Micromax A75 Superfone Lite Review

When a company decides to call a handset a ‘Superfone’, it tends to render an understanding that the product should be quite exceptional in at least its specific class. This, the A75 is Micromax’s second handset bearing the same 'Superfone' extension. The previous model, the A85 did not prove to be too ‘Super’ in its overall functionality and we’re here to tell you if Micromax’s second offering manages to live up to its name. 

Form Factor
Taking on a simple oval form, the Micromax A75 has a hint of the Google Nexus S, in the looks department. It feels quite sturdy and stable to hold with a well proportioned body structure that’s also evenly balanced. The large 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen sports a 320 x 480 pixel resolution, which isn’t too bad, but can be a little tricky to read in direct sunlight, even with the backlight boosted to its peak. Viewing angles aren’t too great, either. Micromax has equipped the A75 with touch sensitive, Android menus keys just below the display, a micro USB port to the left side and volume/zoom keys to the right. The power/Screen lock button and 3.5mm handsfree socket are placed at the top.

Dual SIM cards with a Hot Swap microSD card slot

It’s a GSM + GSM Dual SIM handset with 2 SIM slots under the rear panel, both of which are only accessible by popping the battery out of its resting place. The A75 also features a Hot Swap microSD card slot near the 3MP camera module. A VGA camera for video calls is located up front.

Well built handset this 'Superfone-lite'

The Micromax A75 is certainly easy on the eyes and comes off as a well constructed handset. 

Features and Performance
Interface
With a 650 MHz processor running a slightly laggy custom UI on top of Android Gingerbread, the A75 doesn’t make the best first impression on start-up. The UI features a few settings of its own, but nothing to write home about. We installed Launcher Pro as an alternative and found that the overall functionality went up by quite a bit, although a bit of lag was still evident, but nothing you’d hold against a 650MHz processor. The SIM settings are quite unique, as far as Dual SIM handsets go. It allows you to select which SIM is used for what and if you’d prefer to have only one on at a time or both on simultaneously. It's colour coded to make recognizing the SIMs easier. The UI comes with a few preset themes to jazz up the device and icons are quite colourful, bordering on the gaudy.

Well managed Dual SIM settings

Single thread Linpack scores came in at 8.50 and Multi-Thread at 7.55. Not altogether impressive, but we didn’t expect too much from a 640MHz processor. 

Media
As far as media features go, the Micromax A75 is just about adequately sorted out. The native music player has been provided with a set of EQ presets, a Bass Booster option and Virtulizer to help revive the otherwise plain audio quality. It does so with little increase in overall appeal. Using third party players, like Mixzing made a considerable difference, so at the end of the day, the A75 proved to be quite capable in the audio department. The handset's FM radio worked out well. It even has an option of playing without connecting the handsfree, only reception takes a bit of a beating without it in some areas.

Just so-so in the media department

Videos, unfortunately did not fare so well. For some odd reason, we were unable to install any third party player onto the handset. They just plainly refused to install onto the drive. The stock Video Player app was able to read a few AVI files and standard MP4 and 3GP formats, but playback was quite jerky even with files at a 640 x 480 pixel resolution. Lower resolution files played well enough, but didn’t look very good on the large display. The issue with the viewing angle was more evident in this context and videos didn’t quite play on the full screen, so the stretch-to-fit feature didn’t quite work out, either. Connectivity

When it comes to connectivity, the A75 is quite well-equipped with support for 3G, EDGE and Wi-Fi with Wi-Fi Direct capabilities. Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and USB 2.0 are also a part of the set up. With Push Mail and Exchange support, Facebook, Twitter, Gtalk, Whatsapp, eBuddy, Quikr and Saavn preloaded, you’re assured connectivity to all your online portals for networking. Aside from the Android Market, Micromax has also decided to get into the specialized App Market business, like LG and Samsung with their Mi-Apps option that lists out a selection of apps, which the company feels would help boost your handset's appeal and usability.

Plenty of handy connectivity options come preloaded

Flash is also supported, so the browser functioning for web access worked without a hitch. A few extras, like an RSS reader News and Weather app, Google’s suite that includes YouTube, Maps, Latitude, Navigator, Search, Places etc., are present and accounted for. A TOI app for the latest headlines is also provided. The A75 is also set up with GPS and A-GPS support with a digital compass thrown in. There’s even a Stock market app. 

Misc. Features
Micromax has made sure that all the relevant apps that one would expect to find in a mobile handset today are readily available. These include a Calendar (that syncs with your Google account and facebook), calculator and an alarm clock. Quite a few extras, like Polaris office for reading MS-Document files, a Post Card App, online TeenPati gaming, a file manager, audio recorder and a FireWall (Black List style) app are thrown in for good measure.

Quite a few extras thrown in

Camera
A 3 megapixel (fixed focus) camera is loaded onto the rear with an LED flash. It features settings, like Smile shot, manual stitch Panorama, Burst Mode, White balance, Geotagging and quite a few other options.

Image quality is just about ok, but the red seems to take precedence in most cases, even when shooting in bright outdoor conditions. Images aren’t too sharp and images in darker areas tend to blend in with each other. Video quality was not too bad, but came out with similar issues. 

Just about average 3MP camera

Battery Life
The handset is fitted with a 1300mAh battery that’s managed to offer over 6 hours of non-stop video playback with no other background connectivity active. That’s just about average. In our tech2 Loop Test, we ran the handset for one full loop that consisted of 2 hours of video, 2 hours of audio, 2 hours of audio streaming and 1.5 hours of talk time. The handset still managed to go into a second loop by providing another 40 minutes of talktime, totally pulling in about 8 hours and 10 minutes of non-stop usage with data running in the background. That’s not bad at all, as far as lower priced mobiles go. 

The Bottom Line
With a price tag of Rs.8,999, the Micromax A75 Superfone Lite doesn’t even compete too well with their previous A70 Android-powered device. Although the A75 is a much better looking device and does come loaded with some handy apps and is a very capable Dual SIM handset, on the whole, it doesn't perform as well as one would imagine a ‘Superfone’ to. Even with tweaks via third party apps and a good battery life, the camera, video player and slight sluggishness in the UI didn’t do much for its value. It’s worth a miss.