A new version of the Xolo Black was launched yesterday with 3 GB RAM. It is priced at Rs 11,999, putting it in the same bracket as the Micromax Canvas 5, which can be had for roughly the same amount. The Micromax Canvas 5 too has 3 GB of RAM, making this an interesting battle. Read on to find out more.
Design
Basically it is a contest of glass versus plastic design.
The Xolo Black, with Corning glass protection for both its front and back panels, looks stunning. To prevent smudges, the back panel of Xolo Black has got Olephobic coating as well. As is the USP of the Xolo Black series, this phone comes in black colour; even its side panels are in black colour. It has narrow bezels on the front, and rear is dominated by the twin camera set up. It is 155.5 mm tall, 76.6 mm wide and 7.3 mm thick.
The Micromax Canvas 5 comes with metal side panels but its back panel is made of plastic, the positive aspect of which is that you can remove it and due to its rubberised finishing it feels great in hand. However, the downside of the plastic back panel is that it looks a bit cheap compared to its full metal counterparts.
Here note that though the back panel is removable, the battery is not. You only need to remove the back panel to access the SIM and micro SD card slots. Here I think Micromax has missed a chance to offer various coloured back panels. By the way, it comes in two colours – golden and black. It measures 148 x 73.6 x 8.5 mm, and weighs 143 grams.
With an additional colour offering, the Canvas 5 definitely has a larger appeal but whether it looks better than Xolo Black or not is a matter of choice. Also you have to decide between the glass body of Xolo Black or the plastic body of Canvas 5. Note that the Canvas 5 has got two dedicated SIM slots and one micro SD card slot while the Xolo Black has got a hybrid SIM slot which means you can either use two SIM cards or one SIM and a micro SD card.
Display
The Micromax Canvas 5 has a 5.2 inch full HD IPS display. As I said in its Hands On review as well, the Canvas 5’s display has got just enough brightness for bright outdoors but it is quite reflective. The demo unit has got good touch response too.
The Xolo Black (3GB) also has a 5.5 inch full HD IPS display. We have not seen the phone in person so it is quite difficult to say about its display’s touch response and brightness. Both phone’s display have Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection.
Processor & Memory
The Xolo Black (3GB) has an octa-core Snapdragon 615 Processor clocked at 1.5 GHz, which runs with 3 GB of RAM. Its internal storage stands at 16 GB, to which you can add another 32 GB via a microSD card.
The Micromax Canvas 5 too has a 1.3 GHz Mediatek (MT6753) octa core processor as well as 3 GB of RAM. The internal storage stands at 16 GB to which you can add another 64 GB via a microSD card.
Here the Canvas 5 seems to have an EDGE over the Xolo Black (3GB) with higher expandable storage facility.
Software
The Micromax Canvas 5 runs on Android Lollipop, with mild customisations from Micromax, while the Xolo Black runs on Hive Atlas UI, an OS which is based on Android Lollipop.
Battery
The Xolo Black has a 3200 mAh battery with Qualcomm Quick Charge 1.0. The Micromax Canvas 5 has a 2900 mAh battery which can provide up to 10 hours of Talk time or 275 hours of standby time.
The Xolo Black is the winner of this round, as it supports quick charging, and also has the larger battery.
Camera
The Micromax Canvas 5 has a 13 Megapixel primary shooter with blue glass filter and a flash light. In the front of the Micromax Canvas 5 there is a 5 megapixel selfie shooter. A flash light is also there for its front camera. At the launch event we did click some pictures and I found the camera to be quite fast. As you can see in the pictures below, the rear camera managed to capture colours quite nicely but I felt detailing to be on the lower side. You can check out its camera samples here.
The Xolo Black (3GB) has two cameras in its rear, one of 13 megapixel Resolution and the other a 2 megapixel unit. The 13 MP camera has 5-element lens and f/2.0 Aperture while the 2 MP camera has 3-element lens and f2.4 aperture. The 13 megapixel camera is for regular imaging while the secondary camera is meant to capture depth. For selfies, the phone offers a 5 megapixel selfie shooter.
The Xolo Black also comes with Adobe powered Photo Studio image editor.
We haven’t checked the camera quality of Xolo Black (3GB) but on paper it definitely looks better than that of Canvas 5.
Connectivity
The Xolo Black is a hybrid Dual-SIM device, where the second SIM can be used for a SIM or a microSD card. Both the phones have 4G, GPS (A-GPS), Bluetooth, and WiFi.
Wrapping up
The Xolo Black, with a dual camera set up and a bigger battery, definitely has an edge over the Canvas 5. However, the Canvas 5 has more storage facility, dedicated SIM and micro SD card slots, and higher display resolution doesn’t look that bad.