Itel launched the Itel P55 series in the new P series in India this week. Here we have the Itel P55+, the top-end model in the series which has several highlights such as a vegan leather design, 45W fast charging and 256GB storage and lots more that you rarely see in phones in the price. Is this the best budget phone under Rs. 10,000? Let us dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- Itel P55+ in Royal Green colour
- Clear protective case
- Screen guard (Pre-installed)
- 45W fast charger
- USB Type-A to Type-C cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- User manual and warranty information
Display, Hardware and Design
Starting with the display, the Itel P55+ has a 6.56-inch HD+ LCD screen with a pixel resolution of 720 x 1612 pixels, 20:9 aspect ratio and a pixel density of about 269 PPI.
The display is bright, the colours are vibrant, and the sunlight legibility is good as well. Viewing angles are decent, but it could have been better. The phone has 90Hz refresh rate.
The phone has a punch-hole screen that houses an 8-megapixel camera with LED flash. There is a Dynamic Bar that allows you to quickly check your battery status, incoming calls, and unlocking status.
The phone has proximity sensor, but it misses the ambient light sensor for auto brightness adjustment. This is fine in the daytime, but you will have to manually reduce the brightness when using the phone in the night since the screen is too bright.
In terms of placements, the power button, which integrates a fingerprint scanner, is present on the right side along with the volume rockers. The dedicated dual SIM and microSD card slot is present on the left side.
The 3.5mm audio jack, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and the loudspeaker grill are present on the bottom.
On the back there is a 50-megapixel camera along with an AI camera. The Royal Green colour that we have has a vegan leather finish that looks and feels premium. The phone packs a 5000mAh built-in battery.
Camera
- 50MP main camera with f/1.6 aperture, AI lens
- 8MP front camera with f/2.0 aperture
The camera UI is familiar with most Itel smartphones running Android 13 that include zoom option on the bottom, quick toggles for flash, timer, aspect ratio, filters and more on the top. Other camera features include Short Video, Video, Photo, Beauty, Portrait, Super Night, Ultra HD, AR Shot, Pro mode, Panorama, Time-lapse, and HDR.
Coming to the image quality, daylight shots came out well with good dynamic range, thanks to Quad Pixel technology that gives you get 12.5MP output. HDR shots are better with improved dynamic range. Portrait shots have decent edge detection. The 8MP front camera is decent in daylight, and the flash helps in low-light.
Check out the camera samples
The phone is capable of recording 1080p at up to 30 fps resolution from both front and rear cameras.
Software, UI and Apps
The Itel P55+ runs Android 13 with Android security patch for October 2023. As usual, it has the usual features present in Itel phones such as personalization options, themes, Smart panel, dual apps, kids mode and more.
Apart from the usual set of utility apps, Google apps, there are several apps such as Facebook, Visha player, Instagram, Messenger and more.
It packs 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM with 8GB of virtual RAM with MemFusion and 256GB UFS 2.2 of storage. Out of 8GB RAM, you get 7.7GB of usable RAM, out of which about 3.3GB of RAM is free on boot with just the default apps running in the background.
Out of 256GB of internal storage, you get about 230GB of usable storage. We got sequential read speeds of about 914.98MB/s, which is good for a phone with UFS 2.2, since most have eMMC 5.1 storage in the price range.
Fingerprint sensor and Face unlock
The phone has a fingerprint sensor on the side. It immediately unlocks the phone just by keeping your finger so that you don’t have to press it, and it is obviously faster than the in-display fingerprint scanner. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. You can also use the fingerprint for app local and payments in apps. The phone also has face unlock, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music Player, FM Radio and Multimedia
YouTube Music is the default music player. It also has FM Radio with recording. Audio through the speaker is decent. Audio through earphones, is good as well.
It only has Widevine L3 support, so you can play HD content on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and other streaming apps. It doesn’t have an HDR panel, so you can’t expect HDR videos in any apps.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It supports 4G VoLTE, and support Dual 4G VoLTE that offers 4G in both the SIM cards at a time. Other connectivity options include Dual-Band Wi-Fi 6 802.11 ac (2.4 + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0 LE, GPS + GLONASS. There is also NFC support that you won’t see in phones in the price range.
The phone also USB OTG support that lets you connect USB drives. Moving on, the call quality was decent, but it could have been better.
The Itel body SAR is 0.997W/Kg, and the head SAR is at 1.093/Kg, well under the limit in India which is 1.6 W/kg (over 1 g).
Performance
Coming to the performance, this is powered by an Octa-Core UniSoC T606 12nm processor. It has 2 x A75 cores clocked at up to 1.6GHz and 6x A55 core at up to 1.6GHz. It has Mali-G57 MP1 GPU with support for Open GL ES 3.2 and Open CL 2.0 graphics.
The performance is decent. Since the phone only has 8GB of RAM, it doesn’t slow down when you open multiple apps in the background. Even though the CPU is slightly faster than the MediaTek Helio G85 present in some of the phones, the Mali-G57 MP1 GPU is not as fast as the Mali-G52 MP2 GPU, mainly due to more core count.
You can play casual games, but this is not a phone for graphic-intensive games. It gets a bit warm when gaming on 4G. It has iboost feature promises a better gaming experience, but it can’t do much with the GPU.
Battery life
Coming to the battery life, the phone packs a 5000mAh (typical) built-in battery, same as most phones in the range. It lasts for a whole day even with heavy use with 4G enabled and multimedia use, and more than that with average use.
The phone has support for 45W fast charging, and it took about 1 hour and 20 minutes to charge up to 50% takes about 1 hour and 15 minutes to charge up to 100% using the bundled charger, which is way better than other phones in the range.
It has several charging options such as Hyper Charge, which provides faster charging but heats up the phone, Smart charge adjust the charging speed automatically, and the low temperature charge reduces the charging speed, but extends the battery life span.
Conclusion
At a price tag of Rs. 9,999, the Itel P55+ is a decent budget phone with several interesting features. It has a large 90Hz screen, capable processor to handle most tasks, good camera in daylight, 8GB RAM with 256GB storage, and a long-lasting battery with support for 45W charging. The vegan leather finish is good, but the phone misses the ambient light sensor.
Alternatives
The moto g24 Power is a good alternative with a 6000mAh battery, Android 14 and Stereo Speakers at a cheaper rate. The Itel P55 is a cheaper option that starts at Rs. 7499, if you don’t need 256GB storage and can manage with 18W charging, since it shares almost similar specifications with the P55+.
Pricing and availability
The Itel P55+ is priced at Rs. 9999 and will be available from Amazon.in starting from February 13th, 12PM. There is a Rs. 500 bank discount which brings the price of the phone down to Rs. 9499.
Pros
- 90Hz display is good
- Good camera in daylight
- Good design with vegan leather back
- 8GB RAM with 256GB storage
- Good battery life with 45W charging
Cons
- Average gaming performance
- No ambient light sensor
- Bloatware