3 Budget smartphones that look beyond Mediatek

In the price-sensitive Indian market, desi phone makers have ensured to bridge the gap between superior features and affordable prices. Today, we can easily find smartphones with high-end features priced well under Rs 15,000. The Indian smartphone market is inundated with such budget phones, but if you look closely, most of them run on Mediatek processor. We can even say that the Mediatek MT6589 is the beating heart of the quad-core smartphone boom that’s ongoing in India. There are just a handful of manufacturers that have been looking beyond the commercial Mediatek for the budget category. We came across only three smartphones from leading Indian phone makers which do not equip Mediatek and are worth a look. 

Karbonn Titanium S5
Karbonn launched the affordable Titanium S5 powered by a quad-core processor earlier this year priced at Rs 11,900. Unlike most Indian quad-core smartphones that feature Mediatek, the S5 equips Qualcomm MSM8225Q Snapdragon chipset. The quad-core processor clocks at 1.2GHz and features an Adreno 203 graphics. The S5 follows the latest fad and sports a large 5-inch IPS display. The Titanium S5 runs Android version 4.1.2 Jelly Bean. Previously, we’ve seen the Titanium S1 powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Play SoC comprising four ARM Cortex-A5 CPU cores running at 1.2GHz each and Adreno 203 for graphics.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?

The sleek Titanium S5 equips Qualcomm MSM8225Q Snapdragon

Here’s a quick look at the specifications of the Karbonn Titanium S5:

• 5-inch capacitive IPS display with 540 x 960 pixels resolution
• Dual-SIM, 3G, Wi-Fi
• GPS with A-GPS
• Bluetooth with A2DP
• 8MP rear camera with auto focus, 2MP front-facing camera
• 4GB internal memory, expandable up to 32GB via microSd card slot

Micromax A111 Canvas Doodle
Micromax has been trying to steal Samsung’s thunder by offering affordable smartphones with specifications almost at par with Samsung’s devices. In one such attempt, the company launched the A111 Canvas Doodle sporting a 5.3-inch display and a stylus at Rs 12,999, to take on the Galaxy Note. While Micromax has been employing Mediatek in almost all its smartphones, the A111 Canvas Doodle seems to be an exception. It is powered by a 1.2GHz Qualcomm MSM8225Q Snapdragon and runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2. 

Micromax A111 Canvas Doodle with stylus

Take a look at the specifications of the A111 Canvas Doodle:

• 5.3-inch capacitive touchscreen with 480 x 854 pixels resolution
• Dual-SIM, 3G, Wi-Fi
• GPS with A-GPS
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• 8MP rear camera with auto focus, 2MP front-facing camera
• 4GB internal memory, expandable up to 32GB via microSd card slot

Xolo X1000
The Xolo X1000 also goes against the herd and screams “Intel inside”. It is powered by Intel Atom Z2480. The single-core multi-thread processor clocks at 2GHz and features PowerVR SGX540 graphics. The X1000 equips Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream Sandwich, but is upgradeable to Android jelly Bean 4.1. It comes with a huge 8GB internal storage that can be further expanded. It is available via online retailers for Rs 14,000. Check out the complete review here. The X1000 is Xolo’s third handset to feature Intel’s mobile processor. Its predecessors are the Xolo X900 and Xolo X500. Xolo’s latest quad-core Q600 smartphone is powered by Mediatek.

The X1000 has a 4.7-inch, 720p display

Take a quick look at the specifications of the Xolo X1000:

• 4.7-inch capacitive touchscreen with 720 x 1280 pixels resolution
• 3G, Wi-Fi
• GPS with A-GPS
• Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP
• 8MP rear camera with auto focus, 1.3MP front-facing camera
• 8GB internal memory, expandable up to 32GB via microSd card slot

So far, Mediatek is dominating the budget smartphone market. Intel is trying to push into the budget phone category and we may soon see Nvidia Tegra-based budget smartphones too. We hope to see rather diverse range of devices in the budget smartphone category.