Micromax Dual 5 first impressions: This phone has three good cameras

[Deepesh Sharma]

Micromax Dual 5 first impressions: This phone has three good cameras

Micromax has packed Dual 5 with dual (13MP+13MP) rear cameras, after all that is what flagships do these days. Here is our first impressions.
Micromax Dual 5 is packed with dual (13MP+13MP) rear cameras, after all that is what flagships do these days. Here is our first impressions. Over the years Indian smartphone companies have really struggled with flagships smartphones. They have had flagships mostly of their range, not ones that compete with the real flagships. There have been some attempts, but mostly duds. The closest has been the first Micromax Canvas Knight, which when launched was a good value for money device with some flagship features.
Now, Micromax, which has had a silent few months when it let new players have a free run, is coming back into the game with two ‘flagship’ smartphones, which will take on the upstarts at their own game. Also, the Indian manufacturer is packing in a handful of unique features which it hopes will give it the much-needed hype and traction.
Micromax Dual 5
The name says it all. Micromax has packed this phone with dual cameras, after all that is what flagships do these days. But then this manufacturer wants to stand out too. So it has packed in two 13 MP cameras (one of them black and white) in the rear and a 13MP one in the front too. That will make this the first smartphone to offer a 13MP + 13MP + 13MP combination. But that is not all.

Specs: 5.5-inch FHD AMOLED display | 4GB +128GB | Snapdragon 652 | 3200mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 | UBC Type C | Hybrid SIM slot | All LTE bands+ VoLTE
Design and display
The first time I saw this phone there were too many images fleeting in front of my mind. Where had I seen this design before? Was it the HTC One M8 or M9 or was it something else?

This metallic phone is almost blingy thanks to the gold finish, which I frankly have never been a fan of. But the curved back and the straight lines on the edge offer a good grip. While the overall design is what we have seen with HTC’s once-trademark metal unibody designs, this phone has a dual camera which the HTC flagships never had. That is when it dawned on me — this phone is almost identical to the Qiku Q Terra, especially the rear panel.
The big difference is the display, which was almost bezel-less. The Dual 5 also has a good Full HD display that works well in almost all scenarios.
This metallic phone is almost blingy thanks to the gold finish, which I frankly have never been a fan of. But the curved back and the straight lines on the edge offer a good grip.

The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor, which makes this mid-range phone in capabilities. The fingerprint scanner is under the two lenses with the flash tucked in between. The volume rocker and power button are on the right, while there is an extra button on the left which can be customised to do whatever you want on the phone.
Performance
The phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor, which makes this mid-range phone in capabilities. The processor is able to rise up to most tasks and in benchmarks comes near the new Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro which should be good enough to make most buyers happy.

The processor is able to rise up to most tasks and in benchmarks comes near the new Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro which should be good enough to make most buyers happy. The graphics quality is also good and I think most mobile gamers should be happy with what this phone has to offer. Also, the phone comes with 4GB RAM.
Camera
One of the selling points of this phone will be its cameras. Yes, I say cameras because there are three of them here for all practical purposes. A regular 13MP colour camera, another 13MP black and white camera and a third 13MP camera up front. There is actually a fourth one if you consider the dual camera functionality where the first two combine their results to offer a single image with a diffused background and better contrast.


Camera sample from Micromax Dual 5. (Image resized for web)

Camera sample from Micromax Dual 5. (Image resized for web) The camera performance is actually quite good. I was impressed by the regular photos as a well as those taken in the dual mode – which has blurry as well a night mode. There is a full Pro mode on the camera which lets you really play around with the settings and come up with some good shots. I, for instance, played with the white balance to get some psychedelic shots.

Camera sample from Micromax Dual 5. (Image resized for web)


Camera sample from Micromax Dual 5. (Image resized for web) There is something extra too. The video mode lets you shoot 3D video. I did shoot some but had no playback mode. So will tell you more about this later when we do a full review.
Software and UI
While the Dual 5 does not sport a pure Android UI it is thankfully not the bloatware filled phone that we are used to from Micromax. But the phone is Android OS 6, because there is quite a bit of software tweaks going in to offer an extra layer of security.
I liked the secret vault feature, which can be opened only using the fingerprint scanner and does not even show among the apps. There are some good anti-theft features like need to unlock the phone in case the SIM has been removed.

While the Dual 5 does not sport a pure Android UI it is thankfully not the bloatware filled phone that we are used to from Micromax. However, the default theme on the phone is again too much bling and something that could put off some users. Thankfully, there was a more sober theme I could switch to. Micromax needs to get this on the latest version of Android as soon as possible and offer more themes.
Battery
The 3,200mAh battery is good enough to last a full day on 100 per cent charge and on 4G all the time. The phone offers Quick Charge 3.0, but we could not test it with the charger that comes in the box. But the Google Pixel charger we used could bring this phone to full charge in under an hour.
Should you buy?
For a price under Rs 25,000 this phone seems like good value for money, especially since it offers a good camera combo and 128GB storage which is unique for this price point. Micromax is surely punching above its weight with this phone but it remains to be seen if Indian buyers are open to buying a phone from what was till now a budget brand.
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