Mobiistar, yet another new brand has made its debut in the Indian market earlier this week with XQ Dual with Dual front camera setup at a competitive pricing of Rs. 7999 . How good is this mobile? lets check it out.
Video Review
Display, Design and Hardware
The smartphone has a 5.5 in Full HD IPS display with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. The display is bright, offers good color output and the sunlight legibility is good even in bright outdoor. The screen also has Asahi DragonTrail toughness glass protection that protects it from scratches.
Talking about the placements, the device has 13MP + 8MP dual camera set up next to the earpiece along with the usual set of sensors, notification LED and flash. There is a big bezel down the screen with three capacitive buttons corresponding to multi-tasking, home, and back.
The SIM slot and the power button are present on the right side and the volume rocker is present on the left side. Loudspeaker grill, MicroUSB port, microphone are crammed at the bottom, while the 3.5mm audio jack is placed on top.
It has a hybrid SIM slot, so you can use two nano SIMs or a nano SIM and a microSD card at a time.
On the back there is a 13-megapixel camera with dual-tone LED flash. The fingerprint sensor is present below it along with the Mobiistar branding. The phone has a metal back with antennas on the top and the bottom parts of the back. Holding the phone gives a solid feel, but the smooth back is slippery to hold. It is recommended to use the bundled clear case that comes in the box. It measures 7.9mm in thickness and weighs 160 grams.
Performance
Coming to the performance, it is powered by an Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor clocked at 1.4GHz. It has 3GB of RAM. Performance is good most of the times. The GPU also offers good gaming performance in most games.
Software
The Mobiistar XQ Dual is shipped with Android 7.1.2 on top of custom UI V3.0. The user interface looks similar to what we had seen with other Chinese handset makers. It also comes with a Freezer app that is used to freeze the app to speed up the phone and save power.
Out of 3GB of RAM you get 1.2GB of free RAM when default apps are running in the background. Out of 32GB of storage you get about 27GB of usable storage.
Camera
The Mobiistar XQ Dual comes with 13MP camera with f/2.0 aperture. On the front we have a dual camera setup with 13MP primary camera with f/2.0 aperture along with a secondary 8-megapixel camera with 120-degree wide-angle lens and f/2.2 aperture for group selfies. There is also a soft LED flash on the front. The camera interface is easy to use as well. Coming to the image quality. Daylight shots were decent , but some images came out dull during cloudy or poor lighting conditions. Macro shots were good and focus is fast. Low-light shots are decent, but could have been better. The front camera performs better and captures lots of subject in background. Thanks to flash, images came out well even in low lighting conditions. You can get rid of blemishes on your face using Face beauty features.
Check out some camera samples (Click the image to view the full-resolution samples).
Fingerprint
The phone has a fingerprint sensor on the back. Placement of the sensor on the back is good, since it is where your index finger rests when you are holding the phone. It is quick to unlock the phone, immediately after you place your finger on the sensor. In this device you can add up to 5 fingerprints
Loudspeaker output is good and clear even in full volume. Since the loudspeaker is present on the bottom part of the phone, audio doesn’t get muffled when you are placing the phone on a flat surface. Audio output through headphones is good as well.
Connectivity
It has 4G support with support of 4G VoLTE for Reliance Jio. Both the SIMs support 4G, but you can enable 4G only in one SIM at a time, while the other goes to 3G. You can set the default SIM for voice call, messaging or data connection. It has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS and USB OTG support.
Since this is a dual SIM phone you get option to call or send SMS from either SIMs. Calls were clear and we did not face any call drops, but the earpiece quality is not the best if you are in a noisy environment.
Battery
Coming to the battery life, the 3000mAh built-in battery offers great battery life. On heavy usage it lasts for a day and with casual usage it last for more than a day.
Conclusion
At Rs. 7,999, the Mobiistar XQ Dual is a decent selfie-focused smartphone available in the Indian market right now in the price range. This device has a good screen, offers smooth performance, and a a good selfie camera as well. The company says it will have 1000 service centers across India from Day 1. It also comes in Black color, in addition to Gold. It will be available exclusively from Flipkart starting from May 30th with several launch offers.