Xolo Play T1000 Review

PRICE 15,999
GadgetChair RATING 6.5
Xolo,a product from Lava International, has been pushing Android smartphones into the Indian market like hot cakes. A while ago, we did see a few X and Q series smartphones powered by the famous MTK SoCsporting dual and quad-core processors. We also did see the X1000 based on the Intel chipset variant, which did not quite make it to the top. This time, Xolo has roped in Tegra chipsets in its latest flagship smartphone,the Play T1000. Supposedly meant for hard core gaming, this quad-core processor-based smartphone is aimed towards the mobile platform gamers. Let’s have a peek at how the Play performs apart from what it speaks on paper.
Design and build
At first glance, the Xolo did not manage to impress us with the aesthetics. It looked like a regular smartphone with an all-black exterior. The front panel is all-glass with a shiny trim around it. Three LED backlit buttons for Home, Back and Menu are available on the bottom and the earpiece with the front-facing camera are seen towards the top. Sadly, we did notice the backlight a little too dim than normal. The rear panel has a rubber finish, which helps gripping the phone while using it. The rear panel sports the main shooter, an LED flash and the speaker grille. Below the rear panel is the battery, SIM slot and the storage expansion slot as usual.
On the build front, we did find a minor flaw—the rear panel does not flush neatly with the rest of the frame and there is a gap of less than a millimeter between the two. It seems as though the rear panel is not an original one because of the offset.
It could be a possibility that the piece we received has the faulty rear panel, but we are not sure and cannot comment on it. A little research on the Internet about the phone and we bumped into another Chinese make handset, theBeidou Little Pepper Q1, which is an identicalreplica of thephone, bothinternally and externally. The only differenceis thename printed on it and a few differenceshere and there. Other thanthis issue, we did not find any other flaws or drawbacks with thephone to report. The power and volume rocker take theirplace on the right side while the micro USB and audio ports are on thetop. We also noticedthat the volume and power buttons lack proper tactility. This could mean that therear panel is not properly designed for the chassis. The unit seems a tad heavier and thicker than most new smartphones that are heading the opposite way insize and weight. It measures 70 x 138.4 x 10.4 mm and weighs 167 g.
Features
Surprisingly, the XoloPlay is the first budget Android smartphonewe have seen sporting a single SIM GSM slot unlike others which provide two. Similar to the HTC One X and theLG Optimus 4X HD, the XoloPlay T1000 is also based on theNvidia Tegra 3 chipset. The Tegra3 SoC sports a quad-core processor with a clock speed of 1.5GHz and a 12-core ULP GeForce GPU. A fifthcore is also reported to be present on the SoCand is especially put incharge of battery saving. We did expect the next generation Tegra 4 to be seen innewer handsets, since Tegra 3 is almost two years older. Tegra 4 chipset is almost 6 times faster thanthe older sibling and is expected to give you richer details and bettergaming experience.
Moving on, thesystem is supplieda totalof 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. The storage is shared by the system and appsand you get around 1.9GB of space to store your data. You can expand thestorage by up to 32GB using a microSD card as usual. The displaypanel is a decently sized 4.7-incher sporting an HD resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels. The panel is an IPS type and uses the OGS or One Glass Solution Technology, where theLCD displayand the touch panel is actually laminated into one single layer of glass to eliminate any gapscausing reflections and help reduce theoverall thickness of the phone.
The two cameras featured here are 8 megapixel and 2 megapixel—forthe rear and front panel respectively. The rear camera has an LED flash for night shots. The Play has thestandard connectivityoptions, which includeWi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, 3G and a micro USB PC interface. The Play is fuelled by a 2000 mAh battery, with the manufacturer claiminga totaltalk time of 9-11 hours and a standby time of around 227 hours. The XoloPlay T1000 is powered by Google’s Android Jelly Bean v4.1.1 operating system, but there are no talks about an upgrade to V4.2 or Key Lime Pie as yet.
Performance
We ran our standard benchmarkingutilitieson the phone to check theperformance of the internal core hardware. AnTuTu scored 12993, Quadrant scored 4194 and Nenamark2 scored 51 fps. Linpack reported 53.67 MFLOPS and 126.5 MFLOPS in thesingle-thread and multi-thread testsrespectively. Looking up the scoresand matchingthem to existing phones we benchmarked earlier, the performance is a tad higherthan most MTK chipset-based quad-core processorsin thebudget range. The Play’s scoresalmost matched theHTC One X’s scorestoo, except that the latter was a tad higherin most areas.
The Play has an advantage over other budget phones that feature the MediaTek quad-core processors—theTegra 3 chipset. Though theTegra 3 is almost two years old now and theworld is moving on to thenext level, Tegra 4 SoCs, which is claimed to be almost six times faster, we wonder why did Xolonot wait a while and equip the phone with the latest chip.
Since thephone is powered using the Tegra chipset, the manufacturer has includedthe Nvidia TegraZone app preinstalledin theoperating system, which highlights all apps,games and news that are compatible with and built especially forthe Tegra chipset. These apps, being highly compatible with the chipset, shouldrun smoothly and perfectly with theprocessors to give you a richer gaming experience. To our surprise, we did not find any significant differencewith the same, as thebenchmarking scoresand gaming experience did not flatterus. The benchmarking scoresspeak of the performance which is just a bit higher thanthe usual MTK-chipset-based quad-core phones. However, we did run a few Tegra compatible games on thephone and were more thansatisfied with the performance and visuals. We did notice that theprocessor did not overheat as much even after an hour of gaming. This could be the processor management of the Tegra chipset which utilisesthe GPU instead of the GPU for the high graphics processing. Overall, theperformance of the phone is good enough for gaming.
User interface
The XoloPlay features a custom launcher based on the Android Jelly Bean operating system. The OS has very few pre-installed appsand these includetheXolo Care, XoloPower, Xolo Secure and theTegraZone apps. The internal storage of 4GB is shared with thesystem ROM and theapp data, of which only 1.9GB is free. Hence, you can install a handful of appson thephone and store your data on theexternal storage using the microSD card. This amount of storage (1.9GB) is too little consideringthis phone is marketed as a gaming device. However, if you headto the settings and then to thestorage section, you will find an optionto set the primary storage as the external microSD card. This is great as it swaps the internal and external storage to get additionalroom forall those storage hogginggames and apps. For instance,if we download some free games like Conduit HD and Real Racing from theTegraZone, the games further download around 2GB of additionaldata from theservers—and this will fillup theinternal storage. Add up theadditionalapps you would download and your internal storage would be filledto thebrim, making up for thesluggish performance thereafter. Hence, theoptionforswapping thestorage is a good move and you can enjoymultiple games on the device.
Display and media
The displayis an IPS OGS panel sporting an HD resolution. The colours are vibrant and crisp and the brightness and contrast levels are good. The viewing angle also does not falter from any sides, be it landscape or portrait mode. The handset is compatible with different formats of audio and videocodecs, which includeasf, avi, MP4, 3gp, mov, m2ts, mpeg-ts and mkv inthe video category and MP3, MIDI, WAV, 3GPP, AAC, AAC+, WMA and AMR-NB inthe audio category. The default video player plays them all, but as usual, most preferusing a third-party media player with additionalfeatures and options during media playback. HD 720p and full HD 1080p videos play smoothly with a tad jitter infast moving and panningframes, but these are hardly noticeable. The videos are crisp and clear and you can definitelyenjoy your favourite flicks on themove.
The onboard speakers are good enough forregular gaming and video clips. The audio quality is decent, but thehighs are a bit too sharp. The bundled headset is the standard earbud-type and sports a good buildquality. The earbuds are glossy and the cables are flat. The audio qualityof the earbuds is clear and good; the volume is pretty loud too. Making calls or enjoying music, this headset is definitelygood enough foryour audio needs on this phone.
Camera
The rear shooter is an 8MP camera with a BSI sensor. The camera utility is stock and does not feature any additionalfunctions apart from the regular ones. Outdoor shots are usable—we did not find any major issues with thecolour or brightness levels. However, we did find the shutter speed a tad low, which tends to blur out some moving objects in theframe. Also, there is a tad noticeableproblem with the sharpness and brightly lit areas are a bit washed out. Indoor shots are below average and the photos are pretty dark, although the camera sports a BSI sensor. Images shot inlow light are too dark and lack complete sharpness. Overall, theshots are just enough for basicviewing or sharing on social websites.
Battery life
To test the lifeof the2000 mAh battery inside theXolo Play, we ran a few tests on it. These testsusually include HD videos played in a loop, gaming, Internet browsing using thewireless network and voice calls. The testsare carried out with an average of 2 hours each till thebattery totally gives up. The Xololasted 6 hours and 40 minutes till we had to recharge the unit. Using thephone as any casual smartphone through theday with basic calls, Internet browsing and short videoclips, we assume it would last you around 10 hours, if not more. Since the phone is intended forgaming, you can expect around 6 hours if you are gaming more often.
Verdict and price inIndia
For theprice of Rs 15,999, we feel thePlay is tad expensive. However, theXolo Play is intended to woo gamers and it seems to make its point. A few downsides that we can highlight are the camera’s average performance, theslightly untidy finishof therear panel and thetad weightiness. There are a few other handsets that feature a full HD displaypanel with a quad-core processor forless thanRs 15,000. But if you are looking fora complete entertainment handset that includes gaming experience, the XoloPlay is a good buy.