Xolo Q1000 review and Unboxing – the MMX A116 competitor?

The Xolo Q1000 is another MediaTek powered quad core handset with 5 inch HD screen with 8MP camera and running on Jelly Bean 4.2 OS. This handset will compete with MMX A116 and is priced a little higher than A116 for Rs. 12,299.

Box Pack
The box contains the Q1000, screen guard, battery of 2100 mAh capacity, earphone, travel charger, data cable, warranty and user guide. The specs are clearly mentioned on the box it is with MT6589 chipset coupled with PowerVR SGX 544 GPU.

Design, OS and Display
The handset is slightly smaller than the Micromax A116 model. The screen is a bit darker and thickness is 8.8mm. The weight is about 151 grams. The 8MP camera glass is a bit out on the rear side, just like on the A116. The handset looks good, comfortable to hold and has got that premium look.

The 3.5mm jack and micro USB port is on the top side, power button on the right and volume rockers on the left side. There is an extra button that can be used to launch the camera application and can also function as the camera button when using the camera app.

There are 3 back-lit touch buttons on the front panel and the rear side is plain white with glossy finish. This handset runs on the Jelly Bean 4.2.1 OS.

The screen is 5 inches IPS with dragon trail glass supporting resolution of 1280×720 pixels. The viewing angle is good and the color reproduction is slightly better than as seen on MMX A116 model. The handset comes with light, accelerometer and proximity sensors.

Memory and Storage
Xolo Q1000 comes with 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage. Of the 1GB RAM, 649MB is available. Of 4GB internal storage, 0.91GB is available for apps and 1.8GB as phone storage. Unfortunately you cannot install / move apps to external storage. But that is not a big issue probably XOLO will come out with the update just like Micromax did for its A116 model.

Performance and Benchmark
It is with the same hardware that we have seen on many other handsets. MediaTek’s MT6589 with SGX 544 MP GPU.

Benchmark

Quadrant Benchmark : 4001.
Anututu Benchmark : 13159.
Nenamark2 : 43.7fps.
Vellamo : HTML5 = 1492, Metal = 451.
Multi Touch : 5 point.

8MP Camera with BSI sensors
The 8MP still and video quality seems better than the MMX A116. You can check the sample images and videos. There are some images shot using A116 for your comparison. Full HD video recording is possible.

Entertainment
Download MX player and you will be able to view lag free full HD videos. The sound is loud and clear.

Others
3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth worked well. The in call speaker and the loud speaker volume is loud and clear. It is dual SIM handset and both the SIM’s support 3G. I got the GPS fix in less than 15 seconds. The Q1000 does not support OTG.

Gaming
Game play will be as smooth as seen on the A116 and other MT6589 handset, however since you cannot install apps on external storage you get limited space and bigger games like Nova 3 will not work. You can check the Game play video at the end of this article.

Battery
The 2100 mAh battery with my initial test run seems good enough to last for over a day with moderate usage.

Xolo Q1000 review
It will be a tough choice deciding between the Micromax A116 and the Xolo Q1000. Micromax had recently upgraded the A116 OS to 4.2 and also enabled the SD card access so users can install apps on external storage. The Q1000 lacks this feature and you are left with the limited internal storage space. As for the camera quality and the color reproduction the Q1000 is a little better. But when you look at the price Q1000 is for Rs. 12,299 and the MMX A116 is now selling for Rs. 13,850.

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