Homegrown smartphone brand, Smartron earlier this month launched a budget smartphone, the Smartron t.phone P at Rs 7,999. The USP of this smartphone is the 5000mAh battery and Snapdragon 435 SoC. With this device, Smartron is going against the likes of Xiaomi Redmi 4 and Tenor E, and in my first impressions article, I mentioned the t.phone P as a worthy alternative to the Redmi 4 and Tenor E.
And after using the t.phone P for more than two weeks now, I have to say that this is the best offering from Smartron until now. In some aspects, the t.phone P trumps the competition. This is our full review of the Smatron t.phnone P, which is currently available on Flipkart for Rs 7,999.
Smartron t.phone P Design
Despite its entry-level price, Smartron has designed its t.phone P for a premium feel. The device sports a full metallic body, something which budget entrants rarely offer. The rounded edges, neatly placed antennae bands and a rear coating which prevents any sorts of fingerprints also adds to the device’s premium appeal.
The phone sports a 5.2-inch display with capacitive touch keys at the bottom and a prominent bezel at the top. There is a selfie camera alongside the earpiece located at top bezel. The fingerprint scanner is placed on the rear and is easy to reach. Overall the phone has a pretty neat design. The fingerprint scanner is slightly slow in unlocking the device, and it falls short of the Xiaomi Redmi 4.
At 160 grams, the t.phone P is quite bulky mainly due to its massive battery, yet fits snugly into the palm of your hand and is comfortable to use. But on the brighter side, Smartron has managed to decrease the weight of the smartphone even though adding a massive battery inside. The device is available in single black colour option.
Smartron t.phone P Hardware
The Smartron t.phone P is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 SoC, which gives an impressive performance for a budget phone. The chipset includes an octa-core processor with four clocks clocked at 1.4GHz and other four at 1.1GHz paired along with 3GB of RAM. The device is equipped with 32GB onboard storage which can further be expanded to 128GB via the hybrid microSD card slot.
Talking about the real-life performance, the t.phone P performed extremely well, and I feel that Smartron has optimised the software, which makes the overall performance of the phone much smoother.
The t.phone P comes with a 5.2-inch HD IPS display with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution. The display offers bright colours and is easily viewable under direct sunlight. But the panel is reflective, which affects the overall viewing angles.
As for the cameras, the t.phone P has a 13MP rear sensor with f/2.2 aperture and LED flash, while the selfie shooter is a 5MP sensor with low-light flash, wide selfies and beautification mode. But the performance camera performance is on-par with other smartphones available in the price range. Take a look at some of the samples below.
Images shot on daylight conditions came out with good details and colours, but the low-light images don't inspire confidence. Again, you should expect much for the asking price.
One of the standout features of the t.phone P is its massive 5000mAh battery. Smartron promises two days of usage along with a week standby time. The phone provides an impressive battery life and manages to last more than 20 hours even if viewing HD videos. Also equipped with OTG support, the tphone P allows you to charge other devices such as portable speakers, or your other smartphones, which comes in handy at times.
Call quality is excellent too. The phone has VoLTE support, and I have used the device with Jio 4G SIM card in Hyderabad location.
Smartron t.phone P software
The tphone P runs Android 7.1 Nougat, with a UI that is close to stock Android. There are few customisations though such as the launcher, which is very similar to that of Pixel 2. The device also implemented notification dots a feature from Android Oreo. But like I stated in my first impressions article, Smartron is moving away from stock Android and is looking to tweak the interface. But the company has optimised the user interface perfectly though.
Smartron t.phone P also comes with few of their own pre-installed apps. You get t.cloud, t.care, t.store and a forum app. The t.cloud app is cloud storage which offers you 1000GB of free storage. This, however, requires you to create a tronX ID.
Smartron t.phone P Verdict
The Smartron t.phone P is a phone to consider in the sub Rs 8,000 price bracket. It offers excellent build quality, neat software and performance, and a solid battery life to back these all. The phone has few shortcomings too such as the reflective display and mediocre cameras, but the best part is it has more advantages than disadvantages. You can purchase the t.phone P from Flipkart for Rs 7,999.
