Xolo has made quite a name for itself in the Indian budget smartphone market. But off lately, the affordable segment has been overflowing with near-identical smartphones that offer more or less the same in terms of hardware specifications.
Adding yet another handset to its line-up, the company recently launched the Era 2X smartphone. The device comes in two variants - 2GB RAM and 3GB RAM, priced at Rs 6,666 and Rs 7,499 respectively. So is the new smartphone from Xolo any good?
We played around with Era 2X for a few days and here's the rest of our review.
Design and display
Xolo Era 2X has a plastic frame with gently rounded corners, along with a smooth textured removable back panel. But despite the plastic body, the smartphone doesn't feel cheap.
The right edge has the volume rocker and the power button. The front is largely dominated by a 5-inch HD IPS display. Above it lie a notification LED, a 5MP selfie camera, an earpiece and a proximity sensor.
As for the rear, it's where the 8MP primary camera with LED flash is. Taking off the back panel reveals a 2,500mAh removable battery, two micro-SIM slots and a microSD card slot. The rear also houses a fingerprint sensor and a mono speaker. While the bottom edge sports the microUSB port, the top edge has a 3.5mm audio jack.
Moving to the display, Xolo Era 2X has a 5-inch HD display of 720x1280 pixel resolution. During our testing, we found the display to be fairly decent. It has sharp colour reproduction and good sunlight legibility. The small size of the display also makes it easily usable with one hand.
Overall, the Xolo Era 2X doesn't feel cheap and is a marked improvement over its predecessor.
Performance and camera
Xolo Era 2X is powered by a 1.2GHz MediaTek SoC paired with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The phone also supports microSD cards of up to 32GB in size.
During our time with the device, we found the overall performance of the Era 2X to be quite good. We used the smartphone for light games such as Temple Run 2 and for multi-tabbed browsing with Google Chrome, and didn't experience any lag or heating issues.
The fingerprint sensor, too, works fine and is quite easy to set up. The sound quality from the speaker is quite good as well. Apps open quickly and multi-tasking generally works great as well.
As for the cellular reception, it was good during our testing. Call quality is generally good, even in areas of problematic coverage such as basements and elevators.
Coming to the battery life, the Era X2's 2,500mAh battery struggled to last even a day on a single charge and had to be recharged again. Our usage involved playing games and browsing social media, all while being connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data.
Xolo Era X2 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It comes pre-loaded with some third-party apps such as UC Browser, Saavn, Hike and My Jio bundle. In general, the interface is pretty clean and user friendly.
The smartphone has a Turbo Download feature that allows you to download over 20MB of files using both Wi-Fi and cellular data at the same time. Besides this, it has gesture controls that are commonly found in other handsets as well.
For imaging duties, the Era 2X has an 8MP rear camera with LED flash, along with a 5MP selfie-shooter.
During our testing, we found the images captured by the smartphone's rear camera to be decent. Colour reproduction is accurate and noise levels are quite low in well-lit conditions. The same, however, cannot be said for low light images.
As for the 5MP front-camera, it proved to be a letdown as the pictures are a little grainy. All in all, we can say that imaging is definitely not the strong feature of the Xolo Era 2X.
Verdict
In all, Xolo Era 2X is a basic budget handset. Most specifications it offers are bare essentials. The experience too is nothing extraordinary. Also, Chinese players such as Coolpad and Xiaomi offer smartphones with better specifications in the same price range.
Adding yet another handset to its line-up, the company recently launched the Era 2X smartphone. The device comes in two variants - 2GB RAM and 3GB RAM, priced at Rs 6,666 and Rs 7,499 respectively. So is the new smartphone from Xolo any good?
We played around with Era 2X for a few days and here's the rest of our review.
Design and display
Xolo Era 2X has a plastic frame with gently rounded corners, along with a smooth textured removable back panel. But despite the plastic body, the smartphone doesn't feel cheap.
The right edge has the volume rocker and the power button. The front is largely dominated by a 5-inch HD IPS display. Above it lie a notification LED, a 5MP selfie camera, an earpiece and a proximity sensor.
Moving to the display, Xolo Era 2X has a 5-inch HD display of 720x1280 pixel resolution. During our testing, we found the display to be fairly decent. It has sharp colour reproduction and good sunlight legibility. The small size of the display also makes it easily usable with one hand.
Overall, the Xolo Era 2X doesn't feel cheap and is a marked improvement over its predecessor.
Performance and camera
Xolo Era 2X is powered by a 1.2GHz MediaTek SoC paired with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. The phone also supports microSD cards of up to 32GB in size.
During our time with the device, we found the overall performance of the Era 2X to be quite good. We used the smartphone for light games such as Temple Run 2 and for multi-tabbed browsing with Google Chrome, and didn't experience any lag or heating issues.
As for the cellular reception, it was good during our testing. Call quality is generally good, even in areas of problematic coverage such as basements and elevators.
Coming to the battery life, the Era X2's 2,500mAh battery struggled to last even a day on a single charge and had to be recharged again. Our usage involved playing games and browsing social media, all while being connected to Wi-Fi or cellular data.
Xolo Era X2 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. It comes pre-loaded with some third-party apps such as UC Browser, Saavn, Hike and My Jio bundle. In general, the interface is pretty clean and user friendly.
For imaging duties, the Era 2X has an 8MP rear camera with LED flash, along with a 5MP selfie-shooter.
During our testing, we found the images captured by the smartphone's rear camera to be decent. Colour reproduction is accurate and noise levels are quite low in well-lit conditions. The same, however, cannot be said for low light images.
As for the 5MP front-camera, it proved to be a letdown as the pictures are a little grainy. All in all, we can say that imaging is definitely not the strong feature of the Xolo Era 2X.
Verdict
In all, Xolo Era 2X is a basic budget handset. Most specifications it offers are bare essentials. The experience too is nothing extraordinary. Also, Chinese players such as Coolpad and Xiaomi offer smartphones with better specifications in the same price range.
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