MTS Alive. Aka Micromax E390, Alive and Kicking

On the first look we thought that this phone was going to be like many other budget touchscreen phones with a sloppy interface and a difficult resistive touchscreen display. But we were in for a surprise-The phone was of rather good quality with a very comfortable touch interface. It was quite easy to navigate through various options and menus, thanks to superior quality resistive touch display and a better user interface. However it had its own negatives-lack of hardware volume up and down button and no physical call and receive button.Thus, in case the touchscreen of the phone stops working for some reason , you would not be able to make and receive calls.

BUILD QUALITY:The  overall build quality of the phone was above average and everything fit nicely on to the device.It has 2 physical buttons-home key and the  power/standby key which turns the display on/off  to conserve battery.The phone comes with a stylus which fits perfectly in a little slot on the lower right corner just under the back cover.Also , the back cover once placed , does not creak.

AUDIO: The term unsatisfactory can be used for the audio quality of this phone. Even inside the building, the voice kept cracking and the call kept getting interrupted. Outside, the sound is clearer but the person on the other side can hear a lot of distortion. Loudspeaker is not at all audible in noisy conditions and there is a lot of distortion. Similar is the case with earphones, which are of low quality and while using them, the sound muffles as if a thick cloth were blocking all the sound. Also, listening to music on this phone is more of a headache as the sound gets messed up a lot. It is also important to notice that the front bezel of the phone has really sharp edges and the ear piece has been placed in such a way that while talking ,the edges dig into the ear , thereby making it   very uncomfortable and  painful to use it for too long.

VIDEO:The phone comes with a basic 1.3MP camera which provides average quality photographs. The video records at a resolution of 320x240 pixels and the videos can be termed as OK. What is noticeable here is that there is no time lag while recording videos, which is a really good thing. It has a  pretty informative camera interface and  offers a lot of custom settings for the still camera with options like, continuous shooting, different scene settings, delay time etc.

The phone revolves around a Java based proprietary design which has only one home screen with no customization options and has 3 menu screens with different applications. It comes with about 40 MB of internal memory and expandable memory of 8GB by using a micro SD card. What adds a bit of personalization to the phone   is that you can transfer any mp3 file on to it and use that as a ringtone, so you are no longer stuck with the old polyphonic ringtones. The phone also comes bundled with a lot of useful applications like a world clock, memo pad, voice mail service, and for social networking and chatting it comes with Nimbuzz and Snaptu also pre installed.

VERDICT: On the whole, the phone has good quality components. Despite that , Rs6999 is too steep a price for a small display phone, considering that companies like Samsung and even nokia offer much better quality phones for lesser price. But this price tag can be justified if the company works on its few fallouts - the audio quality , quality of headphones and the egronomics.

Specifications: 2.8inch Resistive Display, 1000mAh lithium ion battery, 1.3 mp camera with video recording, CDMA handset.

Pros:
Good Quality Display
User Friendly Interface
Long battery life

Cons:
Bad ergonomics, digs into the ear
Poor Reception indoors
Cheap quality earphones
 

MTS Alive. Aka Micromax E390, Alive and Kicking

On the first look we thought that this phone was going to be like...