MiCromaX CanvaS SparK 3 Q385
The phone offers a rich multimedia experience at a very reasonable price
Micromax is facing some tough competition by Chinese brands like Xiaomi on both specs and price. But recently Micromax launched Canvas Spark 3 Q385 a successor of Canvas spark 2 at a very competitive price of Rs 4,999.
Key features: Micromax has built this device to offer a rich multimedia experience to people with tight budgets. This phone offers a big 5.5-inch IPS HD display with on-screen navigation buttons. The top of the display is accomplished with an earpiece grill followed by a 5 MP front camera and a couple of sensors. The whole body of the phone is completely made up of plastic. The phone’s back panel is made of soft matte finish plastic which is removable and does not look too cheap. The 8 MM rear camera and flash are up top, with a Micromax logo below and if you go towards the bottom you will find a large speaker grill. The phone is light in weight and pretty comfortable to use and hold. A curvy metallic strip is running across the sides of the phone to enhance the look. You’ll find the power and volume buttons on the right, the audio socket on top, and the Micro-USB port at the bottom. Under the back cover, it has two Micro-SIM slots and a micro-SD above the non-removable battery. Overall the design is pretty good for the price.
Under the hood, it is powered by 1.3 GHz Quad core processor Spreadtrum SC7731 SoC with Mali-400 MP GPU and 1 GB RAM for multitasking and gaming. It runs on Android 5.1 lollipop with Micromax customized UI skinned on top. It has two launchersIndus Launcher which is set as default by the company and the other is Android Launcher 3. The Launcher 3 has the app drawer whereas Indus Launcher keeps all apps on the home screen. If we talk about storage, the phone has 8 GB internal storage out of which you will get around 4GB free space to use. As it supports micro-SD card, you can expand your storage up to 32 GB, but unfortunately, this phone does not support USB-OTG.
Decent performer: The Spark 3 can handle your daily usage apps such as WhatsApp, Gmail, Instagram, etc but you won’t expect too much from this phone as it shows some lags while shifting from one app to another (running some apps at background). In the gaming section, it can handle light games without any significant lags but don’t try to run graphically intensive games such as Asphalt. The phone doesn’t heat up much with moderate gaming.
The Canvas Spark 3 is packed with an 8-MP autofocus rear camera with LED Flash, and a 5 megapixel front-facing a camera. The camera autofocus and shutter speeds are slow. The photos captured are good in daylight but you can’t expect much details and sharpness. On the other hand, the low-light or night shots are not good as they come up with graininess. The good thing in the camera is “on tap focus” that allow you to easily set the object in focus.
The handset is backed by a non-removable 2500mAh battery and it lasted for 3 hours and 15 minutes in our video loop test. This phone can last for 8 to 10 hours with average multitasking and social networking.
Bottomline: The smartphone comes with a nice design and can be considered if you are looking for a phone on a budget. However, by increasing your budget a bit, you could consider phones like Redmi 2 which provides a better camera.