Recently Hike has launched a smartphone in partnership with Airtel, which is priced at the same price as a feature phone. We tested this Intex Aqua Lions N1. This low cost smartphone is available with Airtel plan Effective Price The price of the phone is Rs 1,649. The main feature of the phone is Hike Total. This platform provides the user with the facility to send messages, get news and other facilities without internet. How does it work? We found out in detail.
How is the phone and what is there in it, know…
design
Looking at the body and build quality, it can be guessed that the phone will be low-priced. This phone with black colour and plastic body is quite small as per today’s standards. Its weight is just 112 grams. The quality of plastic used in it is also average, but due to the matte finish, it does not look ‘too cheap’ either. The back has a texture, which makes it easy to hold the phone. The user gets a power adapter, data cable and a headphone in the box. By providing headphones at this price, the company has tried to please the user. The design of the phone could have been better, and also the micro USB connector does not fit properly in the phone’s port. Such shortcomings should have been removed.
The phone has a 4-inch display, which is equipped with 480×800 pixel resolution. Text appears blurry due to this. Viewing angles are also not that good. Turning the phone left or right makes the screen appear black. The display and tempered glass are not connected to each other, the difference of which is clearly visible as space. Fingerprints also appear due to this. The edges of the phone are thick, the navigation buttons are not backlit. The phone does not have a notification LED or ambient light sensor but a front camera is provided. The volume and power buttons are on the right side of the phone. Whereas, the headphone socket and micro-USB are present on the top of the phone.
The camera is placed in the middle of the back of the phone, which is accompanied by an LED flash, which is just below the camera. There is a space for the speaker at the bottom. The back cover of the phone can be removed. The battery can also be removed. There are 2 micro SIM slots and a micro SD card slot inside. It is possible to use a card up to 128 GB in it. Overall, Intex Aqua Lions N1 is a simple cheap Android phone.
Intex Aqua Lions N1 Specifications and Features
The hardware of the phone is also good. It has a quad core MediaTek MT6737V processor. 1GB RAM is available for juggling. Storage is 8GB. FM radio, GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are also present in the phone but the handset does not support USB-OTG. It has only two sensors – accelerometer and proximity. On the other hand, the handset supports 4G VoLTE. The performance of the phone was poor on the benchmark site.
Now coming to the performance of the phone. It runs on Hike Total, which is a custom version of Android. Just like Indus OS. Hike Total is a platform specially designed for the Indian market. It supports 8 Indian languages and is capable of providing some services without an internet connection.
Hike has not ‘melded’ much with the UI of Android Nougat, it is very much like stock Android. There are offline apps on the left-home screen. These include some important apps like Bus Ticket and Game of the Day. You can also try the app by selecting it from the rising bubble. To use offline apps, you have to create a Total account and verify the Airtel SIM.
You will be able to use offline the apps which have a star on them. Currently, apps like Cricket, Recharge, Hike Wallet, Rail Info, News, Messaging, Offline UPI, Total Data Pack are available for offline use. We tried the offline apps with a postpaid Airtel SIM and the experience was good. These apps have to be used like USSD codes. Exactly the same process, by which we will be able to check the balance from the phone.
With the Hike Messenger app present in it, users will be able to chat with friends present on Hike. It also works like a normal SMS app. Before sending a message, it checks the presence of the other user on Hike. After this it switches to the chat interface. However, it did not work in our investigation, we just sent a regular SMS. If you want to avail this service then you will have to download the Google Messenger app.
Hike Messenger also works offline. With this you can send text messages and stickers without internet connection. If you have to send a picture or a large file, then you will have to buy data packs. Data packs for Hike Total phone are different and are quite discounted but are valid only for Airtel users. There is a plan of Rs 1 for 20 MB, which lasts for 1 day. At the same time, for 1 GB data, you will have to spend Rs 49. Its validity is for 28 days. However, it has not been clarified for how long these prices of data packs will be valid. As soon as you open Hike Messenger, you are warned to buy a data pack. All other apps that do not work without internet connection start showing errors when used for free.
The only option left to buy these packs is Hike Wallet. You get a bonus of up to Rs 200 after completing the KYC process. You will have to submit Aadhaar card, driving license or any government certified identity card. Apart from this, you get pre-installed apps of My Airtel and Wink Music. However, these are not permanent, you can also remove them. There are some changes in the Settings app, which we have already seen in budget smartphones with Media-Tek processors. These include Dura Speed, with the help of which the app keeps running in the background. Also, the SOS button can be configured with its help.
Camera and Battery
Generally, Android phones equipped with 1 GB RAM do not perform that well. The same problem is faced with Android Nougat. 80 percent of RAM is used, leaving you with 174 MB. Due to this, Android hangs and apps also take time to open. Forget about better performance of 3D games. At some places, the phone’s interface ran fast but later the same slowness was seen again.
Due to poor touch response, fingers sometimes stumble on the keyboard. The response of the keys is also slow. However, we did not face any problem with the 4G VoLTE support in the phone. Also, the call quality on earphones was also good. The phone is capable of delivering 1080 pixel video but the viewing angle and poor contrast of the small screen spoil the work. The speaker is also not loud. The alert feature is fine. The headphones are fine, it would be dishonest to expect better than this.
The handset has a 2-megapixel fixed focus camera at the rear. The front camera is 0.3 megapixels. Photos taken during the day were overexposed. The clarity of the picture is missing and the colours are not good either. In low light, the picture is grainy and unclear. You will get the usual shooting modes like panorama and face beautification feature. The phone supports video recording up to a maximum of 720 pixels. The quality is good enough to be used. The front camera has VGA resolution, which enables the phone to take better pictures.
The phone packs a 1400mAh battery that barely lasts a full day with normal use. After 11-12 hours, you’ll be rushing to the charger. We found the battery drops pretty quickly after 15%, so it’s important to put it on battery saver mode. The phone took a long time to charge. It could only charge 80% in 3 hours. In our HD video loop test, the phone lasted 5 hours and 28 minutes, which is a very poor performance.
Decision
Intex Aqua Lions N1 is proof that there is a dire need for a better low cost phone in the market. Android with 1 GB RAM is not going to do wonders. At such a low price, Android Go phones like Jio Phone or Micromax Bharat are better. Hike Total platform is interesting, which will appeal to users who do not want to have a data pack. The phone is for those who like ‘Give as much as you get’. The advantage for Hike is that the number of users on its wallet and message platform will increase with the help of this phone.