On first impressions, the Yu Yuphoria seems like a value for money smartphone. Let's hope it lives up to it.
When Yu Televentures’ founder Rahul Sharma takes the stage, it’s not quite the same as Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra, but everything else is spot on. India as a market is similar to China in size, but we differ in one key aspect. Chinese brands flourish in China, Indian brands on the other hand are met with skepticism.
Of course, they have themselves to blame for that, but Micromax-owned Yu Televentures is well on the way to change that. From a product point of view, the company has taken Chinese manufacturers head on, entering a market segment that is highly competitive and the toughest to crack. It would be an interesting discussion indeed, to talk about how Yu packs and sells its devices like Xiaomi and has a history with OnePlus, but that’s a story for another day.(Read More: Yu Yuphoria launched in India at Rs. 6,999)
For now, let’s focus on the company’s newest product, the Yu Yuphoria. While high end smartphones are made attractive through pricing, budget devices work in the opposite manner. You have the price tag already, what you need is the performance and specifications. It’s something companies like Xiaomi and Yu are building their businesses on.
If the Yu Yureka (Read More: Yu Yureka review) was made attractive through its pricing, the Yu Yuphoria does that through its specifications. The Yureka focused on performance, while the Yuphoria focuses on looks. The internals are same as its competitors, but the Yuphoria attempts to take the competition away through buzzwords like ‘metal’.
The phone has metal around the sides, that hasn’t been seen in the sub-7k segment yet. It looks almost exactly like a smaller version of Nokia’s old Lumia 925 smartphone. It looks good and feels premium, there’s no denying that. The back is made out of plastic, with a matte finish, further adding to its looks. Yes, the plastic feels somewhat low grade, but you’ll get over that easily thanks to the otherwise sturdy build.
What Yu has accomplished here is a design that hasn’t been seen in a budget smartphone till now. Motorola’s Moto E (Read More: Moto E (2nd Gen) review) and the Xiaomi Redmi 2 (Read More: Xiaomi Redmi 2) have nice designs, but they don’t really stand out. That is to say, they won’t turn heads, something that is very important in the Indian market. This is what the Yuphoria accomplishes through its design.
It’s in no way the quality that you would expect in an HTC One M8 (Read More: HTC One M8 review) or Samsung Galaxy S6 (Read More: Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge review), but it’s every bit premium for a phone that costs merely Rs. 6,999.
Next up is the specs war, which has long reached a point of saturation in all price segments. The Yu Yuphoria has the exact same specifications as the Lenovo A6000 Plus and the soon to be launched limited edition Xiaomi Redmi 2. It has a Snapdragon 410 SoC along with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. There are also 8MP and 5MP cameras on the front for good measure. In fact, the megapixel count on the front camera is more than all of its competitors.
There’s not much that separates the Yuphoria from its competitors in terms of specs. Enter CyanogenMod 12 (Read More: CyanogenMod 12 Hands On). This accomplishes two things for the Yu brand. First, the mention of CyanogenMod piques the users’ interest in the device. Second, it makes the Yuphoria the only sub-7k smartphone apart from the Moto E (2nd Gen) to boast Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box. The scope for argument is further narrowed by the fact that CM 12 runs smoothly on the demo devices, unlike Huawei’s EMUI on the Honor Bee (Read More: Honor Bee: In Pictures).
Together, the design and OS are enough to leave a good first impression for the Yu Yuphoria. In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that this device is most certainly value for money. What I’ll be determining in my review later is whether it provides more value than the Xiaomi Redmi 2, our current best performing budget smartphone.
Follow Us
Prasid Banerjee
Trying to explain technology to my parents. Failing miserably. View Full Profile
