Swipe launched the Konnect 5.0, its first smartphone in the Konnect series recently priced at Rs. 8,999. We already brought you the unboxing and the benchmarks of the device, here we have the complete review of the smartphone. The specifications of the smartphone is better than its competitors in this price range. Is the smartphone worth the price? Let us find out in the complete review.
Unboxing
We unboxed the Swipe Konnect 5.0 recently. Check out the unboxing below.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kQostTlTK4
Box Contents
The box contents include,
- Swipe Konnect 5.0 in black
- micro USB cable
- 2-pin charger
- in-ear headset
- Flip cover
- 1950 mAh battery
- User manual with warranty card
Review
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8aWXdEgCXM
Hardware and Design
The Swipe Konnect 5.0 has a unique design compared to other smartphones in the range. It has curved corners and a curved back. The 5-inch IPS display with a pixel resolution of 960 by 540 has a pixel density of 220 PPI. The display is bright, has good viewing angles and the sunlight legibility is good, but the screen is not sharp.
Since the display doesn’t have a scratch resistant glass, it is prone it scratches. It is recommended to use the bundled flip covers to protect the display from scratches. Since the display is glossy, it attracts fingerprints. The smartphone is 148mm tall, bit taller than most other 5-inch smartphones, mainly due to its huge bezels.
It has a 3.2-megapixel front-facing camera next to the earpiece along with the usual set of proximity and ambient light sensors. Since the phone has black bezel, these sensors are hardly visible. The smartphone also comes in white color.
There are the usual set of capacitive touch buttons for menu, home and back, below the display on a large bezel. As usual these are backlit and offer haptic feedback. Even though the smartphone lacks a LED notification light, these touch buttons blink when you receive notifications. There is a tiny primary microphone hole below these touch buttons on a rim.
It has a curved back cover that extends to the sides, but the power button and the volume rockers are present on the rim, close to the front panel to access them easily when holding the phone. The power button is present on the right of the smartphone. Even though the smartphone looks much thinner, since it has a sharp edges, it is 8.9mm thick.
The volume rocker is present on the right side. It has a plastic rim with smooth matte finish running on the sides. Even though the smartphone is tall, it is not too wide, so it is comfortable to hold.
The micro USB slot and the 3.5mm audio jack are present on the top. There is nothing on the bottom.
The plastic back cover has a smooth matte finish that offers better grip, but it is prone to smudges. There is a 8-megapixel camera on the back with LED flash. The camera module looks huge and bulges out of the smartphone. It has a chrome ring around it.
The back cover is easy to remove, but it is hard to replace since the locks are a bit hard to close.
The arrangement of the slots are a bit different in this phone. The normal SIM slot is present below the micro SIM and the microSD card slot. It accepts cards up to 32GB. The 1950 mAh removable battery is present below that.
Camera
The 8-megapixel camera has a OmniVision sensor. Daylight, HDR and Macro shots came out pretty good. Colors are not vibrant and most shots look washed out. Some shots had focus issues with auto focus. With touch to focus, it is a bit hard to focus while capturing macro shots. Low light shots had a lot of noise and night mode was better with less noise. The 3.2-megapixel fixed focus front-facing camera is decent for video chats.
The camera UI is similar to other Android phones from local OEMs running Android 4.2. You can launch the camera directly from the lockscreen. There is a navigation bar on the left pane, that lets you change the different camera modes including HDR, Panorama, Burst mode, Smile shutter and more. The settings menu lets you adjust exposure, white balance, add color effects, change the scene mode and adjust anti-flicker mode.
Check out some camera samples (Click to view the full resolution image)
It can record videos at 1080p video resolution. Video looks pretty good with vibrant color output, but it had focusing issues. Since it lacks a secondary microphone audio is not crisp. Here is a full HD video sample
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eItrq1oc6ww
Software
It runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean) with almost stock UI seen on most other MediaTek-powered smartphones. Recently Swipe said that it has started rolling out the Android 4.4 (KitKat) update for the smartphone, but we are yet to receive the OTA update on our device. Unlike most other phones that comes with AOSP keyboard, this has Google Keyboard as default.
It has 1GB of RAM, out of which about 969MB of RAM is usable. About 723MB of RAM is free when the smartphone is idle, with just the stock apps running in the background. Out of 8GB of Internal storage, 4.52GB of storage is free for mass storage and 735 MB is available for internal storage.
It also lets you move compatible apps to the SD card and also directly install apps to the SD card, once the default write disk is set to SD card.
Apps
It comes with a range of preloaded apps. Other than the usual set of utility apps and Google apps, it has Adobe Reader, Automatic call recorder, Easy Installer, Kingsoft Office, My City Guide, MX Player, NewsHub, Next Calendar, NextContact Widget, Next Launcher 3D, Next Music, OOBE, Swipe Assist and WhatsApp. It also comes pre-loaded with Temple Run 2 game. Few apps can be uninstalled, but most cannot be removed that occupies a lot of space.
Music Player and FM Radio
The Music Player is stock, and can play several audio formats. As usual it has 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 in-ear headset and from the loudspeaker is good. The default video player can play videos in a range of formats in full HD 1080p resolution smoothly.
Dual SIM and Connectivity
It has dual SIM support with a stand SIM and a micro SIM card. The connectivity features include, 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 LE and GPS. It lacks USB on-the-go (OTG) support. There is a SIM manager option in the settings that lets you set a default SIM for several operations including voice call, Messaging and Data connection. Both the SIMs support 3G, but you can use 3G on only one SIM at a time.
Performance and Benchmarks
It is powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor with Mali 400 GPU. Performance of the smartphone is pretty good without any lags. Thanks to 1GB of RAM, multi-tasking was smooth. Check out some synthetic benchmark scores below.
Quadrant Benchmark
It scored 7147 points in the Quadrant Benchmark.
AnTuTu Benchmark 4
In the AnTuTu Benchmark 4, it scored 17431 points and lies behind the Unite 2.
Vellamo 2 HTML5
It scored 1675 points in Vellamo 2 HTML5 browser benchmark. Check out the complete set of Swipe Konnect 5.0 benchmarks here.
We tried several high-end games such as Riptide GP2, Real Boxing, Asphalt 8 and Real racing on the smartphone. Most of these games were smooth without any lags and good graphics. PS3 controller did not work over Bluetooth or through USB.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r72FrKN1h64
Battery Life
Coming to the battery life, the 1950 mAh battery lasts for a day with average use. With heavy use, it lasts for less than a day. Video playback, intensive gaming and 3G usage drains the battery drastically. The smartphone doesn’t come with a built-in battery saver to improve the battery life.
Conclusion
Overall, the Swipe Konnect 5.0 is a decent smartphone in the market under 10k. Even though this doesn’t have a HD display to compete with the Moto G, the screen is pretty decent. It has good camera, decent build with a unique design and the performance is also pretty good. It might be huge for some, since is taller than most smartphones with a 5-inch display. Once this gets the KitKat update and the battery is optimized to last longer, this will definitely be one of the best smartphones in its price range.
Pros
- Good performance
- Decent display
- Good camera
Cons
- Battery life could be better
- Lots of pre-loaded apps