Here is the review of Karbonn A30 the big smartphone sporting a 5.9 inch screen with dual core processor, sailing on the ICS OS. The handset is now priced at under Rs. 11,500.

A30 Box pack
The box though looks compact, but when you unbox it the first thing you see is the A30 wrapped inside the complementary leather cover.  It does feel good. Inside the box you will find the handset, earphone, USB to Micro USB cable, power adapter, 2500 mAh battery and user manual / warranty & service center list.

You get a complementary leather cover that is attached to the back cover so do not try to remove it. If you already did don’t worry use a glue to stick it back. There is a spare back cover in case you are not happy with the leather cover or want a change for the time being.

Design
The handset is big, really big, the screen is 1 inch smaller than a traditional 7 inch tablet. The handset weighs around 260 grams. I checked the A30 with Wammy Desire and found the Desire to be lighter. Karbonn A30 is 10mm thick but cause of the leather cover you will not feel the size.  I would say Karbonn did a good job by proving a free leather cover cause without it the excitement would have lost.

Karbonn A30 unboxing

There are 4 touch sensitive buttons on the front, power button on right, volume rockers on left, 3.5 mm jack on top and micro USB port and mic at the bottom.

Karbonn A30 review

Display
It’s huge at 5.9 inches with capacitive touch and 800×480 pixels resolution. You may think the resolution is too much for the 5.9 inch screen, well we have seen the same on 7 inch tablet. Yes it is not that sharp as you would have seen on a smaller screen for example on Micromax A110 with same resolution on a 5 inch display.

However Karbonn has used a good theme and big fonts/icons to fill in the gap between resolution and size. And it really did work to some extent.  There is gesture control app that makes use of the front camera.

Karbonn A30 with complimentary leather cover

CPU, GPU, Memory and storage
The Dual core MT6577 @ 1GHz + the PowerVR SGX 531 GPU runs the show. The RAM is 512MB of which you get around 234MB fee. Of the 4GB internal storage you get around 2GB free.  The MT6577 hardware is impressive and as for performance, we have already seen that on A110.

Benchmark Scores

  • Quadrant Benchmark Score : 2801.
  • Antutu Benchmark Score : 7120,  2nd time – 7250.
  • Nenamark 2 : 27.6 fps.
  • Linpack : Single : 39, Multi thread : 56.
  • MultiTouch : 5 Point.

Camera and Video recording
The 8 MP camera does shoot impressive still photos, the LED is no good. The camera is best for outdoor photography. I found the auto focusing / touch focus better than on A110. The camera default settings are perfect and you can start clicking perfect pictures without changing any settings.

You can record 720p videos check the sample at the end of the article.  The box pack says you can play 1080p movies, however I tried it and it does not work. It fact it seems the MT6577 cannot play 1080p movies.

Entertainment
The dual speaker does an excellent job. The sound output is excellent; you will notice the difference immediately. It is a delight watching movies on 5.9 inch with dual speakers.

Others
There is G-Sensor and proximity sensor, there is no light and magnetic sensor. There is built in GPS that works well. It could take few minutes to get that fist lock.

There is the video call button in the phone dialer. The dialer looks different with a new skin (check the video review). I found the in call speaker volume lower than what I have experienced on the MMX A110. There is 3G/2G support via SIM 1 and 2G via SIM 2. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth worked well.

Battery
A big size phone will need a bigger battery and the 2500 mAh should be sufficient to get it going for a full day.

Who should buy this Phone?
Those looking for a tablet with all of the features that a smartphone has can opt for this one. It is with MT6577 processor and PowerVR SGX 531 GPU which is not as powerful as the Mali 400 GPU. But you get the smartphone features and nearly the tab size screen (1 inch smaller as compared with 7 inch tabs).

Karbonn A30 is big, good for those who would want to use it more for surfing, entertainment and less for voice calls. Also note the A30 does not fit in the pockets and you will be carrying it most of the time. A price of under Rs. 11K would have been perfect, still it is a good buy if size does not matter.

Image Gallery

Karbonn A30 unboxing and review video

720p sample video shot using Karbonn A30

[poll id=”34″]

By Rajeev Rana

Founder and Chief Editor - gogi.in