Xolo Q800 In-Depth Review

Introduction

The sales of  the so called "budget Quad core" phones are on the rise in India. Every phone manufacturer (Even the chinese) is coming out with their version into the Indian market. All this is the result of Mediatek MT6589 which is the low cost quad-core SoC available on the market . The micromax canvas HD A116 was the first phone in India to come out with this SoC and made crores selling it.
Then came the xolo q800 designed to beat canvas HD A116 by offering almost same specifiction but with a 4.5 qHD display and a BSI sensor for the camera.

Key points

• 1.2GHz Quad core Cortex A7 , PowerVR SGX544 GPU @286 MHz, Mediatek MT6589M chipset
• 1 GB RAM 
• Wi-Fi b/g/n with Wifi Direct support
• 4.5 inch IPS 16M-color display with 960X540 resolution (qHD)  
• BSI sensor enables better pictures under low light 
• 8 MP with LED flash with burst mode
• 720p video recording 
• Jelly Bean 4.1.2
• 2100 mAh battery
• Accelerometer,Gyroscope,Magnetometer,Ambient light sensor and Proximity sensor

Disadvantages

• Uninspiring design
• No sd-card with the retail package
• Phone gets heated after heavy usage

Retail Package

Fig: Compact packaging

The Xolo Q800 comes with the standard set of accessories as any other phone. The package includes a charger , earphones, warranty card,User manual and surprisingly a screen guard

Fig:contents of the box

Unfortunately, you have to use the USB cable with the dedicated charger as it has no cable of its own just like the Sony Xperia series. The earphones looks cheap and on testing we found it just ok in terms of sound quality. The package doesn't come with a SD card which is a let down.

Design and Construction phone

Fig: Front Side of the phone

The design of the phone is uninspiring but on the other hand quality of plastic used is good.
Its easy to hold and carry around unlike the 5 inch Canvas HD. There are no hard buttons on the front .The menu key,the back key and the home key are all touch. The SIM slots and SD card slots are easily accessible. The dimensions of the phone is 135.5 x 67 x 9.6 mm .

The back looks decent. The camera lens as you can see below is protruding out so care must to given not to scratch the lens.

Fig:Backside of the phone

                                                   Fig:The camera lens protruding                                  

The volume rocker and the power/lock button is placed on the right side. There is a slight difficulty in accessing the lock /power button as it is placed below the volume rocker

Fig:Volume rocker and power button on same side

Screen and Camera 

The screen is a 4.5 inch IPS display. The screen makes up for the average design of the phone providing a qHD display. Good brightness levels but cannot be compared to the amoleds

The camera interface is not stock android as expected. The interface is minimalistic.
Burst shots and HDR(high Dynamic Range) functions are two nifty features. The HDR provides better pictures than normal but can be used  only for still photography. The burst shot allows u take continuous pictures without a pause. Even though the camera is 8 MP the picture quality is average. Low light conditions it takes better pictures than Canvas HD because of its BSI sensor.
By simply pressing the shoot button without releasing will enable burst shots especially useful in sports etc.

    Fig:Outdoor picture with HDR

                                                    

    Fig:Outdoor picture without HDR

Video recording quality is very good.It can take 720p videos specially the sound it picks up has very good clarity.

Details of the recording:

Resolution :1280 x 720

Codec: avc1

Frame rate:14.99 fps

Performance

Being a quad core phone the phone performance is very good. Various reviews in flipkart suggest its better than galaxy s3. But the performance to price ratio for Xolo q800 is way better than s3 but not the actual performance.

It could easily handle modern combat 4 and need for speed most wanted due to the PowerVR SGX544 GPU.

Being a member of xda developers I know for a fact that synthetic benchmarks can be tampered , so I don't really believe in synthetic benchmarks.

But to satisfy all readers the screenshots of Quadrant and Antutu scores are given below. To put things in perspective the score for quadrant is 3895 so lets say 4000 range(scores vary depending on apps ,cache clearing etc). Galaxy s3 scores around 5000 . But these figures are subjective and always can be improved upon.The Samsung galaxy grand score ranges from 3700 to 4500. 

So in simple terms it is better than the grand but not as good as the Samsung galaxy s3 and same as the Canvas HD in terms of performance.

                     

                         

User Interface

The user interface is stock android with small modifications by Xolo.

                              

                                         Fig: Lockscreen                        Fig: Home Screen 

                                           

                                                    Fig: App Drawer                    

The Much needed scroll-able notification toggles is added by Xolo to the pure android. This feature surprisingly is absent in xperia z ,htc one and nexus 4. Also the notification drop down is semi-transparent which is usually seen only in custom roms.

         
                              Fig: Drop down notification with scroll-able toggles 

As the phones is dual SIM there is a special section under settings called dual SIM Settings.
The SIMs can be individually turned on and off to conserve power. We can set a specified SIM for calling ,messaging and Internet  as shown below

  Fig: Dual SIM settings

File Manager

The file manager of Xolo is very good. Starting screen displays categorized overview of
 apks,music,videos,pictures and Documents.For example, by just tapping on music  it lists out only music from your sd card and internal memory.
This is really helpful in finding files you are looking and is a feature missing even in premium smartphones. It also has the normal directory view and ftp support.

 

Fig: overview of various file types                                Fig: directory view

Music player 

The player is not stock android. It doesn't have an equalizer which is a let down. It has sleep timer and has a shake function which changes tracks just by shaking the phone. It also has a auto filter function which filters game sounds etc from being played by the player by specifying a minimum file size.

                                                      Fig: Music Player UI

As u can see the music player lists the music files by album,artist and folder depending upon your choice. User interface is good and comes with sleep function too

                     

   Fig: Music Player Sleep timer                                      Fig : Music Shake function and auto filter

In the setting we find a shake function which allows you to change tracks by just shaking the phone. Also the auto filter ensures no game music/ringtones being automatically scanned( by setting a minimum file size for songs) which is absent even in Poweramp music player(which is considered the best music player

Contacts and dialer

The contact application is slightly modified by Xolo. As you can see the animations or scrolling

The dialer is not stock and has the much needed smart dialing facility which is absent in nexus 4

                   
       Fig:Contacts list                                                Fig: Smart dialing 

Messaging

Messaging application is good. Typing is easy on the 4.5 screen and haptic feedback feels very good. The application can even send  messages at scheduled time as shown below in the screen shot

                           

            Fig: Well spaced keyboard                                            Fig:Message list 

                                                     Fig: Scheduling sms 

Browser

The browsers interface follows the minimalistic approach. The list pops up to show thumbnail images of webpages that are recently opened — tapping a thumbnail switches to the web page.

       

Fig: Browser                              Fig:Thumbnail  overview of web pages

Video player

Video player is also stock android and lacks DivX and XviD codec support. So its better downloading various free alternative video players like MX video player.It can play 1080p/ full HD videos easily. 

Xolo Care

The xolo care application provides number and email Id of the customer care. The same application can be used for checking updates online also.
Most of the potential buyers are worried about service centers. Xolo has entered in to agreement with FedEx to provide reverse and forward logistic to Xolo customers. So customers only need to contact xolo customer care and they will come directly to their door step and pick up the phone for servicing.
So during the review my friend called them up to check whether this is true. It seems within 24 hours of complaint registration the phone will be picked up by Fedex guys. And within 5 days the phone will be returned. Now considering that it seems to me its better than going to a service center waiting in long queues. The fact that service center is not locally located ensures that various parts are always available to them. So irrespective of the complaint they take only 5 days which is very
good. Even Samsung takes a week to replace motherboards.

Fig:Xolo care

Battery life

The battery capacity is 2100 mAh and with moderate usage like most smartphones it lasts a day. Some reviews say it lasts for one and half days which is hard to believe. Under heavy gaming battery lasts 4-5 hours only. 

Conclusion

The Xolo Q800 has all the features and pricing to be called bang for the buck phone. The only main disadvantage is its design but that's more of a personal opinion . If u can ignore the design aspect then hands down it is better than Canvas HD A116 which is priced nowadays at 15k and even hoarded to further increase the price.