With a price tag of Rs. 8,300 and with specs of a much lesser priced phone, the Idea Smartfone Ultra + doesn't quite fit the bill if you're looking for a good budget Android smartphone. The phone is only available via Idea stores and is up against some serious competition in its category which, in my opinion, it can’t handle
Build and Design
The build quality of the phone seems justified for its price category but still leaves room for improvement. The phone has a metal band running around the bezels and adds a nice whiff of 'premium-ness' to it. As for the back, Idea has opted for a fake leather back made out of mediocre plastic with fake stitching on it. The flip-cover which comes with the phone inside the box is a much better option. The flip-case provided inside the box looks and feels exactly the same as the one featured alongside the Samsung Galaxy Grand.
Idea has managed to keep the edges well-rounded which is very important in any phone with a bigger display for easy one handed use. The USB-cum-charging port is well placed at the bottom. We had a slight issue with the travel feedback from the power button as well as the volume rocker which feel a bit mushy to press. Overall the phone feels sturdy and quite well balanced in terms of build quality in its segment.
Screen and UI
Idea has opted for capacitive keys instead of the on-screen ones which could have been avoided but it does save some space in the UI and doesn't mess up the actual resolution of the device. With a resolution of 480 x 854 the phone is standing a few steps behind the actual playing field of 1280 x 720p resolution which is becoming the new norm. This seems a bit odd as the phone is obviously trying to compete with the the Asus Zenfone 5 and the community favourite Moto G under the 10K price bracket.
The touch-screen sensitivity on the phone is a bit off the mark as it wasn’t able to register touch properly most of the time while I tested the device. Idea has kept the UI experience pretty close to what Alcatel offers in its devices. For the most part, the subtle menu and app drawer animations have been scrapped to speed up the device.
Idea has not fiddled with the UI and has only added a handful of in-house apps and services like the Idea TV, Idea fresh and IdeaMall. Besides this, Alcatel has added its Backup app, and service center to the mix. A bunch of menu settings have been reimagined as focused apps and have been placed in the apps drawer. I would also like to add that you can't add any widgets from the homescreen itself, you have to go into the app drawer widgets menu and then select a widget. Overall the whole UI experience is dead simple without any gimmicks by Alcatel or Idea.
Performance
Performance with the quad core 1.3 GHz is quite breezy most of the time and it didn’t show any noticeable stutter while multi-tasking. The 1GB RAM is an improvement over the original Alcatel One Touch Pop C7 and does give a boost to the performance. But to boost the performance of the device, Idea has removed the subtle Android animations from the UI which does not show much faith in the device.
The phone comes with only 4GB of internal space and that is pretty low if you like any games or would like watch movies on your phone. The phone does come with a micro SD card slot and that helps but only 4GB of internal storage is still low. I played Dead Trigger, Boom Beach and Paperama on the phone and though I did see a slight delay in loading stages of the game, the gaming performance was quite satisfactory. On the other hand, the touch-screen does spoil the experience as it is inaccurate and is not able to cope with my reflexes.
Since almost everyone has jumped onto the Android 4.4 Kitkat wagon, Android 4.2 Jellybean seems a bit outdated and unwelcome. Until Idea and Alcatel release a Kitkat update for the Smartfone Ultra +, this phone will lose its ground.
Camera
Camera Interface
The original Alcatel One Touch Pop C7 came with a 5MP camera and Idea has upped the camera to an 8MP one through software interpolation which hasn't improved the camera quality that much. The pictures I took came out grainy and a bit over-saturated. The camera menu lets you fiddle with exposure and ISO settings which is a nice touch. The low light images were too dark and and blurry. The video capabilities are better than the still-image performance but that also takes a hit under low light conditions. You can click on the images below to see enlarged versions of the pictures in a new window.
Outdoor Images
Indoor low light with flash (left) and without flash (right)
Battery
The Idea Smartfone Ultra + comes with a 2000mAh battery and the phone performed just a nick above average in our battery test. After an hour of playing a full-HD video with full brightness and WiFi connected, the Idea phone lost only 17% of its battery, which means it will be able to last a day of normal use. As the device has a 5-inch screen, you will eventually watch videos on it and that may burn out the battery faster.
Conclusion
Overall, the Idea Smartfone Ultra + is an underachiever with a slightly high price tag. If this was priced lower or it had an HD display, the Idea phone could have been a nice option in the budget segment. Since the current crop of smartphones which stand in the same price range offer much more than this phone, I wouldn’t recommend the Idea Smartfone Ultra+. Around the same price range phones like the Moto G and Zenfone 5 do make your options much more clear. There are some subscription benefits you can reap from the Idea phone if you own an Idea SIM but that's not enough to recommend this phone.