Honestly speaking, when we got to know that we will be getting the Spice Mi410 for review we were hoping for a device that will be more on the lines of other Spice handsets. But the day we got the device delivered at out office all things changed.
The device comes in a small box, possibly designed to minimise shipping cost and to reduce the price for the device. Well upon opening the box, we were sort of shocked and amazed at looking at the quality of the device – it stands apart from all the other Spice handsets till date and by far is the most impressive Android smartphone that we have reviewed with a price tag of under Rs 15,000.
Looks and Build Quality
The Mi410 has a striking resemblance with the Huawei U9000 IDEOS X6 smartphone which is due for launch sometime this year. The phone has a slim profile for a smartphone and the metallic brown finish on the device look amazing, grabbing a lot of eyeballs.
In terms of the build quality, the Mi410 is good. The overall finishing of the device is great and it seems as the design department has put in a lot of efforts to get there. By far, the Mi410 has been the best smartphone that has come from Spice’s stable and those who are willing to buy this device will not be disappointed by the by the device at all.
Display and Touch
The Mi410 has a big 4.1 inch TFT display featuring a 480 x 800 pixel Resolution in 16 million colour pallets. The display might be a little low on resolution as compared to most big screen smartphones that are available today but the price difference between them and the Mi410 bridges the gap.
The capacitive touch of the Mi410 is great and has functions like pitch to zoom, two finger scrolling and even the pinch to rotate application. The Mi410 comes with a bundled scratch guard as well but remember that it may also reduce the touch sensitivity of the screen by about 30 per cent.
There is no special scratch resistant glass used here to protect the screen so users will have to be careful while using the device without the scratch guard or they can also invest is a good quality holster for this device as well.
Performance
Looking at the price tag, it is hard to believe that this phone offers so much for so little. The most striking of them is the inclusion of the Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM 8255 chip that includes a 1Ghz Processor and Andreno 205 graphics engine for dedicated graphics support.
In terms of performance, the Mi410 is a speeding train! It performed well as per our expectations. So be it HD gaming or multitasking, this device does not show signs of fatigue.
A suggestion – install a task manager application that will help the device to keep performing at speed while saving valuable RAM.
The phone has a 2GB of Internal Memory that doubles up as RAM and another 2GB of ROM as well. The external memory supported by this device is 32GB which is pretty much a standard these days.
Although Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread is already out in the market and many device manufacturers have already shifted to that, the Mi410 still features the older 2.2 Froyo. But spice has promised an upgrade it to 2.3 soon, so no worries there.
Connectivity
In terms of connectivity, the Mi410 is a straight forward winner. The Mi410 is a 3G enabled phone that supports HSPA upload and download speed. It is also DLNA certified which allows it to connect to any other DLNA certified device over the WiFi network.
DLNA is not the only option, the Mi410 can be connected to any HDMI supporting device by using its dedicated HDMI port as well, but for that you will have to buy an HDMI cable separately.
Apart from just being a WiFi enabled device, the Mi410 can also be used as a WiFi hot spot as well.
Camera and Multimedia
The Mi410 features a 5 Megapixel snapper at the back and a frontal VGA camera, which is strictly meant for video calling. The camera supports video recording in 720p HD mode at 30 FPS which is pretty impressive. The presence of a LED flash adds a few more points for low light or night photography but some more illumination is still required.
On multimedia front, the Mi410 can play almost any media file with the help of applications that can be downloaded from the marketplace. Along with that, users can also see HD videos on it big 4.1 inch screen.
Its 3.5 mm audio output is good for maximum connectivity options while the stereo loudspeakers allow this device to play great sound that is made even richer with its Dolby sound enhancement feature.
Finally
The Mi410 has a 1500 mAh battery pack that powers the device but it would be unjustified if we were to rate this device on the battery backup. It is almost like asking how much a mug of coffee will last; it depends on the speed at which you finish it. So simply put forth, the battery backup of this phone is decent as it lasted for two days with nominal usage which includes moderate WiFi and GPRS web browsing.
So ultimately all things boil down to one common thing and that is how much does this handset costs. Well the Mi410 cost Rs 14,000 which makes it an excellent buy for the price considering its features. Even when compared to other phones within the price bracket, this phone emerges as a straight forward winner as it offers a great value for money proposition.