BSNL Champion SM3513 is a result of an alliance between BSNL, the telephony service provider in India and Champion computers, an established IT brand in India. This does raise concern about the prospect of BSNL Champion series being able to compete as a mobile device. Keeping this in mind let’s start with BSNL Champion SM3513 review and see how a sub 5,000 INR device fares.
Design
For a low priced phone like BSNL Champion SM3513, you shouldn’t be expecting a killer design language. With this device things are a little different, it carries an egg shell outer design which from a distance does portray a unibody design. The build is entirely plastic, essentially meaning that the body is prone to fingerprints and smudges. The good part is that you can easily wipe them out with a piece of cloth.
At the front Champion SM3513 sports a 3.5″ inch display with android specific Home, Back and Menu touch keys located below. At the is the secondary camera next to calling speaker. On the back, there is the primary camera accompanied by a stereo speaker for audio out. Coming to the sidelines, there is a volume rocker and power/screen on-off button on the right. At the top resides microUSB port along with 3.5mm audio jack.
Display
BSNL Champion houses a 3.5″ inch Capacitive Touch display with 320 x 480 pixels resolution. This calculates to roughly 160 ppi of pixel density which by all standards is satisfactory considering the price it comes at. In terms of usage the display is a mixed bag, it performs up-to the mark indoor but under direct sunlight it takes a beating. Lack of automatic brightness (no sensors) doesn’t help the cause either. Viewing angles aren’t great either, tilt the device and the display starts starts looking pale thanks to diminishing color saturation.
The saving grace is the face that the size of display is 3.5″ inch, way more than what competitors at this price are offering. Moreover it also supports multi-touch.
Camera
BSNL Champion SM3513 comes with a 3 MP primary camera with no LED flash and 1.3 MP secondary camera. Absence of LED flash means that night time photography is out of the context. For daytime image clicking, the 3 MP shooter does manage to click mediocre images good enough for social media sharing. The 1.3 MP front facing camera is a useful inclusion, allowing you to make to video calls. And considering that it supports 3G connectivity, the front camera becomes even more useful!
Storage Capacity
BSNL Champion SM3513 is severely limited when it comes to internal storage. It comes with only 137 MB of on-board storage which in any case isn’t sufficient at all. Yes there is an option to use an additional microSD card (up-to 32 GB) but that doesn’t make up for the fact the some applications still fight for internal storage while installing. This being said, the pre-installed Android Jelly Bean allows you to install application to external storage so you do have a work-around.
Performance
Beginning with its specifications, BSNL Champion SM3513 comes with a dual core processor (clock speed not known) coupled with 512 MB RAM and Android Jelly Bean OS running the things down under. Now that you are aware of the specifications let me just tell you that for a device priced at Rs. 4,280 (at the time of writing this article) the specs are notably appreciable. And this also means that you get a performing piece of hardware in your pocket.
Running applications like WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Yahoo Messenger and games like Angry Birds, Flappy Bird did take some time to open but afterwards I did not notice any major lag whatsoever. The device did stutter on some occasions but that’s acceptable considering the suite of applications I use. For an average user, I don’t think this will pose any problem.
BSNL Champion SM3513 also has a set of pre-installed applications including Champion Fun, File Manager, Quikr, ToDo, which may or may not be useful depending on users requirements. Moreover you can always get rid of them so its a win-win.
One interesting functionality Champion SM3513 has is the ability to act like a wireless mouse for your windows computer. All you need to do is download and install the mouse server desktop software in your windows running computer. Connect both the devices to the same wi-fi network and run the Connect Tab on the handset to convert your phone into a Wi-Fi Mouse. It does sound easy but it took me a handful of tries to get it working. Moreover it is not as useful as it sounds atleast not for me.
Battery
BSNL Champion SM3513 comes with 1300 mAh battery back-up. More than enough for it to last for a day. I have a larger than usual set of application which keep running in background sucking up battery and RAM but even then the batter managed to deliver 8 hours of usage.
For those interested in the apps I used, it included WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, LinkedIn, Google+ Auto Backup, 6 gmail accounts (with background sync), a yahoo mail account (with background sync) and twitter. These are the ones that do affect the battery more than any other application and RAM availability.
Final Word
For a device costing Rs. 4,280, you shouldn’t be expecting an all out performer. But BSNL Champion SM3513 does manage to deliver on majority of areas we looked into. Good display size (and quality to some extent), respectable RAM, adequate processor, updated Android version (Jelly Bean) and sufficient battery pack. Yes the device lacks when it come to internal storage but you can easily make up for it by using an additional microSD card. If you can ignore the internal storage hiccup then I believe BSNL Champion SM3513 can prove to be a good deal.
