features, the Canvas HD currently is only single sim active.
Displays
Displays are an interesting comparison for these devices, while the Canvas HD boasts a whopping 1280 x720 pixel laden 5 inch IPS display the Galaxy Grand only comes with a 480 x800 px LCD display. Numbers aside the display on the Grand was pretty impressive and does not feel pixellated as the numbers on the sheet would suggest. We also found that the colors were more vivid on the Galaxy Grand’s display as opposed to the Micromax Canvas HD.
Cameras
Both Carry 8 MP camera’s which will only be tested while we are reviewing the devices, but if Samsung is using their own sensor in the camera, the Grand could have a slight advantage over the A116. The front camera on the Galaxy Grand is also superior to the 0.3 MP basic front camera on the Canvas HD A116.
Operating System
Samsung puts in a lot of effort into making a custom UI for their devices, along with several apps and tweaks. So Samsung definitely gets the upper hand here. With features like pop up play, direct call, multi window and most importantly an inbuilt task manager the Galaxy Grand gets the much needed upper hand here. Of course TouchWiz UI has several other features and good looking icons that most are aware of.
Micromax clearly looses here, the software is basic Android jelly bean, with a bit of customizations done by the Micromax Software Research team in conjunction with the manufacturers. The UI can become laggy and does not have the easy tweaks as seen in TouchWiz . However Micromax’s UI offers several customizations and file access that is restricted in Samsung devices. You can almost install any app and replace the UI, But you will not get the fit and finish of a manufacturer made custom UI. Maybe in the coming years with the success of the Canvas series Micromax can build their own UI (or buy one : MiUi would fit the name too)
Build Quality and Looks
More or less built with plastic, both devices have identical looks. The Micromax Canvas HD A116 seems a lot more refined to look at in comparison to the Canvas 2, and feels a lot more sturdier than the already sturdy past model. The Galaxy Grand is set to resemble the Note 2 when it arrives in the market, with a glossy bezel and identical looks and matching colors with flip cases. A user could easily pass off as using a company flagship for half the price. Build to that the identical user interface and similar features including perks like multi window puts the Galaxy Grand a step ahead in the Looks department.
Samsung India is banking on identical looks to be a key sales factor in India, especially because Grand owner can get the feel of a Note 2 for almost Half the price.
Price
In India its all about the price, and Samsung will loose here, miserably. The Galaxy Grand is priced at Rs. 21500 at street level selling price. Whereas the Micromax Canvas HD A116 has a MRP. of 14999 and is expected to sell under Rs. 13000. This puts a gap of 10000 Rupees or almost US$ 200 between the two. An amount which in some cases could comprise of a monthly salary of working individuals.
Conclusion
While we honestly cannot tell if one performs better than the other until we have our dirty claws in the dish and can review both these phones side by side. We do have one news that is set to make matters difficult for everyone, Karbonn and Lava are all set to announce quad core phones, so Stay Tuned.
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