Yu Yureka Camera Review

Back in December, Micromax announced a new brand called Yu, in partnership with Cyanogen and released a new device Yureka. The device took the budget market by storm especially for the specs being offered at a shockingly low price. The device sports a 5.5 inch HD display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 Octa Core Processor with 2GB of RAM and 16GB storage.

On the imaging front, the phone comes with a 13MP rear camera with LED flash. The rear camera has a Sony Exmor RS IMX135 sensor and f/2.2 aperture. The front camera is a 5MP unit with 71 degree wide angle lens. Not many phones in the sub 10k comes with a 13MP unit, the Redmi Note being another popular one with similar camera. Here, we take a look at the camera on the device and also have a look at the photo samples taken in various conditions.

Related Reading: Yu Yureka Unboxing

Here is the video review of the camera.

First, lets have a look at the camera interface.

Since the phone runs Cyanogen OS, the camera app is not the default Android app, but is pretty simple and straightforward to use. The interface has good amount of features and options, but they are not cluttered into the interface. You can simply switch modes like auto, HDR, low light etc by just swiping up or down in the camera interface. Taking photos is again pretty fast and there is no lag. The phone supports video recording in 1080P and also Slow motion at 60FPS.

Daylight Photos:

Here are the daylight samples from the device (click on the image for full size).

As you can see from the images taken in daylight, there is good amount of detailing available in the photo. The colors look pretty good and the overall clarity is pretty good for a budget smartphone. Even if you zoom the photos, there isn’t too much loss of clarity. For some photos the saturation levels were a bit high, but the camera does not over saturate at all times. Overall, the daylight shots have come pretty good.

Now, moving on to macro shots, here are some macro shots taken in daylight:

As you can see from the images, the macro captures have come really good and the detailing is very good. Again the colors look vivid and are closer to real colors. The focusing of macro shots were pretty fast and in case it is not able to focus, you can always touch on the display to focus it. We seldom had any issues with macro focusing.

Low Light:

Here are the photos taken in low light (with artificial lights).

Low light is one area everyone would be keep to know as it is one criteria to judge camera on smartphones. Here you can see the photos are noisy with very less light and the details are not really good. But in well lit conditions (like a mall), the photos have decent quality and very less noise. The colors have again come pretty good here. We also need to consider that this is a sub Rs 10000 phone, so don’t expect the flagship like experience.

Low light Macro (Without Flash):

We also took some macros in artificial lights inside the room and the photos are pretty decent although there is noise when the level of lighting goes down. Here again, the camera is able to retain the colors.

Macro (with flash):

Here are some photos taken with flash. One of the problems with most cameras in the budget category is that flash over exposes the photos. One good thing about the flash on Yureka is that the photos have come very good with flash. The light is evenly spread and colors have come pretty good.

5MP Front Camera:

The 5MP front camera is fixed focus is mainly for video calls and selfies (as it has a wide angle lens). Here are some samples from the 5MP front camera.

Colors were a bit dull on the front camera and lack of auto focus sometime makes the photos blurry. Face detection is available in the front camera.

Verdict:

So overall, is the camera on Yureka good? Without doubt yes! Yu Yureka has a great performing camera in the sub 10k pricing and does good job with the photos. If we were to compare the competition, we would say that the camera is slightly better than Xiaomi Redmi Note, Zenfone 5 and even the Moto G (2014). With a simple and easy to use interface which is fast and comes with ability to take great quality photos, Yureka is a great phone to buy in the price point if camera is your priority.