Micromax Canvas Turbo: What we know so far

Micromax made quite a few headlines last week when it roped in Hollywood biggie Hugh Jackman as the brand ambassador for its Canvas line-up of smartphones. Along with the news, came a teaser for the company’s latest device, the Canvas Turbo. While the 11-second video did not reveal much, quite a few leaks and speculations have helped to fill in some of the gaps in the handset’s specification sheet. Let’s take a look at what we know so far:

Design
A new leak from @MMXNewscaster came with a sketch that shows the alleged form factor of the new flagship device. The most pertinent piece of information that we were able to gather from the leak was that the new handset might come with two micro SIM slots on the side, instead of the back. This, if validated, means that we may be looking at the first Micromax device to come with this kind of support.

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The leak also shows that the Canvas Turbo might come with a micro USB port on the upper left side of the device, while the power and volume control may be on the right side of the phone. Both the SIM card slots could be featured on the left side of the handset, in the form of trays. The leak also shows that the 3.5mm audio jack will be seen on the bottom of the device, something not many fans are happy about judging from the tweets.

A leaked sketch gives us a bit more detail about the new Micromax device

Apart from the sketch, though, we are yet to get a clear look at the actual device itself. An earlier leak from the same source did come with a teaser image, but all we could really see was a black bar shape outline which is imprinted with the words “Canvas Turbo”. The teaser video also offered a millisecond glimpse at the new device, so we can’t really comment on just how it will finally look.

Display
Micromax, this time around, may be packing in a full HD 1080p display, keeping the current smartphone trend in mind. An earlier leak, in the form of a tweet, claims that the “Micromax Canvas Turbo A250 to be the first Full HD (1080p) phone from Micromax.” The leaked sketch suggests that the device will also come with a 5-inch display, like the Canvas 4 before it. The latter boasts an IPS LCD, although we don’t have any evidence to show that the Turbo will have the same panel.

SoC
While details are very scanty about the SoC of the new device, based on Micromax’s past devices, it can be speculated that the Canvas Turbo will have the MT6589 quad-core processor clocked at 1.2 GHz. The Canvas 4 and the Canvas HD before it had the same processor. It could also turn out that Micromax uses the turbo version of this chipset, clocked at 1.5GHz.  The company, however, has been tight lipped on the details so there is no way yet to validate these claims. There is also no word on how much RAM the Canvas Turbo will have.

An alleged image of the Canvas Turbo’s rear panel

Camera
We also got a look at the Canvas Turbo’s camera thanks to MMXnewscaster. This suggested that the phablet will have a 13-megapixel primary camera. The earlier sketch suggests it will have a 5-megapixel front shooter. This information gains some credibility from the fact that the earlier Canvas 4 also came with the same features, although there is no way to confirm if Micromax plans to stick to the same formula for the Turbo.

Price
While the company is yet to reveal any official word on the pricing, we can estimate the same based on Micromax’s pricing strategy in the past. The 5-inch Canvas 4 was launched in July for Rs 17,999. The company then added the 5.7-inch quad-core sporting Canvas Doodle 2 for Rs 19,990 in August. Keeping in mind the full HD, display the Turbo is expected to come with, it can be estimated that the Canvas Turbo might be seen in the Rs 20,000-Rs 22,000 price bracket. This is also in the range of the Gionee Elife E6, which was recently launched in India for Rs 22,999. This phone ( see our review here) will be a big rival to the Canvas Turbo.

The bottom line
Speculation suggests that the Micromax Canvas Turbo will have a bunch of firsts for the company. The estimated price bracket also shows that we may be looking at the most expensive smartphone that the company has rolled out so far. There has not been any official word from Micromax about this, though, so it is hard to validate any of these specs. But last week’s teaser trailer suggests that the company will not be waiting long before unveiling its new flagship for the market.