Swipe Technologies introduced Swipe Sense phablet in August. Priced at INR 9,999, the phone comes with fingerprint scanner. We have already seen unboxing of the phone and now lets take a detailed look in the full review.
Unboxing
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSEfFADlyew
Video Review
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Xh8loOndo
Design and Hardware
The Swipe Sense is a phablet and sports a 5.5 inch (960 x 540 pixels) qHD IPS display. It is 7.8mm thick and weighs 158 grams.The phone has a sturdy build with rounded edges. However, the 5.5 inch screen makes it a bit uncomfortable to handle and it will be too big for people with small hands. The phone is light in weight and encompassed in a plastic body.
At the front, the phone has a 3.2MP front-facing camera along with the proximity and ambient light sensors, earpiece and LED notification light. The front camera is good for selfies and video chats. In order to enhance your selfies, it has feature called Face beauty that offers three categories like Wrinkle removal, Whiten and Shape. All these three categories can be selected from Low, Medium and High. Using these tools does improve your selfies to some extent. Finally, a self timer is also present for selfies.
Below, the phone has three capacitive buttons for home back and menu. They resemble the ones present on the Xiaomi devices.
On the top we have the 3.5m audio jack and the micro USB port. They are situated on a textured pattern surface. This similar pattern is seen at the bottom of the phone which has no buttons.
The power button is present on the right side of the phone.
Volume rockers are seen on the left.
At the back we can see the Swipe logo in the center on the plastic rear panel of the phone. The camera is seen at the top and the loudspeaker grill at the bottom. The back cover has a plastic matte finish that is prone to fingerprints and smudges.
The Swipe Sense has a 8MP autofocus rear camera with LED Flash at the back. Below the flash we can see the fingerprint sensor.
Swipe Sense has a removable back cover and a 2250mAh removable battery.
The phone has two SIM card slots, one is normal SIM and other is micro SIM. Also a micro SD card slot is present.
Display
The 5.5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) qHD IPS display is bright and shows natural colors. The viewing angles and sunlight legibility are average. The color reproduction of the phone is good and so is the backlight.
Software and apps
Swipe Sense runs on Android KitKat 4.4.2 and provides pure stock Android experience and does not have any customization layer on the UI which is seen on most of the phones these days. This does makes the general navigation and exploring the phone a bit dull. The touch on the Swipe Sense is fluid and smooth which makes it feels responsive. It did not lag at any point of time.
It has a couple of pre-loaded apps like Automatic call recorder which once activated records all your mobile calls while another one is the Clean Master that boosts memory of the phone. However, there are no special apps from Swipe. Similar to other Android devices, you can add widgets and multiple home screens on the device.
Music Player and Radio
The Music player is an independent app and Play Music has not been made the default yet. It offers a range of equalizer options that can be selected depending upon the music and surrounding. The loudspeaker sound is pretty good on the device as is the audio at the time of using earphones. FM Radio on the phone is also pretty standard and allows auto search for channels along with recording.
Out of a total of 8GB internal space you get about 5.26GB of usable storage. Apps that are compatible to transfer can be shifted to microSD card.
Keyboard
The letters and keys on the Android Lollipop-like keyboard have too much space between them resulting into an uncomfortable typing experience. Also, the predictive typing was not top of the order. Users can download other third-party keyboards like Glympse, Swype , SwiftKey and so on for a better and hassle free typing.
Camera
The Swipe Sense has a 8MP autofocus rear camera with LED Flash. Photos from the phone were average but the ones in the daylight were much better. However, the images do appear dull this essentially means that the colors in the photos do not turn out quiet well. Also, long shots did appear to blur while the close up ones were accurate and clear. In case of the night mode, the photos appeared a bit noisy.
The camera offers different modes of shooting like auto, night, sunset, fireworks, sports, candle light and so on. A bunch of color effect modes are also available like sepia, negative,aqua, blackboard, whiteboard etc. Other features in the camera include smile shot, face detection and of course it has a HDR mode. Images with HDR mode came out good but it adds some noise to the images and makes it more bright.
Auto
HDR
HDR
Low light
Flash
Video
The Swipe Sense unit we reviewed was able to shoot 1080p video only at 15fps, but the 720p video is fine. The video quality is again average and not very sharp, neither is the audio.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t296Ex-Nyy4
Performance
Swipe Sense is powered by 1.3 GHz Quad-core processor and has 1GB RAM. The phone in general is responsive and gave a lag free experience barring few instances. Downloading of apps and running them is smooth especially heavy ones like games. We tried games like Asphalt 8 and Dead Trigger 2 on the phone that performed well and did not lag at the time of testing. Also, the graphics look good on the large 5.5 screen, which enhanced the gaming experience. The phone did not heat up even after playing continuously for about 30-35 minutes but it started to heat up later. One of the areas in which the phone lacks is the call quality. The receiving voice on the device is low and unclear even if the volume is maximum.
Fingerprint Scanner
Fingerprint scanner is the most important feature of the device that falls in the mid range category. Setting up fingerprint scanner is easy however registering the fingerprint is a task and requires more than one attempt as you have to swipe the finger over the sensor in a particular manner for 8 times in a row till you get all the green signals. Once registered you can use your finger print to unlock the phone which is a good option for security reasons. However, it takes time to get used to the scanning process and hence the phone has an alternate password system to unlock your phone.
Gesture Sensing and Off Screen Gestures
Another feature in the Swipe Sense is the gesture sensing which allows user to move your hand over the sensor to navigate. This feature can be accessed for Gallery, Music and Camera. Moreover, there is also an “Off Screen Gesture” feature that once enabled will let users draw, double tap the screen to start and control apps. Actions like launching camera, flashlight, controlling music can be done with these off-screen gestures.
Battery Life
The battery life of the phone is an area of concern due to its 5.5 inch screen. The phone’s battery lasted for just about a day on a 3G network from medium to heavy use. It drained at a faster speed while playing games also the power reduced even when the phone was idle.
Conclusion
The Swipe Sense is a budget device that packs more features at a price tag of Rs 9,999. However, in the event of offering additional features like fingerprint sensor and off-screen gesture sensing, the phone lacks in essential elements like camera and battery life. Also, we think that even though the phone is sleek and lightweight, it could have had an attractive build. Nonetheless, the Swipe Sense offers smooth performance for a general usage. It is a budget device that offers stock Android experience without any additional apps or customized interface. Although, not perfect the fingerprint sensor does add an extra flair to an otherwise average device at an affordable price tag.
Pros
- Good display and large screen
- Smooth Performance
- Good gaming experience
Cons
- Battery life
- Camera quality
- Handset build