Akai 3311 Review

Build quality and egronomics

Akai 3311 is one of the simplest looking rectangular phones available today and cannot in any sense be termed as a classy looking phone .It has a 2 inch screen surrounded by a thick black bezel. Most of the rest of the body is built out of matte-finish silver plastic with  a corrugated black plastic strip running through all four sides. The phone is quite thick with the side thickness at over a centimetre.

The top of the phone comprises of a torchlight on the left, with an extendable antenna on the extreme left. The micro USB socket is located on the right of the bottom of the phone , while the  large speaker grill and camera lens are housed together  at the back panel ,in a black rounded rectangle extrusion. The torch button is the */+ key (long press). The placement of the micro USB slot on the bottom is not ideal because the handsfree  wire(when in use) coming out from there can cause entanglements.

Interface

The interface of Akai 3311 is even simpler than the simple interface of Akai Slimz. This is an excellent thing as it allows the user to locate and utilize all the features with absolute ease.

It has dedicated SIM 1 and SIM 2 call buttons and the SIM 2 button also operates as an options button from time to time. Except the icon design and homescreen shortcuts tabs, rest of the interface is same as Akai Slimz. The  VGA camera is hard to access as it is hidden under Menu>Multimedia>Camera and so is the video recorder, as it is  a separate native app in the same menu.  The navigation pad is useful and provides the user the choice (as default) of radio when pressing up, alarm by pressing left, profiles by pressing down, and phonebook/contacts by pressing right.

This is good, but the radio button can make life a little difficult sometimes. This is because, absentmindedly  pressing the button can result in loud music in a fraction of a second. So , to be on the safer side, never quit the radio with maximum volume.

Dual SIM capability and wireless radio connectivity are the main features of this phone. Scheduled FM recording is another good features of this Dual SIM phone. Auto preset tuning and other standard radio features are available in the radio player.

The messaging interface is easy to use and features simple layouts and alphanumeric, predictive dictionary text, as well as Hindi text for input.

PERFORMANCE

The phone’s signal reception and call clarity , in all segments from handsfree to loudspeaker was better than that of Akai Slimz. But when the phone’s output is at high volume in the handset mode, the listener does experience some crackling disturbance .

Audio performance can be termed as quite decent. There is no bass but the treble does get a bit sharp at maximum volume. There is hardly any distortion at maximum levels and the bundled earphones are quite good. The indoor radio clarity(with fully extended antenna) is quite bad in some cases, while in other cases it performs with marginal noise in the background.

The VGA camera is quite noisy and should be used only when there is no other option available.

Video playback performance is a big disappointment. There is  major stuttering and AV synchronisation problems While testing  our sample-the 320x240 pixels AVI and MP4 videos, there was  major stuttering and problems in AV synchronisation . There was noticeable banding on the screen due to the max 65K colour limitation.

The battery of the phone is quite powerful with about 24 hrs of battery life on average use.

Verdict

At this price,Akai 3311 is a decent phone with a modest radio performance and a good loudspeaker,  but  thats about it.

Pros
Good Battery life
Simple interface

Cons
Terrible camera
Poor video performance
 

Akai 3311 Review

Build quality and egronomics

Akai 3311 is one of the simplest looking rectangular phones...