Idea Aurus 3 Review: Should you buy it?

Don’t Miss- Why We Are Different

Idea Aurus 3 is yet another smartphone from Idea cellular in its effort to further strengthen its user base in India. It is a re-branded Alcatel phone and is priced at INR 6500 in the local market. At this price point it has to face tough competition from the smartphones of established players like Micromax and Karbonn mobiles in the Indian market.

Karbonn A26, Samsung Galaxy Young, Micromax Bolt A67 etc. are among the list of few phones which can give Aurus 3 a run for its money.

The most notable plus points are its support for gestures, secondary mic for noise cancellation and quick start-up time.

• Pros
• Cons

• Gesture support
• Good call quality

• Low on performance
• Poor camera

 

User Experience

Design

Aurus 3 is made out of plastic but it doesn’t look cheap in any way. The rubberised back panel not only provides good grip but also adds to the looks of the phone.
The overall build quality is also okay for the asking price.

front cam and sensors

capacitive keys

back

The front VGA camera along with other sensors is located on the right side of the earpiece grill. The secondary mic is located on the back just above the loudspeaker grill.

User Interface

The Aurus 3 boasts the stock android 4.1 Jelly Bean along with a few customizations. The transitions are smooth with no noticeable lags. The touchscreen and the haptic feedback are also very responsive and do not miss even a single touch.

Though the UI is good, it makes it difficult to get used to the phone if you are a Samsung TouchWiz user.

gallery

power menu

Display

The 4 inches LCD display has a resolution of 480×800 pixels translating to a pixel density of 233 ppi.

The display produces rich colors with acceptable sharpness levels. The viewing angles of the screen are also more than good for a phone at this price point.

It is possible to operate this phone using one hand only. So, if you hate large 5 inchers, then this phone might suit for daily needs.

Typing

The single handed operation (portrait mode) and dual handed operation (landscape mode) are both okay. There is no option for gesture input and as a swipe user I greatly missed its presence.

It also features standard android word prediction and suggestion along with option for voice dictation.

landscape mode

portrait mode

Browsing

It is needless to mention that it supports pinch and double tap to zoom but it is worth mentioning that zooming out takes up quite a time. And the blame for that goes to its slow single-core processor.

The default browser also lack .com button. So you have to enter it every time you want to open a .com domain.

Extra Features

The Idea Aurus 3 is an entry level device but that doesn’t mean that it is plain and boring. It supports a few gestures (turn over to mute/activate and shake to switch) and also supports a dedicated microphone for noise active noise cancellation during voice calls- a feature which even INR 20k Samsung phones don’t have.

Camera: Is it really 5MP?

The Aurus 3 sports a 5MP camera without Auto-Focus which is capable of capturing stills with a resolution of 2560×1920 pixels.

 The captured shots are dull with minimal details. The low-light photography is somewhat okay but one cannot compromise on details over low-light imaging.

Road shot

Normal shot

zoom 1x

zoom 1.51x

zoom 2.29x

zoom 4x

Low-light shot

The front VGA camera can help you shoot selfies with a resolution of 640×480 pixels. These photographs are also too dull in colors to be put up on social networks.

 The 480p video recorded by the main camera is no different from the captured photos in the department of details and colors.

Multi-media

The Aurus 3 supports all of the popular audio formats like mp3, aac and wma. The stock music player has all of the standard functions like repeat, shuffle and an audio equalizer.

The video player on the other hand plays avi and mp4 480p videos smoothly. The mkv format is supported but the 480p videos lag. The flv format is not supported at all. HD videos (720p) run well but there is some delay when you seek to a certain point of time using the seek bar.

Stock Music player

Music player options

Hardware performance: Good for light gaming

The Idea Aurus 3 is definitely not the best multi-tasking smartphone in the price segment of 5-7k INR. It takes up its own sweet time to render media heavy web pages but games like Temple Run Oz and Subway Surfer run without a hiccup.

Here are some timing benchmarks which might come in handy:

Benchmark Scores

Quadrant Standard

SunSpider

Nenamark2

AnTuTu

Battery: Will not suffice for a day

The 1400 mAh Li-Ion battery has a stated talk time of 7h and 5h on 2G and 3G respectively. Though we couldn’t test the battery backup fully, we believe that it will hardly last for a day on normal usage. On the plus side, the battery charges very quickly.

The phone also gets heated up very quickly forcing you to not play games for long intervals and thus helps you in conserving precious electrons in the battery.

Connectivity

The Idea Aurus 3 doesn’t look like a phone you would like to buy at the first look but it features might force you to reconsider your decision. As mentioned, it excels at nothing but it does all the daily chores. It is not ideal for heavy multi-tasking but it is good enough for light gaming.

• Buy if you are
• Skip if you

• Crazy about call quality

• Like photography
• Can’t tolerate performance lags
• Want great battery backup

 

 You ought to know this- Why we don’t trust specifications?

Specifications: Idea Aurus 3