Mobiistar XQ Dual Review: Decent Selfie Camera, but is that enough?

Mobiistar is a Vietnamese smartphone company which recently announced its entry into Indian smartphone market with two budget devices. The CQ and XQ Dual, priced at Rs 4,999/- and Rs 7,999/- respectively. The later one is more talked about as it is placed with the likes of Honor 7C, ASUS Zenfone Max Pro or Honor 9 lite among the budget devices. No doubt XQ Dual has the price tag of least amount among all these phones, but does it really fits in with the competition lets find out.

Specifications:

The device's USP is its dual selfie camera which inspires the Dual in the name of the phone. The dual camera set at front includes a 13 MP and 8 MP 120 degree wide angle camera. The phone sports 5.5 inch Full HD IPS display with screen resolution of 1920x1080. Under the hood device runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 Octa-core chipset, supported by 3 GB RAM, 32 GB internal storage which can be further expanded upto 128 GB via micro SD Card. The device comes with 3000 mAh battery.

Build and Design:

The XQ Dual is a well built device with unibody metal design which makes it one of the durable phones physically. However, the design has nothing new and its similar to what we see on other phones in this price range.

On the front the device sports two selfie cameras at top left of the device, ear piece in top left and proximity sensor and a selfie flash light at top right. Below that most of the front is dominated by 5.5 inch full HD screen. The bezels are pretty thin, but don't expect bezel less experience. On bottom of the device there are three physical capacitive buttons which are unfortunately the buttons are not backlit.

The volume rockers are on the left edge of the phone while the SIM tray and power button sits on the right edge of the device. On top edge we have a 3.5 mm audio jack and noise cancellation mic, while on the bottom edge of the phone you've got micro USB slot and speaker grill.

Turn the device towards its back and you will find the rear 13 MP camera which is very slightly protruding from the surface along with that there is a flash light just placed to the side of the camera.  Slightly above the middle of the rear we have a finger print sensor and mobiistar branding on the device. While bottom of the rear is plain with IMEI information sticker.

Camera:

Camera of this device is most talked about feature by the brand, in fact the company states the motivation behind this device is to bring best of the camera features for budget segment. The camera doesn't disappoint here, specially the front ones.

On the front we have 8 MP f/2.2 + 13 MP f/2.0  cameras, the dual camera set up is utilized for selfie and groupfies. i.e. 8 MP sensor comes into picture when you need a greater field of view, the 120 degree wide angle increases the area swept by the camera thus making it suitable for taking selfies in larger groups as well. In bright light conditions the camera works pretty good and most of the time we were satisfied with the results, however like other smartphones in this category the images carry the extra noise, front camera flash comes handy but it doesn't help that much.

As far as the rear camera is concerned the device comes with a 13 MP rear sensor which does its job well in day light and well lit conditions. The camera actually is the only strength of the device. When compared to the other devices in this price range the camera actually surprises us given that we were not impressed by other aspects of the device. However in low light conditions we had to live with noise and graininess in the images.

Below are few samples to judge for yourself.

Software:

The device runs on Android 7.1.2 and there is no word on the upgrade to Android P or even to Android O. The device does a good job with stock android and having just a couple of apps pre-installed other than usual Google apps. Another small customization which we liked were ability to action on items from notification drawer itself, specially user able to delete unwanted sms right from the notification area, given the sheer number of marketing SMS we get now a days.

The best thing done to the device on OS part is that not much is interfered with it and stock Android experience is by far the most simple and usable. As it is rightly said, speak only when you can better the silence.

Performance and battery:

The device runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 octa core chipset, which is outdated and misplaced for the segment , the brand intends to cater to. The phone's finger print sensor works almost every time without any noticeable lag, however opening simple apps like gallery, camera etc can be a sluggish operation on the device. The phone does ok with the day to day job, but this is not the winner of a phone in performance area. Apart of intermittent lag, the device fails miserably on power management. The phone comes with a 3000 mAh battery but was not able to hold the fort till end of the day, where we didn't used it for gaming. To give you some perspective, I use my Honor 6x with bluetooth on for full day, still it never goes down below 40% on average usage. 

Verdict:

If you have read the review from start then its a no brainer that the device caters only to those who are concerned about the images predominantly selfies in low budget. The performance users will be disappointed with the device. The device would have been a good seller if it was available offline in tier 2, 3 cities. As the 1000Rs lesser price than other competitors could have been the deal maker for many offline smartphone buyers.