BATTERY MARATHONER
The Bharat series from Micromax are amongst the
company’s big sellers in 2017. The Bharat 5 is a newer models in this series
and it for users who demand the best battery life without spending too much.
The highlight of the Bharat 5 is the massive 5,000mAh
battery. Thanks to this, the phone easily manages 2 days of battery life with
normal use (constant 4G or WiFi). With light use, you can even stretch this to
two and half days on a single charge. The only issue is that the phone lacks
fast charging — it takes well over 3 hours for the battery to charge to full
capacity.
Specifications include a 1.3Ghz quad core MT6737
processor, 1GB RAM and 16GB storage. For the price, these specifications fall
slightly below par because phones like Redmi 5A offer a Snapdragon processor
and 2GB RAM at a lower price. When it comes to performance, the phone works
smoothly as long as you stick to basic use: email, web, social media and chat.
You will need to keep a check on background processes and clean them up
regularly because the 1GB RAM gets consumed quickly. Of the 16GB storage, you
get around 10GB free for storage. It has a dual hybrid SIM slot — you can use
either two SIMs or a SIM and microSD card. A dedicated microSD slot would have
been a welcome addition.
We liked the overall build quality and design of the
Bharat 5. For the price, it looks premium even though it has an all plastic
body. What we did not like was the fact that the back of the phone has a glossy
finish which attracts smudges quickly. Thankfully, Micromax includes a
transparent case in the box. The unibody design adds to the overall look but do
keep in mind that it is on the heavier side due to the large battery. On the
front is the 5.2-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. It
impressed us with excellent brightness level, good blacks and rich colours. We
further liked that it has slim side bezels — these are usually not seen on
budget phones. Under the screen are touch sensitive Android navigation buttons
which respond well — it would have been great if they were backlit.
Cameras are the main weak weakness of the Bharat 5.
The phone has a 5MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera — both come with an LED
flash for use in low light. However, the image quality from both cameras is
just plain bad. Even in bright daylight, the images are soft, colours are muted
and there’s noise. There is a bokeh mode, a beauty mode and a ‘Facecute’ mode
as well as HDR. The beauty and Facecute modes remove blemishes, smoothen skin
texture and narrow your face to make you look slimmer. The trouble is that the
image quality of the front as well as rear camera is sub-par which impacts the
results you get from these additional modes as well.
If it’s just battery life that matters to you and you
are on a strict budget, the Bharat 5 is a good option. However, if you can
extend your budget, consider the Redmi 4 which offers superior cameras, similar
battery life, IR port, fingerprint scanner and a metal unibody design.
Karan.Bajaj@timesgroup.com
ET8JAN18
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