LAVA XOLO Q800 -Truely worth the money you pay. Review on XOLO Q800

Hi Friends,

This is the first time I am posting a detailed review of a product. I purchased  LAVA XOLO Q800 1.2GHz mobile on 28th June  2013 from ebay.com Just for Rs. 10, 278. I have enquired in some shops in Bangalore before buying it online. In shop it was available for Rs.11, 500. Finally I decided to go online even I know its difficult to get support if we buy online, I was ready to take a risk. It took just 4 days to reach to me from Mumbai. Now the prize is around 11, 000 in ebay  and  they also launched another model called XOLO Q800 X-Edition  which is specification wise almost similar Q800 but only difference is that it supports Full HD 1080p @ 30fps play back and recording.  As per my understanding All the XOLO phones are manufactured/assembled and tested in china and imported by LAVA mobiles India. I have been using this phone since 6 months now.

In fact, I have never faced any kind of hardware or software related issues or hangs.Hence I am a fully satisfied as of now. In fact I was so amazed of getting such a phone at this much less price which satisfies me more than expected.  Like all the techies I also checked all the reviews and comments about this product before buying it and I couldn't find much negative reviews but again I was a bit confused as XOLO was not a very well known brand and rarely seen. Earlier I was using Samsung galaxy ace which was bought for around 13, 500, and within 1 year the battery has gone bad it it started giving signal problems also.

Actually I was looking to buy Samsung galaxy grand or Micromax canvas.  But 1 day I have seen XOLO Q 700 model phone with one of my friend and he was very satisfied with the phone within 2 weeks of usage.  Then I too decide to buy it and now I think I was not wrong with the decision.

Hardware Specifications:

*Processor: 1.2GHz AP, Quad core CA7

Chipset : MT6589

Graphics core: PowerVR SGX544

Weight : 143.5 g

Sim card slots: 2

Display Size: 4.5"

Resolution: qHD 540x960,  245 ppi

Display Technology: IPS, 5 fingers supported

Rear camera:   8 MP

Front camera:   1 MP

Sensors : Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Magnetometer, Ambient light sensor, Proximity sensor

Battery: Li-Ion 2100 mAh battery

Internal Memory: 4 GB

RAM : 1 GB

Expandable Memory:up to 32 GB*

You may compare it with any other brand smartphones like htc, samsung or LG comes in the same range.  Compared to that there are lot of+ves and -ve for this brand. let me tell you about the+ves first.

The+ points

1. Battery & Performance

The best thing I have noticed in the phone is the battery backup. It has a 2100 mAh Lithium- Iron battery which gives upto 3 and half days of battery backup upon normal usage with automatic display brightness. If I use it more for net browsing and gaming also it gives fair battery backup upto 2  days easily. And even after 6 months it still gives the same. I don't think even the well known brands gives this much backup.  Its just an amazing thing of Q800 compared to any other branded costly smartphones.

Normally android smartphones are very power consuming. But this product is simply a wonder in that aspect.  May be because of the MediaTek CPU and MT6589M Chipset which doesn't overheat  or hang even if u load extreme graphics or play HD movies for a long time. I used to watch movies upto 3 hrs continuously still it will be left with 60% of the battery. It beats the snapdragon CPU in performance and power consumption. But on reliability it may not.  I have played a lot of high end graphics games like, Real racing 3, NF most wanted, Contract killer, dear hunter, Front line commander etc. It delivers best graphics output without no delay or lag.

1. Speed & Touch response:

As far as I used, its fast, convenient and smooth for gaming, playing HD movies, Internet browsing or normal usage. The screen is big enough for a better view. Pages were loading fast and theTouch sensibility of the display also superb like a high-end handset, the pinch to zoom in/out features also worked like a charm.

1. Display& Power consumption

The 4.5inch QHD 540x960 IPS display with 245ppi delivers extra clear  and sharp pictures and videos with satisfactory resolution. Even the brightness is less compared to other phones, it helps to reduce the battery consumption at a considerable extent .

1. Camera, Front& Rear

It has an 8 MP auto focus camera with a LED flash support, with BSI & CMOS sensors which let you capture quality pictures in any condition and it can record 720p videos. But in the absence of better light it may be blurred or less clear. Even the 1.2MP front camera also gives good snaps and better for video calls. I have attached sample pictures taken with my XOLO Q800 for your reference.

The -ives

1. Build quality& Design

As I said earlier the build quality is poor. Looks flimsy. But you can protect if you keep the phone in a good quality mobile pouch. Design also not much attractive. The position of loud speaker is not placed well actually. If you keep the phone on desk it will get covered. The ringing sound will not be audible. The display colour depth also not so good compared to a branded phone. But still it wont look like a local china phone.

2.Poor quality audio

Audio quality is not much impressive. We cant even compare it with HTC, samsung or sony phones. The headset also is a low quality product. It wont be good to use for listening music. But if you purchase a better quality branded earphone, this problem can be solved and it support almost all brand 3mm jack headsets. Even samsung or nokia gives low quality earphones nowadays.

3. Memory allocation

It has an internal memory of 4GB but only 2.7GB is usable. Unlike other mobiles they have divided the 2.7GB into 1GB dedicated for application and other 1.7 GB is for data storage. I dont know why this is required in fact. So we can install only 1 GB of applications in phone memory. But its not a big drawback as we can move any applications to SD card easily.

4.Bad Customer Support

The other big problem is the customer support for XOLO in india.There are very few customer service centers across india for xolo. However  I have never come across any technical problems yet.

I don't want to go deeply on the features and hardware specifications as it will be already available on the net. A detailed video review also available in the below link.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aqJg67_FuKc

Rating: As per my opinion, Lava Xolo Q800 smartphone is a value for money buy at the price of Rs.11k range and my rating is 8 out of 10. In My opinion its is good to go for it instead of spending huge amount for a well known branded one. Believe me! it can compete with any branded phones which comes in the range of 18- 20k. XOLO is best option budget phone which can full fill most of your requirements like HD playback, gaming and browsing for this much less price. In fact Truly worth for the money you pay!

Regards,

Rupesh