India's domestic mobile maker “Micromax” is a big player in the mid-range phone segment. Not just in India, it is in the list of the top 10 smartphone brands, globally, in terms of its shipments.
In July 2015, the company made another addition in its Knight series, launching it as “Micromax Canvas Knight 2”, the successor to the “Canvas Knight” launched last year.
The Micromax Canvas Knight is the company's first smartphone with a Mediatek octa-core processor. Mobile companies have now started touting the clock speed of the processors, similar to how PC makers used to do earlier. Priced at Rs 16,299 and available in various color options, Canvas Knight 2 is a racy mid-range smartphone with a glass body, heart of metal and mind of a fighter.
Coming over to the specifications of the warrior device, it is a phone with premium features. But does having an HD display and an octa-core processor make it worth your money?
Can it fight its way from rivals like Samsung, Sony, Xiaomi as well as Indian handset makers? Let's have a look at the features.
Display
Wrapped in a metallic frame, the Micromax Canvas Knight 2 flaunts a 5 inch HD AMOLED display with super strong Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection both on the front and back panel to make it dust and scratch free. A 16m color depth and a pixel resolution of 1280x720 makes the display lively, catching every color in a dazzling form. The great thing about the screen is that it's quite readable even in bright sunlight.
Design
The Micromax Canvas Knight has a refreshed design with sleek edges that is reminiscent of the Sony Xperia Z or the Apple iPhone 5. The wafer-like 6.3mm sleek and thin design gives it a killer feel with the beautifully made metal slab sandwiched between the gorilla glass on both the sides thus making it sturdy and strong and considerable amongst the slimmest smartphones. The metal frame gives a premium and rich feel adding to the overall style statement.
Performance
The handset runs on the Google’s latest software, Android with the sweetest Lollipop 5.0 operating system. To ensure effortless multi-tasking and fast gaming it comes loaded with powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.5 GHz octa core 615 processor and Adreno 405 graphics unit which offers good performance with quick response time.
It also comes bundled with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of ROM with an additional expandable memory of 32GB to provide a smoothly continuous downloading experience. However the device tends to heat up, sometimes even when you are not using it.
While gaming or watching videos the Canvas Knight tends to heat up like a hot plate. Even the call quality on the device is somewhat lagging. Apart from these the Canvas Knight 2 enables the user to experience an excellent balance of performance and power.
Camera
To keep your priceless memories fresh and alive in vivid tones, the rear of the device is adorned with a 13 megapixel primary camera with a Sony IMX214 CMOS sensor and a Largan 5P lens and the front has a 5 megapixel Omnivision camera with OV5648 sensor and the same 5P lens.
The front camera comes loaded with a litany of inbuilt beauty features that allow editing like face slimming, eye enhancement and skin smoothening. It has many pre-set options with a lot of twists on the go in quick settings.
It also packs a bunch of preloaded Instagram like filters, which give you some excellent shots. Apart from stills, it can do a 1080p video recording.
Connectivity
The dual SIM smartphone accepts two nano SIMs both with super fast 4G connectivity. Surfing new sites, downloading files in a flash, browsing videos, and managing personal and official work becomes much easier with 2G/3G/4G support on both the SIM’s.
Battery
A powerful battery backup of 2260mAh completes the package and offers to deliver 10 hours of battery support on a single charge with cautious usage. The Super power saving battery mode, improves the battery performance immensely by making the display monochrome and giving access to only a few apps.
Pros and Cons:
The placement of the volume and power rockers on the left side seems a little wrong as they are normally on the right side. As far as the design of the phone is considered, the bezel under the screen is doing a lot of space wastage. The glass back panel of the phone makes the device slippery to hold so a matte or textured finish could have been a better option. As compared to other smartphones, Canvas Knight 2 did not show a regular 4G connectivity and on a continued use, showed signs of heating up though manageable.
The most impressive thing about Knight 2 is its design which is very sleek. Though both the cameras are not the best in class, but they do a fairly good job in bright light and the different camera filters provide some exciting options that would satisfy most photography enthusiasts. Performance wise, the phone provides a seamless user experience with no time lag while gaming and ensured smooth working without any app crashes.
Price
Priced at Rs 16,299 the Canvas Knight faces stiff competition from the Xiaomi Mi 4, Lenovo K4 Note as well as Asus Zenfone 2 range of devices which offer similar specifications and are priced less that 15K.
Verdict
Overall the Micromax Canvas Knight 2 is a premium and classy phone with some top end specifications that will make a noise in the mid-range mobile segment. It has a nice build, offers good performance and is available in a wide range of colors.
The offer could have been all the more attractive if the device featured a full HD screen, rather than high definition resolution, which is quite common in this price range.The only problem is that the device suffers from heating issues.
