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Micromax-owned YU is known for phones that are well-built and affordable. But users of Yu phones have always felt some incompleteness in each device. Yunicorn, the newest phone from the Rahul Sharma-promoted gadget farm is no exception either. In spite of its good looks and customised OS, the smartphone falls short of expectations and fares poorly in comparison with even cheaper peers in town.
Body, display, camera The phone has a lean, good-looking body, but every smartphone fan knows the brand the phone is aping in design. That said, the all-metal back panel looks elegant and classy and it feels strong. The home button plays the dual-role of a fingerprint scanner as well, and performs fairly well. The 2.5D glass screen has smooth curves on its edges and gells with the metal body. Yu has got the ergonomics of this device just right.
The viewing angles on the 5.5-inch display are great and it is bright and well saturated. That said, legibility under direct sunlight is an issue. The device also has issues with adaptive brightness requiring constant manual adjustment of the brightness.
The camera is a big letdown. The phone has a 13MP rear camera, which is just average. It takes decent photos in broad day light, but struggles in dimly-lit environments. The HDR mode delivered shaky, blurry images repeatedly. The camera also takes unusually long intervals to focus. The 5MP front camera has very few options to play around with and the image smoothening options, which most selfie cameras have these days, just don't do a good job at all.
Audio and battery Yunicorn's call voice quality is impressively crisp and clear, courtesy dual-microphones with noise cancellation. However, the audio department is another problem area. There is only one speaker even though two speaker grills are visible at the bottom of the device. For sure, this will not go down well with most users. The phone doesn't have FM Radio, something most budget users look for in their phones. The 4000 mAh Li-Polymer battery is big enough. It keeps the phone active for over a day (moderate surfing and 3G), but if you are a heavy gamer, you can expect about 10 hours. Many other phones in the same range have better batteries - the 5000 mAh ASUS Zenfone Max for example.
The Yunicorn has a storage of 32 GB which can be expanded up to 128 GB. The 4GB RAM helps it become a seamless multitasker. The dual-sim phone is powered by a 1.8 GHz MediaTek Helio P10 Octa Core processor, which offers reasonably good performance.
The Yunicorn runs on Android 5.1.1. which Yu calls Android on steroids. Well, that's good promotional literature. But on the ground, it's just routine Android with some tweaks.
Verdict
The Yunicorn feels heavy on your pocket because the market is abuzz with excellent phones priced under ₹10,000. So, naturally you expect a little extra in a phone that’s priced a couple of thousands higher. But the Yunicorn disappoints here. It sports mostly average features, and offers nothing special when it comes to performance.
Price:12,999
Love: Looks, metal body, display
Hate: Camera, No FM, Mono speakers
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