Celkon Millennium Ultra Q500 with 2GB RAM and KitKat for Rs 9999

Finally, writing a detailed review after using the phone for almost 2 months.

Specifications are below:

Looks and exterior specs:

1. Darn good, slim, sleek. Although, this is just available in white which is pretty sad. But white does not look too bad either.
2. Three capacitive buttons in front which do not have the back lit feature.
3. However, when capturing pics, the flash additionally glows the entire back screen. yeah…have not heard of this feature much in any reviews.
4. Volume rockers and power off/ standby button on the right
5. Front camera on the left top, sensors on the right
6. Speaker in the front top and music based speakers under the back panel.
7. The phone in standby mode looks black and not white or cheap.
8. The back and side panels are slightly curved and not sharp and feels very premium to hold.
9. Charging port at the bottom and music 3.5mm jack on top.
10. Not a gorilla glass or dragon tail but a toughened class no doubt. Not sure which.
11. The viewing angles are pretty good.
12. regular usb based charger but no memory card with the phone.
13. Airtel provides 6 month of free 3gb which somehow, I still have not received.
14. OTG support

When I opened the back cover (well, i will obviously not open the front cover):

1. You can open the back cover through a small slit on bottom right.
2. Dual sim and a micro sd card support (total memory capacity is 32 gb).
3. Normal sim and one micro sim. What is great is both can support 3G which of course does not come by very easily.
4. Led single flash
5. 2500 MAH battery which pretty much lasts the entire day.
6. Speakers are normal and well, this “isn’t a sony”.

Switch on the phone – boot up:

1. Normal celkon ultra millenium display.
2. Post booting up, out of 2gb ram, the available ram ranges between 1.2 to 1.3 gb – very impressive.
3. The phone has a broadcom processor which was the original quad core processor technology.
4. The video IV along with 2gb ram, broadcom processor make the phone pretty swift. Further, as popular with any broadcom based phone, this phone does not heat up or hang.
5. The additional gb ram as compared to most of its counterparts in this price range ensures that the phone would never hang or require a manual boot up. I have booted this phone just twice in the last 2 months.

OS:

1. Android kitkat 4.4.2
2. Customer support over email is responsive and has confirmed an android L update. But an update to 4.4.4 will not be given.
3. The phone has stock android except for the dual sim mangement which is tweaked enough to allow a switch to 3g from any of the sims convenient. In less than 30 seconds, you can perform this procedure.

Working of the phone:

1. The maximum memory capacity is 32 gb with 16gb internal memory. I have inserted a class 10 16 gb card and hence have achieved the highest capacity. This makes the phone lag a little bit but not enough to repent the purchase.
2. Achieving the maximum memory support is expected to cause a little lag and perhaps, a snapdragon processor could have removed that limitation as well.
3. Battery is impressive. However, if you sit in a location and use two sim cards, a loss of signal can cause the battery to drain by 6 PM if put to use at 8 AM from a 100% charge.
4. I charge the phone from my laptop for 15-20 minutes daily at around noon which helps achieve the battery strength from 50 to 80. With that, you are home.
5. Out of 16gb internal memory, you are left with 14.7 gb
6. The phone comes with some stupid stock apps and supposedly hd games which I have disabled.
7. OTG support

Customer support:

1. Affiliated to a number of service centres who are decent to talk to.
2. The customer support over call is ok ok but do respond on time over email.
3. Their tech support is pretty good too.

Overall:

1. Excellent phone at Rs. 9500 from snapdeal
2. Colour options would have been preferred.
3. Memory capacity to 64 to 128 gb would have been great. The current 16gb card should not cause the lag with a higher memory capacity or a snapdragon processor.
4. 2Gb ram is fantastic to have
5. 2500 MAH is awesome, but do charge during the day if using both the sims.
6. 3g support on both sims.
7. Portamart has started issuing nice flip covers. A few are available at flipkart as well.
6. OTG support makes it the most comprehensive phone out there.

Happy to provide additional feedback comments upon query.

Regards,

haha NN they seem to have forgotten it themselves, when i asked them if this is their flagship phone, the support guy wasn’t even sure if to say yes or no! hope they intend to provide with updates else i’m going with zenfone 5, which they said will get a 4.4 update in the next couple of weeks. ASUS also said they would be providing 4.4 out-of-the box with the new stocks, so i guess they are holding back on stock just so to release the update! hope for the best!