Lava today launched a new smartphone, as part
of its Iris Fuel series, the Lava Iris Fuel 60 which is priced at Rs 8,888. The
smartphone’s USP is the battery life; the company says that Fuel 60’s 4000 mAh
battery can easily last a day for heavy users (who are constantly on 3G and
WiFi) and even up to two days for mid-level users.
During the launch event, Lava’s Chairman and
MD Hari Om Rai also revealed that the company plans to manufacture smartphones
in India and will open a unit in Noida. Lava hopes to launch an India-made
smartphone by March next year, said Rai.
India-made smartphones aside, the Lava Iris
Fuel 60 is clearly as budget-friendly smartphone that is hoping to give users
in this price range something that is inevitably lacking in these smartphones:
long lasting battery. And Lava is hoping that the battery will end up being the
X factor that helps consumers choose in this phone’s favour.
As far as other specs go, what we have is a
pretty standard smartphone: 5-inch HD screen with IPS, 1 GB RAM, 1.3 GHz
quad-core processor, 8 GB space with microSD slot and expandable to 32 GB, 10
megapixel camera and a 2 megapixel front camera.
We got a chance to look at the smartphone
during the launch and here’s our first impression of the smartphone:
Design, Screen: We have to admit that
this is a pretty bulky phone and the volume buttons and on/off button are on
the left side of the phone. It has a familiar rectangular design, but it’s
definitely on the thicker side. It’s certainly not the best looking device
and feels a little heavy, but hey this is a budget smartphone.
According to Lava, the Iris Fuel 60 is made
with “solder-less” manufacturing technology, where each component is connected
to the PCB via connectors, unlike conventional smartphones where manual
soldering is used. The company says that this will make easier for service
engineers to fix the smartphone in case of any fault.
The screen is a 5-inch HD with IPS, which is
standard nowadays as far as size and resolution goes, though it was hard to
read anything on the screen outside in the sun. The screen however has Corning
Gorilla Glass 3 protection, which is definitely a good plus point to keep the device
protected.
Processor, RAM, other specs: Lava
Iris Fuel 60 has a Mediatek 1.3 GHz quad-core processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB
ROM which can be expanded via microSD (32GB is the limit).
For most budget users, the microSD slot is a
must, though it is disappointing that Lava hasn’t boosted either the processor
or the RAM in this phone, something that users might have expected. Essentially
the processor and RAM make this seem like a remodelled version of Iris Fuel 50,
except with bigger battery.
Battery: Since this is the USP of the phone, let’s
get to this. During the launch event, Lava had put up smartphones from several
other companies next to their device to showcase battery usage. The devices
either had a movie playing, or the camera was on, basically some heavy duty
smartphone usage was going in both the rival company’s device and the Lava Iris
Fuel 60.
Lava’s aim was to showcase that the Iris Fuel
would lose battery much slowly than the other device and sure it appeared that
the phone was still at 90%, while others were getting drained fast.
The battery in this phone is 4000 mAh and
according to the company can last up to 32 hours of talk time on 2G without a
need to charge the phone. However during the launch event, Lava spoke about how
the battery could last one day easily with heavy usage, which included
continuous 3G.
Of course, we’ll have to test the device to
confirm this but if Lava delivers on these claims, it will be a massive plus
point for the company. Lava also says Iris Fuel 60 is equipped with quick
charge technology that restricts the charging time to 3 hours 15 minutes.
OS, Camera and other features: The
smartphone runs Android 4.4.4 and Lava has promised an Android L update to the
device pretty soon, though it’s not clear by when this update will be rolled
out. The rear camera is 10 megapixels and the front camera is 2 megapixels.
While it didn’t seem too impressive based on some early shots, we’ll have to
test this one more given the lighting in the lau
Lava has also introduced gesture-based actions
in this smartphone. Users can just write W or C on the smartphone’s locked
screen with their finger and it will take them directly to WhatsApp (W) or
Camera (C). We tried this gesture and though it takes time for the app to open,
it worked fairly accurately for us.
Conclusion: This smartphone is all about the
battery. Lava tried to showcase this by even including rival devices at the
launch as a point of comparison. It’s also priced quite nicely for a smartphone
that offers more than one-day battery. For budget users, the Iris Fuel 60 could
be a good smartphone to consider.
