With Yu Yuphoria, Micromax’s sister firm may have finally scored a clear victory over Chinese competitors like A6000 Plus and Moto E 4g.
The Yu Yuphoria has since been launched officially at a price of Rs 6,999, and will be available exclusively on Amazon.in. The phone is arguably the best entry-level smartphone in India, though the Lenovo A6000 Plus comes a close second in comparison.
The Yuphoria scores due to three key factors — looks and build quality, storage and RAM, and price.
Because of its 16 GB storage memory and 2 GB RAM, the phone easily overtakes the Moto E (price Rs 6,999) has just 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of storage, and comes with a smaller display with half the resolution of Yuphoria.
As we said, the only real competitor is the A6000 Plus.
Comparing the two, price is the easiest to determine – the phone costs Rs 500 less than the Lenovo A6000 Plus. Most other specifications are practically the same, but the Yuphoria again scores when it comes to front camera.
The Yuphoria comes with a 5 MP front shooter which also records full-HD video, while the Lenovo A6000 Plus comes with a 2 MP front camera.
Another advantage to the Yu model is the Android version – 5.0 Lolipop, vs 4.4 on A6000 Plus. According to user reviews, the Yuphoria is more responsive than the Lenovo model.
There are, of course, two key factors that favor the A6000 plus – branding and Dolby audio.
Dolby audio should mean that songs sound better on the A6000 Plus compared to the Yuphoria. However, given that most users don’t even tweak the equalizer settings to get the sound they want, we are not sure how many would notice the improved sound quality.
One of the key factors is display, and going by reviews so far, it looks like it’s a tie, or a slight victory to the Lenovo model. Going by reviews, it looks like the Chinese model may have slightly more vibrant colors.
However, we believe that a final decision can be taken only after checking the two phones physically.
Yuphoria, the name, was chosen after a crowd-sourcing project called #YUNameIt. YU said it got over one lakh entries for the naming contest.
“YU had announced #YUNameIt on its social media platforms on 31st March, 2015. Participants submitted their entries till 3rd April 2015. Top 5 names (YUPHORIA, YUKNIGHT, YUNICORN, YUNITY, YOUTH) then made it to the voting stage, and were put to test between 4th to 6th April. One month of anticipation, one code name and over 1,00,000 entries later, the consumers’ votes favored YUPHORIA, the chosen identity for Project Caesar.”
Micromax, the biggest Indian smartphone brand, created YU as an attempt to carve out an image for itself as a youth-friendly brand.
All the phones under the YU brand are targeted at youngsters and will come with Cyanogenmod operating system.