Don't slip it into your pocket, don't drop it on your foot and most of all, don't hurl it at anyone. Considerable damage could be done -- not to the phone because it's apparently made of aircraft-grade material, but to the hapless victim.

Jokes apart, the Creo Mark I is a big heavy phone with nothing much by way of design. Instead, it's all about new software features which will be crowdsourced from suggestions by a community of users.

It's a great idea whose time may very well have come -- and that's what Android fans are hoping will be the case in the next few months. It's based on it that Creo promises your Mark I will feel like a new phone every month.

Not very comfortable to use unless your hands are outstandingly large, this device is your usual Android on the outside. It's a 5.5-inch glassy black with aluminium edging. It looks tough. But it's slippery and because of all the glass on both faces, it gets quickly covered up in smudges.

Well, OK, many phones have that problem, so let's move on. The 2560 x 1440 LCD display is not stunning but it's clear and doesn't wash out when you angle it. It's not too bad in sunlight either.

Working on this 2K screen should have been smooth and buttery because the Mark I chipset is a MediaTek Helio X10 with a 8 X A53 (True OctaCore) 1.95GHz processor, and PowerVR G6200 GPU. There's 3GB of RAM to push it along.

All that sounds quite impressive but the device doesn't do so good on benchmarks and in usage too, you'll immediately see lag. More seriously, there's a lot of heating up going on as well, if you get into gaming or even if you just take a lot of consecutive photographs and definitely if you shoot 4K video.

The main camera has a IMX230 Sony sensor and is a 21 MP with an F2.0. It has Phase Detection AutoFocus and Dual Tone LED flash. On paper, all that sounds good. The front camera is an 8MP. But it turns out photography on the Mark I is a damp squib. Indoors, images are truly jaundiced and washed out.

Admittedly, Creo has tried to give users everything they would want on the hardware front. There's a 3,100mAh battery, dual SIM trays, enough storage, etc. If only it worked better. Reviewers are hoping the performance will get better with software updates -- but that's something that will have to be proved first.

It's on the software front that the Creo Mark I has something interesting to offer. The company's own system on Android 5.1 is called Fuel OS and it's simple enough. It's the "ReFuel" that sounds promising. Tap into the icon and you get to suggest a feature you'd like. And you can see that users have already done so. There's a nice collection of features you don't see elsewhere.

A solid black, big, heavy chunk of glass with metal trim and three little buttons. The Creo Mark I's real promise is software, with "user-suggested updates every month"

Take Echo, for example. That lets you receive answering machine messages, cutting the cellular provider out of the picture. Retriever is a feature that you must activate to make sure the device can be traced if someone nicks it. If the thief puts in a new SIM, you'll get notified. This is the fun part of this phone and it'll surely be curious to see what features come up next.

Overall though, the asking price of INR 19,999 for the Mark I is too much, considering you let go of design, performance and ergonomics for a bunch of new features and updates.

Lila Ray is a corporate consultant who likes her gadgets almost as much as she does her shoes. You can write to her at raylila@outlookcom

TAGS: Creo Mark I