10. or ( Tenor) D: A stock Android on a tight budget
Entry- level smartphones of today have climbed up the ladder when it comes to the overall user experience. After Xiaomi launched the Redmi 5A, the tension amongst OEMs in the affordable smartphone segment has been sizzling and Amazon’s 10. or ( pronounced as Tenor) 10. or D
( Tenor D) appears to take the fight a step further with an extremely affordable package — you can get the base 2GB + 16GB variant for ` 4,999 and the 3GB RAM + 32GB ROM variant at ` 5,999.
The smartphone features 10. or’s familiar sturdy plastic unibody build present on its entire lineup, which in turn also echoes the aesthetics of Lumia smartphones from Nokia. The rear panel sports a fingerprint sensor, which is a huge bonus for a budget segment phone. The display misses out on scratch resistance protection but at 5.2- inches with a pixel resolution of 1280 x 720, it doesn’t disappoint you in real- world scenarios — you get images with decent colours and contrasts.
Under the hood, this rookie houses a 1.4GHz quad- core Snapdragon 425 SoC, which is known for its decent performance despite being high on energy efficiency. A dedicated 128GB micro SD card slot means that you can use two SIM cards simultaneously. It runs on stock Android 7.1.1 Nougat, which the company promises updates to Android 8.0 Oreo soon. Despite having a chipset focused heavily on sipping power more efficiently, the 10. or D manages to put on a decent show under casual usage.
When it comes to photography, a 13MP rear camera captures photos that can be at best termed
as average — they lose out heavily on details, get overexposed in daylight and the dynamic range isn’t impressive. A 3500mAh battery manages to last for a full day with ease under casual usage scenarios such as making/ receiving calls, texting, web surfing, video streaming and some light photography.
To wrap it up, if you are hunting around for a highly affordable smartphone, then the 10. or D with its compelling specifications, clubbed with stock Android at ` 5,999 could be your best bet. However, the camera and display are a few areas where 10. or needs to work on, where there’s more room to grow.