Android device market with sub 10,000 price mark is getting competitive with more and more smartphones getting better specifications from well established brands and more so from domestic players. Xolo A600 is one such android phone which is trying to further spruce up the competition. Courtesy Lava International, I had the opportunity to use Xolo A600 as my daily driver for a stipulated period. Before we jump on to Xolo A600 review, let me quickly give you a heads-up that the device costs Rs. 7,299 (as seen on Flipkart) and thus opinions are affected by its price tag.
Design – The Looks
Doesn’t matter if a mobile phone costs Rs. 7,000 or Rs. 30,000, it has to carry some sense of design language to make sure that apart from raking in good specs, it is a looker as well. Xolo A600 does manage to grab your attention at the first instance. It isn’t a drop dead beauty that you just can’t resist but the all white, glossy front, white matte finish on the back and chrome finish material at top & bottom do give the device a certain sense of appeal. Moreover this has also to do something with the fact that all white body in itself makes any gadget stand out in the crowd.
The button placement is pretty standard and quickly jumping through it, the volume rockers are located at the left, power/display on/off multi-purpose key at the right, a 3.5 mm audio jack accompanied with a micro USB port at the top.
Display
Xolo A600 sports a 4.5″ inch qHD (960×540 pixels) IPS screen. The IPS panel display isn’t really much to talk about. A quarter HD display performs very well for performing basic tasks like web browsing, viewing images, videos and games. However do not expect the screen to cooperate if you intend to zoom into high resolution graphics, view HD videos or zoom into web pages to read text, the screen sharpness suffers. But then again, for the price it comes at, I am impressed with lesser mentioned things like viewing angle (pretty awesome) and a ppi density of 240 ppi.
Storage Capacity
Xolo A600 comes with 512 MB RAM, 4 GB internal storage and support for external micro SD card (of up to 32 GB). Out of the available 4 GB internal storage, roughly 1.2 GB is available for as application storage and 1.27 GB is at users disposal. The internal storage might seem heavily constrained but thankfully support for external SD card makes up for it. I can live with this but what I cannot live without is the RAM, Xolo A600 has only meager 512 MB RAM. They could have put in at-least 768 MB RAM if not more. I don’t expect 1 GB RAM module in a sub 10K phone but considering the competition 768 MB would have been much better.
Overall Performance
Before I share my experience using the device, let me just quickly take you through it’s hardware and software configurations. Xolo A600 is a dual sim device (GSM + GSM). It carries a 1.3 GHz dual core MT6572 chipset processor along with Mali 400 GPU. The presence of a dedicated graphics processor means better graphics performance and it so happens to be true. Although marred by low RAM, I was able to watch 720p videos (using default player!) without any lag whatsoever, the full HD 1080p videos did stutter a bit but that’s understandable.
Things like audio quality, network reception, Wi-Fi signal strength, etc worked as expected. Application switching in general was okay except for minor lags during heavy usage. I wasn’t really expecting the device to be this smooth (not butter smooth though) but considering the fact that Xolo A600 runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, using the device for calling, music listening, using Whatsapp, Viber is breeze.
Another good part is the rear camera, a 5 MP shooter with auto focus and flash. The images, video captures are good enough for occasional day time shooting and sharing on social network. The camera can also shoot 720p videos. Lava also managed to squeeze in a front VGA camera, thus allowing you to make video calls either using your network provider or via 3rd party apps viz. Skype or Hangouts. Worthy inclusion.
Battery
Ah. The battery. This was actually the first thing I wanted to talk about in this review. Xolo A600 carries a 1900 mAh battery. For the phone of this size and price, 1900 mAh is more than enough to get your through a days time without any hiccup. During my testing, I didn’t need a charger during the day. A full charge during the night served through the day.
Xolo A600 is a good android phone, dedicated graphics processor, great battery, dual sim support and android 4.2.2 pre-loaded are some of the positive points whereas things like limited RAM, internal storage, lesser known brand do take away some charm out of it. If you can live with these trade off then A600 is one device you can put into some thought and go for it.
XOLO A600 In Pictures
