What Is It?
The Canvas 4 is Micromax's (MMX) new flagship smartphone, boasting a 5-inch HD 720p touchscreen with Gorilla Glass protection, 1.2GHz quad-core Mediatek MTK6589 (Cortex A7) processor, 1GB RAM, 13MP camera, 5MP front cam, 2000mAh battery and Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean. MMX has thrown in some special software features too, inspired by what Samsung and others have done. And all for a price of Rs. 17,999.
Who's It For?
People who want a high-performance smartphone without spending more for brand value. People who want a good-looking handset with all the works.
Design
The Canvas 4 actually has a lot of design oomph and immediately drew eyeballs whenever I took it out of my pocket. Most people were surprised that it was a Micromax product. Those aluminium bands around it (which double up as radio and Wi-Fi antennas), the high-grade plastic back (removable to replace battery) and the flat glass front (with capacitive buttons that appear only when you switch it on) come together to make it look like a premium device... from a distance.
Hold it in your hand and the little flaws start getting annoying. The finishing is poor, with the back cover not sitting flush with the phone, so you can see little gaps. The speakers at the back and the earpiece at the front have rough edges that scrape against your fingers every once in a while. Then there are the metal buttons, which feel flimsy and don't inspire much confidence in how long they'll last -- a problem that has been common with most Micromax devices we have used. Using It
Overall, the Canvas 4 is a wonderfully smooth experience. The 'blow-to-unlock' is a disaster, and I'll expand on that soon, but it's a small aside that can quickly be taken care of by replacing it with another Lock Screen utility from the Play Store. Once you get past that, the phone performs incredibly well.
Multi-tasking with plenty of apps was smooth, every game from Dead Trigger to N.O.V.A 3 ran perfectly, and it was overall a breeze. The built-in software tweaks Micromax has thrown in -- like antivirus and the custom music player -- are nice additions, but the gesture-based tweaks are atrocious. For instance, the video-pinning feature that will play/pause a video when you're looking away from the phone keeps pausing videos even when you are sitting at a slight angle. It's annoying and best to disable all these gesture-activated tweaks. Unfortunately, like most such pre-installed software, you can replace them but can't uninstall them completely unless you root the phone.
I was particularly happy with the call quality and reception of the phone. There were no call drops at all and I actually managed to get network in an area where only the Nokia Lumia handsets and premium Android phones have worked fine. One of the oft-repeated complaints with Micromax phones is call quality and the Canvas 4 one finally addresses the issue.
