Lava Xolo A800 review

By Surbhi Chawla | Updated: 5 April 2013 12:35 IST

Lava entered the smartphone segment with the X900 in the Xolo series way back in May 2012. This was the first smartphone in the world to come with an 'Intel Inside' tag. However this device failed to set the market on fire, partially because of its Rs. 22,000 price tag.

So, the Indian handset maker has taken a U-turn and returned to familiar territory of budget smartphones with the latest members of the Xolo series - Lava Xolo A800 and Lava Xolo A700. Both these smartphones run on Mediatek's dual-core MT6577 chipset.

Priced at Rs. 11,999 the Xolo A800 comes with a 4.5-inch (960 x 540 pixels) screen, 512 MB RAM and an 8-megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash. Let's find out if this device from Lava's Xolo series is a worthy contender in the smartphone market.

Design/ Hardware
The White coloured Lava Xolo A800 looks very similar to Samsung Galaxy S III. However, it comes with a matte finish, which makes this smartphone look less plasticky than the Galaxy S III.

The Xolo A800 has round corners with an aesthetically done silver border. The front of the device is mostly taken up by the 4.5-inch screen. There are three Android buttons - Menu, Home and Back - embossed at the bottom of the screen and a VGA camera on the top. The left panel houses the volume keys and Micro-USB/charging port.

The back panel has an 8-megapixel camera and the loudspeaker. The 3.5mm jack and power/wake button find room on the top panel.

In terms of hardware, the device is powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor with 512MB RAM, has 4GB internal storage expandable up to 32GB with microSD.

The Xolo A800 is a dual-SIM smartphone and supports GSM SIM card in both the slots. On opening the back panel one notices a big black rectangular patch attached perhaps to maintain space between the battery and the back panel. This looks extremely out of place and we would have appreciated if Lava would have paid a bit more attention to detailing.

Display
The Lava Xolo A800 comes with a 4.5-inch 16M colour capacitive touch screen IPS display with 245 ppi. The display and the viewing angles look good. The under-sun visibility on the Lava Xolo A800 was decent. The screen used in this smartphone is reflective.

Camera

The pictures captured through the 8-megapixel auto focus camera on board are quite crisp and clear. The Lava Xolo A800 comes with a BSI Sensor, which made sure that even the low-light pictures look decent. The quality of videos captures through the back camera is good too.

There is a VGA front camera, which takes average pictures, pretty much like any other front camera. All in all, the camera experience on the smartphone is good; wish it had a dedicated camera button to help click a quick one.

Software/ Interface
The Lava Xolo A800 runs on Android 4.0.4 (Ice Cream Sandwich). There are five customisable home screens to fill with apps and widgets. The software runs quite smoothly pretty much like any other stock Android smartphone.

There aren't too many pre-loaded applications on Lava Xolo A800 except NoteBook and Xolo care but one can always download them from Google Play Store.

With the help of the Noteook app one can take quick notes. These notes can be under various categories such as work, personal, family affair or uncategorized. Saved notes can be easily accessed through this app.

Performance/ Battery
As mentioned earlier, the Lava Xolo A800 comes with Mediatek's dual-core MT6577 chipset rather than Intel's chipset that was seen on the earlier Xolo A900. However, we found this smartphone to be quite smooth and responsive. There were no real lags that we faced while using the device.

The audio quality is good both on the headphones and the loudspeaker.

Verdict
For about 12K, the Lava Xolo A800 is an interesting smartphone. It has a good display and delivers a decent performance. However, consumers looking for a large screen smartphone might be tempted to bend towards, Micromax Canvas 2 A110, which has a 5-inch screen and a bigger battery (2000mAh). Micromax Canvas 2 A110 is powered by the same processor and runs on Android 4.0. Also, Micromax's device is available at a best buy price of Rs. 10,000. Lava Xolo A800 scores better than its Micromax only on the display front.

Pros

Smooth performance
Crisp display

Cons

Android upgrade roadmap not clear

Price: Rs. 11,990

Ratings (Out of 5)
Design: 3.5
Display: 3.5
Performance: 3.5
Software: 3
Battery Life: 3.5
Value for Money: 3
Camera: 3.5

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