Back in April, Lava had announced its entry level phone, the Lava Iris 406Q and this was announced even before Moto E was launched. The phone comes with pretty good specs for the price range. LAVA Iris 406Q is a power packed quad core smartphone with 1 GB RAM running on Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 Processor with Adreno 302 @400MHz Graphics Unit. It runs on Android Jelly Bean 4.3 out-of-the-box that can be upgraded to Android 4.4 Kitkat. It is equipped with a 4.0 inch WVGA (480×800 pixels) display. Its 5MP rear camera and 0.3MP front camera.
The phone also supports 4GB of internal storage that can be further expanded up to 32GB. The phone is powered by a 1700mAh battery. The phone was launched for a price of Rs 6999. Today, we have a detailed review of the device for its design, build, display, performance, camera and also the battery life. The phone does give great competition to Moto E, but does it have the capacity to beat Moto E? Lets find out.
Before we go into the detailed review, lets first have a look into the specifications.
Specifications of Lava Iris 406Q:
- 4.0 inch WVGA (480×800 pixels) display
- Quad core Snapdragon 200 processor
- 1GB RAM, 4GB internal storage
- micro SD card support upto 32GB
- Android 4.3 Jelly Bean, upgradable to 4.4 Kitkat
- 5MP camera and 0.3MP font camera
- Bluetooth v4.0, Wi-Fi, 3G
- 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio
- 1700mAh battery
Here is the video review of the device, for text version read on.
Design, Build and Display:
Design wise, the device is good for its price point. The device has uniform thickness and is pretty easy to use with the weight. The device has a glossy finish with plastic back covers which have pretty decent quality. The back cover is removable and so is the 1700mAh battery. The device comes with support for dual SIM card. Lava has included a chrome finish around the bezel giving the phone a premium look. There is slight gap between the back cover and the body, but we are not sure if it is the issue with our unit alone.
The phone comes with usual buttons, the power and volume keys are on the right side and the micro USB charging slot and the 3.5mm audio jack are placed at the top. There is a 5MP camera unit with LED flash at the back.
The display on the device is 4.0 inch display with 800 X 480 (WVGA) resolution. The touch on the display is pretty good, but the colors are not that great. The screen looks a bit over saturated and the viewing angles are not great. Lava could have included a slightly better display on this device. The phone comes with accelerometer, proximity and light sensors.
Software and Performance:
The phone comes with Android 4.3 Jelly Bean out of the box and Lava has already mentioned that KitKat update would be available. But we are not sure of when it will be rolled out. The device UI is mostly stock and Lava has done minimum customizations on Android and it looks pretty good. There are few themes included to customize the device. The device comes with MSM8610 quad core Qualcomm snapdragon processor @ 1.2GHz with Adreno 305 GPU and the performance is really smooth.
We tested the device on many occasions and found that there was no lag and slowing slowing down even if you run multiple apps.
Lava has included some apps like flashlight, Snapdragon Battery Guru, a video player, WhatsApp etc. The phone supports dual SIM card and also micro SD card to increase the storage. It has options to manage the dual SIM card which can be accessed from the settings.
The device has only 4GB internal storage and out of this only 1.5GB is available for users. So once you start installing apps, you will be running short of space. Big games like Asphalt 8 requires lot of space and might have issues playing them as well. Although you can move apps to SD card, not all files are moved to SD card. So if you love playing games, you will be disappointed with the storage available for installing games.
Having said that the gaming performance of the device is pretty good. The quad core Snapdragon chipset works without any lag or graphic issues. As we said before, the display and the resolution is not great on the device.
Related Watching: Lava Iris 406Q Gaming Performance
Camera Performance:
The general trend among low end phones is that most of them have 5MP shooters and they are generally not that great. The Lava Iris 406Q also has a 5MP fixed focus camera and comes with LED flash. There is also front facing 0.3MP shooter for video calls. The main issue with the camera is the fixed focus and similar to Moto E it is not useful in capturing macros. The interfaceinteface does offer lot of options before taking photos.
Related Watching: Lava Iris 406Q Camera Review
Moreover the quality of photos is also not good. The colors looks totally washed out with lot of noise included in it. It can record videos in 720p and again the quality is not good.
Here are some of the camera samples from the phone.
Battery Performance:
The phone comes with a 1700mAh battery and the performance is pretty decent. We were able to squeeze out a day with average usage on 3G. Since it is an entry level phone, it is not intended for high usage and overall the battery performance is pretty good.
Verdict:
At Rs. 6999/-(now available for Rs 6300) the Lava Iris 406q is a pretty decent entry level phone with great performance, it does manages to give a good competition to the Moto G. With Android KitKat update coming, Lava could have done a better job with display and the camera on the device. Overall, it is a good entry level phone to start with.
