iberry launched the Auxus Nuclea N2 smartphone, successor of the Nuclea N1 back in January. The Nuclea N2 is one of the first smartphones to launch in India with an octa-core processor and a full HD display. We had already seen quite a few phablets with full HD screens last year, but most had a quad-core MediaTek MT6589T chip. We already brought you the unboxing, benchmarks and the photo gallery of the device. Is the iberry Auxus Nuclea N2 better than other phablets ? Let us find out in the review.
Unboxing
We unboxed the smartphone last week. Check out the iberry Auxus Nuclea N2 unboxing.
Box Contents
- iberry Auxus Nuclea N2 smartphone
- 3500 mAh battery
- in-ear headset
- 2-pin charger (5V – 750mA)
- micro USB cable
- User manual and warranty information
Video Review
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxLqfoYjnE4
Hardware and Design
The 5.7-inch full HD IPS display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels at 386 ppi pixel density is bright and offers vibrant colors. Viewing angles are good too. Sunlight legibility is decent, but it could be better. The phone resembles the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.
There are the usual set of proximity and ambient light sensors, next to the earpiece. There is a large 8-megapixel auto focus camera sensor next to it, but it can record only at 480p (VGA) resolution. It misses a LED notification light.
There is a large home button below the display, similar to Samsung smartphones. The capacitive touch buttons that are present either sides light up and offer haptic feedback when pressed.
The phone is 8.5mm thick, almost similar to other smartphone in this range. Sides of the phone have shiny metal finish, including the volume rocker and the power button.
On the right side, there is a power button. It is easy to access for single-hand usage, since it is present on the side. As you can see, there is a small opening, since the back cover is a bit hard to close.
There is 3.5mm audio jack on top along with a secondary microphone hole.
On the bottom there is a micro USB slot and a microphone hole. The micro USB slot has two connectors, similar to the Note 3. You also get a micro USB cable similar it, but the phone doesn’t offer USB 3.0 speeds like the Note 3.
The back cover has a familiar leather-like finish, but the build quality is just average. It gets scratched easily even when you place it on a rough surface. The phone feels huge to hold in your hand and place inside your pocket. The phone is quiet heavy at 189 grams.
Here is an image of the phone next to the Note 3.
On the back there is a 13-megapixel camera with LED flash. You can see a bulge due to the large camera senor.
The loudspeaker grill is present on the back.
You can see the huge battery, SIM card and the micro SD card slot when you open the plastic back cover. As you might have noticed, there are connectors for wireless charging on the back cover. This uses Qi (also chi or ch’i) standard for wireless charging, supported by most wireless chargers worldwide.
The phone support one standard or mini SIM and a micro SIM card. It also has a micro SD card slot that supports cards up to 32GB.
iberry sells a flip cover for the phone separately, price at Rs. 990. This is a see-through flip cover, that shows time, date and notifications for calls and messages, but you can’t access them without opening the cover. The build quality of the cover could have been better.
The company also sells a wireless charger separately, priced at Rs. 2,500. It is a 5 volt – 750mA charger, so takes more than three hours to charge the 3500 mAh battery on the phone completely.
Camera
The phone has a 13-megapixel rear camera with f/2.0 aperture and BSI sensor. It also has LED Flash. The camera UI is exactly similar to the Intex Aqua Octa smartphone, that is also powered by an octa-core MediaTek processor. It has HDR toggles, camera toggles, Live Photo mode and Motion Track mode.
The camera quality is just average, even in daylight. It offers vibrant colors and the focus for macro images are pretty good, but images had noise. Low-light shots without flash had a lot of noise as usual. Images with flash are decent. Overall the camera is just average for the price. Check out some camera samples below.
You can check out more Nuclea N2 camera samples here.
The phone can record videos at 1080p full HD resolution at 30 fps. It also has EIS software image stabilization. The phone has a secondary microphone, so the audio is crisp. Video quality is decent. Check out the full HD videosample.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yZ-VcPvtQc
Software
The phone runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean), similar to most of the recent MediaTek-powered smartphones. It has Trebuchet, a custom launcher on top that adds new icons, homescreen and lock screen transition effects, option to hide apps, rotate home screen. As usual, it has quick settings toggles, that adds additional options to clear memory and enable Wireless display. iberry has not provided any apps for one-handed operation.
Out of 2GB of RAM, you get 1.93GB of usable RAM. About 1.2GB of RAM is free when the phone is idle. Out of 16GB of internal storage, you get 11.67 GB of user storage and 1.97 GB for apps.
You can also set SD card as default write disk to install apps and also move the compatible apps from the phone memory to the SD card.
Apps
It has the usual set of utility apps and Google Apps. Other apps include, Office Suite for viewing and editing office files, Subway Surfers game and magnetic compass. Glad they did not include any bloatware that occupies internal memory.
Music Player and FM Radio
The Music Player is stock and can play several audio formats. You can enable equalizer from the settings and use Bass boost and 3D effect features when you are listening using earphones. The phone has FM Radio with auto search and recording, but lacks RDS support. Audio from the loudspeakers is good and the bundles in-ear earphones are good too. Wish iberry had offered smaller ear buds.
The default video player can play videos in a range of formats in full HD 1080p resolution smoothly. ClearMotion feature in the display settings is said to improve the video fluency. It doesn’t have pause on look away feature that we saw on Intex Aqua Octa.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has dual SIM support with a standard SIM and a micro SIM. Both the SIM cards support 3G, but you can enable 3G on only one SIM. You can customize the SIM name, color etc. The connectivity features include, 3G (HSDPA: 42 Mbps; HSUPA: 5.76 Mbps), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth with A2DP and GPS. It has USB on-the-go (OTG) support and NFC.
Performance and Benchmarks
It is powered by a Octa-Core MediaTek MT6592 processor which as 8 ARM Cortex-A7 CPUs, each clocked at 1.66 GHz and Mali 450-MP4 GPU. It also has Heterogeneous Multi-Processing (HMP), where all the core can be turned ON at the same time. It had occasional lags, but multitasking was smooth, thanks to 2GB of RAM. Check out the benchmarks below.
Quadrant Benchmark
It tops the Quadrant benchmark with a score of 13346.
AnTuTu Benchmark 4
In the AnTuTu benchmark, the Nuclea N2 scored 27063 points.
Vellamo 2.0 HTML5
The Nuclea N2 managed to score 1979 points in the Vellamo 2 HTML5 browser benchmark.
Vellamo 2.0 Metal
It scored 650 points in the Vellamo 2 Metal CPU subsystem performance test. Check out the complete set of iberry Auxus Nuclea N2 benchmarks here.
We tested several games on the phone. Graphics was good even when it is set to high and the gameplay performance was smooth. It supports PlayStation 3 controller too over USB. Check out the GTA San Andreas gameplay.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tg9_m3BegI
Overall the gaming performance was decent and the graphics was pretty good, thanks to the quad-core Mali 450 GPU. Check out the gaming review.
Battery Life
Even though the phone packs a 3500 mAh battery, the battery life was not impressive. It lasts for a day with both the SIM cards enabled. Since the battery has to power the huge screen, battery drain is mainly due to display. It has power saving mode in the battery settings, that limits the CPU use to save power.
Conclusion
Overall the iberry Auxus Nuclea N2 is a decent phablet. At a price tag of Rs. 23,990, it is costly compared to other large-screen smartphones in the similar range. iberry sells the smartphone only on their official website online, and in very few shops across India, which might be one of the drawbacks. Build and the camera are just average and the battery life is decent. Performance is definitely better than other phones in this range and it supports wireless charging too. You can probably consider other options too, if you are looking for a large-screen Android smartphone.
Pros
- Good display
- Good performance
- Supports wireless charging and NFC
- Decent battery life
Cons
- Average build
- Average camera
- Slightly on the expensive side
- Device might be bulky and too big for some