Micromax Canvas Nitro A310 detailed review

Display and design

If you’ve ever felt that most phones differ from each other, the Micromax Canvas Nitro won’t really change that impression. At first glance, the Nitro looks like another Micromax device with a separate glass front with three capacitive buttons at the bottom of the screen. The story changes when you come to the back of the device because Micromax used a faux leather back with fake sewing on its phone instead of the commonly used matte or smooth plastic.

As usual, the earpiece is placed at the top of the display and flanked by the front camera to its right. The power and volume rockers are located to the right and left of the device, respectively. For the speaker, it is attached to the back when you place the phone behind it.

The Micromax Canvas Nitro comes with a 5-inch screen with 720p HD resolution. Micromax boasts that the screen is oleophobic and anti-fingerprint but in my experiments I have found these claims to be false. The screen looks beautiful inside the house but when you look at it in direct sunlight outside, although it is not completely unreadable. The screen looks bright and crisp when playing games or working every day.

Hardware and performance

Micromax avoids quad-core and hexa-core which is an understandable norm in this price segment and goes directly from MediaTek to the 1.66GHz octa-core processor. With 2GB of RAM onboard, everything seems to fly away unless you play a graphics intensive game or try to play a 1080p movie which will definitely heat up your device. The problem of heating in MediaTek powered SoC still remains and this will affect the performance of the device.

I’ve tried games like Dead Trigger 2 and Asphalt 8: Airborne that run smoothly with little frame drop problem. In comparison, the quad-core Motorola Moto G (2nd Gen) performs somewhat better in the gaming segment. If you’re like me and have your media on your phone instead of the cloud, the 8GB internal space on the Micromax Canvas Nitro is upgradeable via a microSD card.

The daily performance at Nitro is without any major hiccups and while playing high resolution 1080p video I occasionally find no flaws next to the frame drop.

Software and UI

The Micromax software is very basic in terms of Android operating system. Nitro runs almost stock version of Android KitKat 4.4.2 and I have no complaints about UI. Micromax has minimized its UI and added a good experience. The interface looks sleek when opening apps or multitasking and leaves a very satisfying impression on me.

My only problem with the Micromax Canvas Nitro is the included blotware which is quite annoying. Most added blotware is a web link to a website and does not serve any purpose. If you swipe left on the home screen you will see that Micromax HTC has tried to copy the Blink feed but I think it is an unnecessary addition to the UI. The silver lining is that the Micromax Swiftkey keyboard has been generous enough to be included as standard.

Camera and battery

The Micromax Canvas Nitro offers a 13MP primary camera which is a bit better than the ZTE V5 I tested a few days ago. Micromax uses a Sony CMOS sensor with an f / 2.2 aperture and adds a blue glass filter by Schott, which is expected to make it more color sensitive. However, we have noticed that it shows a cool blue hue to the pictures taken by the smartphone.

The front camera is a 5MP BSI fixed focus camera with a wide angle lens and is quite acceptable for taking selfies and video calls. I wasn’t convinced for the quality of the video because the video was shaky and the sound was a bit low.

Battery is the playground that Micromax Canvas Nitro has mastered. In our battery test, when we play a 1080p video in a loop for one hour, we record only five percent battery drop. Even when I played the Asphalt 8 Airborne for over two hours I recorded a light drop in battery. It took me about 14 hours to drain its battery under heavy use. I can add the battery life of the Canvas Nitro is comparable to that of the Samsung Galaxy Tab S.

The last row

Micromax’s latest offer gives you its octa core CPU and 2GB RAM and power packed performance on a budget. The closest competition in the price range is the new Motorola Moto G but the Canvas Nitro offers a little extra.

The best in the class is still the Xiaomi Mi3 but that phone is hard to find, the Moto G is an admirable option in the price range and the only one that gives the Canvas Nitro some competition. So, if you want to buy a mid-range phone with outstanding specs, inadequate design and value for money that is not a Motorola Moto G, buy the Micromax Canvas Nitro.