Micromax YU Yureka Preview and First Impressions

Micromax YU Yureka is the latest smartphone to come from the Micromax stables. This phone is touted to be the next budget smartphone killer. Priced at Rs. 8999 it is definitely a nice budget offering and adds to it the fact that this phone has got the specs of a beast it looks really good on paper.

Yu is a new brand i.e. sister brand of Micromax and Micromax will launch its Cyanogen powered devices under this brand name. The YU brand will compete with Micromax as well as other industry players too for market share.

The only competitor to this budget phablet seems to be the Redmi Note 4g which is priced 1k INR higher than this smartphone and looks wise as well as operating system wise the YU might be the choice of preference for most smartphone buyers who want a decent smartphone at an affordable price.

Another caveat here is that a Hand-crafted leather back panel will be given as a free gift to the first few buyers! Here is the link for the Yureka on Amazon.

See more: How to choose a smartphone

Micromax YU Yureka: More details and news

After a lot of initial hustle and bustle, and lots of secrecy, Micromax recently launched its Yu series of smartphones, and the first phone in the series is aptly named ‘Yureka’. The Yureka will be the first smartphone in the Indian market that will run on Cyanogen OS ‘Officially’.

I said officially in that manner because a few days ago, there was another smartphone with a supposedly Official license for Cyanogen OS i.e. our very own One Plus one. OnePlus One smartphones were released earlier this month with the official Cyanogen OS, but then it was taken back and now Cyanogen themselves have confirmed that the official Partner for its OS is Micromax and not OnePlus One.

Though reports say it might come back in the market very soon after the court lifts the ban.

Now lets us leave that topic and come to Micromax’s Yureka, which is, going by the specs, truly worth saying Yureka after getting your hands on. Yu Yureka will be officially on sale from 13 January 2015 though it was launched on Amazon.in on 19th December for Pre-registration at a price of Rs. 8999. We’ll talk about the Cyanogen OS later, in detail, but first, let us talk about the device.

See more: Mi Redmi note is a beast on a budget

Micromax Yureka will be a big device, it will have a screen of 5.5 inches which will be covered by Corning Gorilla Glass 3, and have a pixel density of 1280×720 px. It will have a powerful Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor and a Ram capacity of 2 GB with Adreno 405 GPU. Though don’t just go by the 2 GB RAM because it’s a 64-bit processor, so may have some issues with only 2 GB of RAM.

The Camera along with the memory is one of the best things about the device as the Yu Yureka will have a rear camera of 13 Megapixel with Sony Exmor R lenses and a front camera of 5 Megapixel with a 71-degree wide viewing angle for your perfect groupies.

Now my favorite part of the device is the memory, Micromax YU Yureka will have an internal memory of 16 GB and external support for 64 Gb. This is what we can say is the best thing about the device account to me.

Though it appears clearly to be a re-branded CoolPad F2 (which is a Chinese smartphone), the YU has one difference: The F2 comes with 32 GB of internal storage while Yureka only has 16 GB of storage.

We will give a detailed description and review of the device once it gets launched. For now, you can get an idea of it from the points above.

Now lets us talk a little about Cyanogen OS 11, which is going to be the OS in the device. For those who don’t know what Cyanogen is, Cyanogen is basically a modded version of Android with loads of extra features or as the co-founder of Micromax, Rahul Sharma said, Android on Steroids.

The phone will also be the first smartphone to get Cyanogen Mod based on Lollipop, so buyers of this phone need not wait much to taste the flavors of Android Lollipop.

The customization of Cyanogen is unlike anything and it will give you excess to everything and you can literally do anything you like with your device. The monthly updates will help add new features and you won’t have to depend on Android updates for added features.

The list of added bonuses is quite lengthy so we may talk about that later in a separate article but let me just tell you that Cyanogen is awesome.

Specifications

Display– 5.5-inch screen , 1280 x 720 pixels, and
Corning Gorilla Glass 3

OS– Android 4.4.4 KitKat based
Cyanogen OS 11s, Monthly software
updates

Processor and RAM– Octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615
processor, Adreno 405 GPU, and 2GB RAM

Camera– 13-mega pixel primary camera (Sony Exmor
R) with a LED flash, F/2.2 aperture, 1080p
@ 30 FPS, and 720p @ 60 FPS
5-mega pixel secondary camera, OmniVision
5648 sensor with a 71-degree wide viewing
angle lens

Memory– 16 GB of internal storage, microSD card slot
(up to 64GB)

Connectivity– Dual-SIM, 4G LTE (Cat. 4 150Mbps) + 3G,
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS
with A-GPS

Music– 3.5 mm headphone jack, 24-bit high-
resolution audio, and bass boost

Battery– 2,500 mAh battery

Size– 154.8 x 78 x 8.8 mm

Oh and by the way, did I tell you that Micromax will give you the Yu Yureka with an unlocked bootloader and warranty which will stay even after rooting?
And the fact that it promises on-site repair of the device and pick-up from home for the damaged device?  Now that’s a good deal.

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Aditya Nath Jha

Aditya Nath Jha is an Engineer from New Delhi, India. His areas of interest include Gadgets, WordPress, speed optimization & latest technology. When he is not busy blogging he loves to write poetry, compose his own songs and has a taste for music! Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Linked in, Instagram. And watch his videos on YouTube.