Swingtel Superb
Street Price: Rs 11,500

Another day, another droid. Just when you thought it’s becoming difficult to keep track of countless domestic brands, yet another brand Swingtel has entered the arena. The company has introduced a sensibly-sized phone called Superb with a 4.7” screen. This budget phone offers a dual-core CPU and 8 megapixel camera. Apart from that, it boasts of 1 GB of RAM and Android Jelly Bean OS. So does this handset live up to its name? Let's find out.

Design And Build
At first glance, the Superb looks similar to the HTC One X. However, upon close inspection you find out that it’s a bad imitation. The phone is not polished at all. At almost every corner and seam, you’re met with rough edges. The quality of plastic used in the phone’s construction is downright disappointing. It’s so thin that the notification LED bleeds through it. The protruding camera lens on the back is an eyesore, and this effect is worsened by the use of Crimson red.



Swingtel has gone with a screen size of 4.7" which is quite decent for single-handed usage. In an attempt to achieve a premium feel, the manufacturer has provided a metallic back-panel. But, it’s again unpolished and doesn’t help the design in any way. To make matters worse,  the back-panel has pointed corners and sharp edges that can easily give you a cut or two. Like most budget Android phones, the Superb features three capacitive buttons — Home, Back, and Menu. One niggle here is that the haptic feedback is too harsh. The micro-USB port is on the left side, while the volume rocker sits right on the opposite side. A 3.5 mm jack and Power button are placed at the top. Overall, the design and construction are average at best.



Screen
The Superb packs in a 4.7" IPS screen with pixel dimensions of 720x1280. The display is another aspect of the phone that disappoints. As per the IPS standards, this panel’s colour reproduction is not up to the mark. Especially, the whites tend to look yellowish. As compared to similarly priced phones, the screen isn’t bright enough. To make the matters worse, the display is a fingerprint magnet. And due to its reflective nature, the sunlight legibility takes a hit.

Key Specs
The phone is powered by a dual-core MediaTek MT6577 chipset clocked at 1 GHz. For gaming, there’s a PowerVR SGX 531 GPU. The GSM handset supports dual-SIM, of which one supports 3G. Photography is handled by 8 megapixel autofocus camera with an LED flash. Moreover, you get 1 GB of RAM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3G, and 1800 mAh battery. The phone comes with 4 GB of internal storage, of which only 1 GB is user accessible. You can get additional 32 GB of storage using a microSD card slot. More tech specs are at the end of this review.

UI And Apps
The Swingtel Superb runs Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) out of the box. I’m not sure whether the company will roll out the 4.2 update, but if it does, you’ll be able update your phone over-the-air. Like most domestic handset-makers, Swingtel hasn’t made many changes to stock Android. The interface is almost similar to what we've seen on the Nexus devices. As already mentioned, the handset is powered by a dual-core processor, and this reflects in its performance. You can see a slight stutter throughout the interface. The phone also takes a bit more time to fire up the apps compared to other phones in this price range. The default browser is reasonably quick at rendering pages. Coming to the subject of gaming, you can enjoy casual games such as Temple Run 2 and Angry Birds: Star Wars. The phone can also handle FPS titles such as Dead Trigger, but the frame-rates leave a lot to be desired.

In AnTuTu, clocking in at 6056, the Superb is far behind similarly priced Android phones. To make things clearer, the XOLO Q700 and Zen Ultraphone clock in a score of around 12,000.

Multimedia
The phone ships with a stock music player. The Equaliser settings and surround sound enhancements are covered. The bundled earphones are tacky, but the phone’s sound output is quite decent. So if plan to frequently listen to music on this phone, it's advisable to pick up a decent pair of earphones. Coming to the subject of video playback, the phone had no trouble handling full-HD MP4 videos. MKV files aren't supported out-of-the-box, but a third-party app such as MXPlayer can take care of that.



Camera
The phone comes with an 8 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash. As usual, the camera offers quite a few settings including exposure, saturation, brightness, contrast, ISO, white balance, and a plethora of colour effects. Then, there are multiple scene modes — auto, night, sunset, party, beach, snow, sports, fireworks etc. Sadly, the image quality is disappointing, even when considering its pricing. While the colours look natural, the excessive visual noise spoils the photographs. Click here, to check the untouched sample. The phone also records 720p videos in 3GP format. Similar to the still camera’s performance, the recorded clips contain too much of noise.

Telephony And Messaging
Like any other dual-SIM (GSM) phone, the Swingtel Super features a SIM management menu. There’s a nasty surprise when it comes to call quality. The phone’s earpiece is so weak that it’s impossible hear the person on the other end at noisy places. On the messaging front, the on-screen keyboard is standard Android affair.



Battery
The smartphone's1800 mAh Li-ion battery easily lasts for more than a day with normal usage. In our video loop test, it managed to power the device for almost 5 hours and 30 minute. This is quite decent by the Android standards. Swingtel has been generous enough to throw in a spare battery, which will of course come in handy if you travel a lot.

Verdict
In a nutshell, the Swingtel Super is a shoddily built phone with lacklustre performance. Available at around Rs 11,500, the handset also disappoints in the screen and camera department. To make the matters worse, the call quality isn’t up to the mark. Therefore, those looking for an affordable Android handset, should go for the XOLO Q700 that offers better build and performance for almost 3k less. If you want a phone with a 5" HD screen, the Lava Iris 504Q is a far better alternative for just a thousand rupees more. Those interested in refined smartphone experience are better off with the Nokia Lumia 520.

Specifications:

• 4.7" IPS screen with 720x1280 pixels.
• MediaTek MT6577 chipset: 1 GHz dual-core processor, PowerVR SGX 531 GPU.
• Dual SIM (GSM) handset with Dual Standby.
• 8 megapixel rear camera, 1.9 mp front-facing snapper.
• Andriod 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean).
• 1 GB RAM, 4 GB internal storage (1 GB user accessible), MicroSD card slot.
• WiFi, Bluetooth, Micro-USB port.
• 1800 mAh battery.
• Weighs 160 grams.

TAGS: Mobile Phones, Android