Lemon A4 Review

VERDICT:

If you have a budget of Rs. 18,000 and are looking to pick up a smartphone you can consider the Micromax Canvas 4 or the Xolo Play T1000 before making your purchase decision. These smartphones have better raw performance. But if the build and display are priorities, you can consider the Lemon Aspire A4.

Today, we have with us the Lemon Aspire A4 smartphone that has a full HD display. Do we finally have the first impressive sub-Rs. 20,000 1080p smartphone, or are you better off aspiring for a premium smartphone?

At a Glance
A slim design, quad-core processor, 13MP rear camera are the first things that you will notice about the Lemon A4. Here is a quick look at the specifications of the A4 when compared to the competition.

Models	Lemon Aspire A4	iberry Auxus Nuclea N1	WickedLeak Wammy Passion Z	Spice Mi-525 Pinnacle FHD	Micromax Canvas 4	Karbonn Titanium S9	Xolo Play T1000
OS	Android 4.2	Android 4.2	Android 4.2	Android 4.2	Android 4.2	Android 4.2	Android 4.1.1
Display size	5-inch	5-inch	5-inch	5-inch	5-inch	5.5-inch	4.7-inch
Display type	IPS LCD	IPS LCD	IPS LCD	IPS LCD	IPS LCD	IPS LCD	NA
Display resolution	1920×1080	1920×1080	1920×1080	1920×1080	1280×720	1280×720	1280×720
Built-in storage	16GB	4GB	4GB	8GB	16GB	16GB	4GB
Expandable storage	up to 64GB via a microSD card	up to 64GB via a microSD card	up to 64GB via a microSD card	up to 32GB via a microSD card	up to 32GB via a microSD card	up to 32GB via a microSD card	up to 32GB via a microSD card
Processor	1.2GHz quad-core	1.5GHz quad-core	1.5GHz quad-core	1.5GHz quad-core	1.2GHz quad-core	1.2GHz quad-core	1.5 GHz (4 1 core) NVIDIA Tegra 3
RAM	1GB	1GB	1GB	1GB	1GB	1GB	1GB
Rear camera	13.1MP	13MP	13MP	8MP	13MP	13MP	8MP
Front camera	5MP	8MP	2MP	2MP	5MP	5MP	2MP
Dual-SIM	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Battery	1850mAh	2800mAh	2500mAh	2100mAh	2000mAh	2600mAh	2000mAh
Price	Rs. 17,999	Rs. 18,000	Rs. 15,990	Rs. 16,990	Rs. 17,999	Rs. 19,990	Rs. 15,999

From the above specifications it is clear that the Lemon Aspire A4 smartphone brings with it a high resolution display and good built-in storage at 16GB but the battery capacity is low at 1850mAh. The device also has the MediaTek MT6589 chipset. We hoped it would have the MT6589T chipset, which is found on the iberry Auxus Nuclea N1, WickedLeak Wammy Passion Z and the Spice Mi-525 Pinnacle FHD.

Design
“Wow!” is the first thing that you will say when you see the Lemon Aspire A4 smartphone for the first time. It is really slim at 8.5mm in thickness, has a 5-inch display and is really good to look at. Its design is very reminiscent of the iPhone 4. The face of the A4 has the 5-inch full HD display with the usual three capacitive buttons below it. You have the standard connectivity options as well.

What really stands out in the design of the Lemon A4 is the display. The glass and the LCD panel are so close that you fell there is virtually no gap between the two. It’s like a fused display (where the LCD and the glass are fused in one). The display really pops right out at you and the fact that it is full HD and has good viewing angles only adds to the experience.

The Lemon Aspire A4 has a steel border around it, very reminiscent of the iPhone 4 and something that we have seen on the Canvas 4 as well. The difference between the Canvas 4 and the Lemmon A4 is that the A4 is much better built.

The rear panel of the Lemon A4, which is black plastic, is really thin and it sticks to the back, which adds to the slim form factor of the smartphone. The rear panel has a textured design but a smooth finish.

Overall, the design of the Lemon Aspire A4 is very good and really impressive for the price you pay.

UI and Preloaded Apps
The UI of the Lemon Aspire A4 is stock Android 4.2 Jelly Bean. It has the same 5-inch form factor that we have seen on numerous other devices. The quality of the touchscreen is really good, so, it is great to navigate on the device. The keyboard is also stock Android, and you get the stock browser for browsing the Internet, apart from the Opera browser which comes preloaded.

The Lemon A4 comes with a bunch of preloaded apps including Cosmopolitan magazine, Hungama, mobile security, Mireo via GPS, safe browser, paytm, and a bunch of games such as Fly Boy (trial version) and TurboFly 3D. There are also a bunch of Lemon specific apps on the smartphone. To start with, we have the Lemon Care app. The apps opens up the Lemon website in a browser and gives you access to service centres where you can go to repair any problem you have with the device.

Next up we have Lemon Live, which gives users access to employment news, jokes, love tips, art of living, and more. All these services are available for Rs. 30 per month. We have seen similar services make an appearance on the Canvas 4. Then we have Lemon Mobiles, which just takes you to the company’s official website.

Lemon Zone takes you to a page where you can download videos, wallpapers, ringtones and more.

Performance
Okay, so the Lemon A4 looks really good and the design and display are the highlights so far. Let’s take a look and see if its benchmark scores are at par with smartphones in the similar price range. 

Getting the worst out of the way, the 3DMark benchmark crashed every time. Even in the other benchmarks, the Lemon A4’s score was the least when compared to the competition. The difference in most cases isn’t great but is quite a bit in the SmartBench Gaming score.

Coming to the good, the display on the Lemon A4 is beautiful and vibrant. Be it for reading text, watching movies, playing games or just navigating the device, the display is gorgeous.

While interfacing with the Lemon A4 however, there is a noticeable lag. This lag becomes more prominent when you start multitasking on the device. When we were running the benchmarks on the smartphone, the rear of the smartphone got quite hot, in about 20 minutes.

We had the same apps running on the Zen Ultrafone HD and the Lemon A4. When we checked the memory consumption, it was higher on the A4. This goes to show that to render the apps on a full HD display requires more RAM than a 720p display.

Memory Consumption

Lemon A4	Zen Ultrafone HD

The Lemon A4’s keyboard is stock Android and is well laid out. The device is comfortable to type on.

The 5-inch display has a 1920×1080 pixel resolution giving it 440ppi pixel density. The Lemon A4’s IPS panel has really good viewing angles and the text images; games all look crisp on the smartphone. Gaping in wonder at the crispness and quality of the display is something you will be doing for quite some time.

AVI and MP4 files ran smoothly on the Lemon Aspire A4 and the video from the MKV files ran but the audio wasn’t recognised. Navigating the timeline of the videos, changing orientation, all was smooth on the native player without any hiccups.

The camera on the Aspire A4 is good. In daytime and well-lit conditions, the images are rich, and retain their details. In low-lit conditions, there is a bit of loss of details and the images do appear a bit noisy, but the quality is acceptable nonetheless.

Gaming on the Lemon Aspire A4 is plagued with the same problems that we have seen on the other MediaTek MT6589 powered smartphones. Games such as Angry Birds, Subway surfer and even Dead Trigger ran quite well. Real Racing 3 and The Conduit HD didn’t run on the device.

Coming to the calling capabilities, of the smartphone the audio is good at both ends. The earpiece on the Lemon A4 is good. The audio is crisp and good even at full volume. The smartphone boasts of dual-SIM capabilities. It can house one microSIM and one regular-sized SIM.

In terms of its battery life, the Lemon Aspire A4 is a tad disappointing. In our continuous video playback test, the device lasted for around five hours. With above average use we needed to connect the smartphone to a charger before the workday was over.

Bottom Line
We wish the Lemon A4 had a bit more RAM, battery and ran on the MT6589T chipset. As of now what you get is a smartphone with a fantastic build and a gorgeous display. The performance as a phone is average and it does tend to lag quite a bit once the multitasking and use of heavy apps kicks in.

For consuming multimedia, browsing the Internet, reading books and playing some games, the device is great even though it is plagued with the occasional lag. If you have a budget of Rs. 18,000 and are looking to pick up a smartphone you can consider the Micromax Canvas 4 or the Xolo Play T1000 before making your purchase decision. These smartphones have better raw performance. But if the build and display are priorities, you can consider the Lemon Aspire A4.