ET Review: Intex Aqua i5HD

NEW DELHI: In the wake of the tremendous success that Motorola is currently enjoying (with Moto G and the new, entrylevel Moto E), Indian cellcos have to step up their game. Intex has fired off a capable salvo with this new Aqua i5HD. Priced below the first psychological barrier of Rs 10k, this new phone is slim, well designed and comes with a great HD (720p) screen.

There’s nothing outstanding about the design but it has a certain understated elegance about it, thanks to the matte black finish. Up front, the glass area is much larger than the display, giving the impression that the screen goes from edge-to-edge. The screen is a OGS (One Glass Solution) unit, which means that the screen is fused with the digitizer layer used for touch – this makes the screen appear more vibrant and gives it excellent viewing angles.

The capacitive buttons are placed under the display and the only other buttons are for volume and power. The launcher is fast, seeing that it’s close to stock Android. Some of the preloaded apps in the phone include BigFlix, Getit, GreetZAP, GT Racing 2, Hungama, NQ Mobile Security and Sony LIV. Thankfully, you can uninstall the ones you don’t need.

Intex has also included apps for Intex Care (service centre locator), Intex Zone (with options for auto call recording, games, battery info etc) and Intex Cloud (free online storage). The camera is where some compromises have been made – on several occasions, the camera interface stutters before capturing an image and it also has a fairly noticeable shutter lag.

Images captured by the camera are average quality – there’s too much noise, even outdoors in bright sunlight. The 2,000mAh battery is good for about a full day of use and we faced no issues with call quality of signal strength. Overall, Intex deserves some kudos for bringing some premium features at this price.