I wanted to buy a second phone for my wife a few days before Diwali. My wife currently uses Samsung Focus (Windows Phone 7.5) and she loves it. I wanted the new phone to be costing Rs.10-15K and one she can use with her spare Prepaid SIM, and I can also share with my other SIM during our travels. So I was looking for a Dual SIM, Internet Sharing (Tethering) capabilities and contacts sync from Exchange Server/Hotmail. I was clear the phone had to be Android 4.0 (ICS) – because only in Android you get choices of Dual SIMs and it has to be ICS as I can’t stand earlier versions of Android. I was looking for Sony Xperia Tipo costing about Rs.10K and then explored Samsung Galaxy S Duo costing Rs.16K. While searching for these I found that Indian OEM “Micromax” has brought out Smartphones with Android – A90 (Rs.13K) and A100 (Rs.10K). The reviews for them were Okay, with A90 getting better reviews except for the fact it had a single core CPU and lag due to that.

On the day I went out to buy I saw this article in NDTV that wrote about Micromax upgrading these models and have introduced A90S with Dual Core processor at the same price. I decided on this and then bought it from a Purvankara showroom in George Town (Chennai) as I was in that area on that day. Normally I would have ordered it online but I thought I will get this for Diwali so went to a real-world store.

Micromax A90S Superfone

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Micromax A90s has impressive specs:

  • 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Touchscreen
  • 1 GHz Dual Core Processor
  • Dual SIM (GSM GSM)
  • Android v4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) OS
  • 8 MP Primary Camera, 0.3 MP Secondary Camera
  • Expandable Storage Capacity of 32 GB
  • Weight about 118 grams

Holding the phone in your hand, the phone is extremely lightweight – after holding this, my iPhone4 felt quite heavy.  The front looks impressive and few mistook it for Samsung Galaxy S but the back looks and feels plasticky. The Back cover is pretty thin and when opening feels it may crack easily on frequent usage to handle SIM cards. The software is standard Android 4.0.4 which runs fine, I could notice few lags on touches of the soft buttons on the bottom otherwise all was well for the price. The camera is average. The battery life was good, giving little more than a day on a full charge and ordinary usage of Wi-Fi and Voice calls. The AMOLED screen was sharp & clear. Videos played smooth and the speakers were loud enough.

Overall, I will recommend this if you are looking for a Smartphone on this price range and don’t mind skipping Sony & Samsung! I just wish Micromax took a bit more care on the design of the back cover & camera.

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