Micromax A116 HD Review | Price Increased

Micromax had recently launched its A116 Canvas HD smartphone with huge fanfare. The company had started taking the pre-booking of the smartphone on February 14, 2013 and it was expected to start retailing in the market shortly after that. However, the delivery of the smartphone has now got delayed due to 'procedural issues'.

A Micromax spokesperson said, "The Micromax Canvas HD A116 was the first device in the world to be launched on Mediatek's MT6589 Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 chipset. Like any other first device it took a while to scale up on its commercial production."

He further went out to share, "We made a sale of 3,000 odd devices as part of a Valentine Day offer, and because of the unprecedented consumer response we did a pre- booking of about 10,000 devices."

When quizzed in regards to by when the consumers who have pre-booked the smartphone will be able to get their hands on the smartphone, the spokesperson commented, "We are delivering these pre-booked orders on a 'first come first served' basis." It is expected that the consumers who have pre-booked the device will be able to get their hands on it by March 22, 2013. The company has also indicated that before the end of March 2013 customers across the country would be able to purchase the Canvas HD from the open retail market.

Not only is the shipment of the smartphone been delayed but its price too has been increased from Rs. 13,999 to Rs. 14,499. Micromax's retail partner Snapdeal.com has issued a statement on their Facebook page in regards to the increase in cost. In this post, the deal site has attributed the changes in custom duty as the reason for increase in price.

Snapdeal.com has apologised for the delay and has indicated that customers, who have already pre-booked the smartphone, will be able to get it for the original price of Rs. 13,999. The company is also giving a carry case worth Rs. 700 free to all customers who have pre-booked the Micromax A116 Canvas HD as a gesture to thank people for their patience.

Snapdeal.com also shared that if for any reason the consumers do not want to wait for the A116 Canvas HD, then it would refund the booking amount at the earliest.

Just to recap, the Micromax A116 Canvas HD comes with a 5-inch HD IPS screen that sports 1280x720 resolution and a colour depth of 16.7 million. It is powered by MediaTek's MT6589 quad-core processor that clocks 1.2GHz. The smartphone runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) out of the box.

It packs in a 2000mAh battery. Micromax A116 Canvas has an 8-megapixel rear shooter with LED flash and 4X zoom and a VGA front camera. Other features of the smartphone include 1GB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage, which can be expanded to up to 32GB via microSD card. It is a dual-SIM smartphone, which supports GSM frequency on both the SIMs.

Micromax A116 features

GENERAL	2G Network	GSM 900 / 1800 - SIM 1 & SIM 2
	3G Network	HSDPA 2100
	SIM	Dual SIM
	Announced	2013, January
	Status	Available. Released 2013, February

BODY	Dimensions	144 x 74 x 10.7 mm (5.67 x 2.91 x 0.42 in)
	Weight	156 g (5.50 oz)

DISPLAY	Type	IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	720 x 1280 pixels, 5.0 inches (~294 ppi pixel density)
	Multitouch	Yes
	Protection	Yes

SOUND	Alert types	Vibration, MP3, WAV ringtones
	Loudspeaker	Yes
	3.5mm jack	Yes

MEMORY	Card slot	microSD, up to 32 GB
	Internal	4 GB (1.77 GB user available), 1 GB RAM

DATA	GPRS	Yes
	EDGE	Yes
	Speed	HSDPA, 21 Mbps; HSUPA, 11 Mbps
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Wi-Fi hotspot
	Bluetooth	Yes, v4.0 with A2DP
	USB	Yes, microUSB v2.0

CAMERA	Primary	8 MP, 3264 x 2448 pixels, autofocus, dual-LED flash
	Features	Geo-tagging, touch focus, face detection
	Video	Yes, 720p@30fps
	Secondary	Yes, 2 MP, VGA video rec.

FEATURES	OS	Android OS, v4.1.2 (Jelly Bean), planned upgrade to v4.2 (Jelly Bean)
	Chipset	MTK MT6589
	CPU	Quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7
	GPU	PowerVR SGX544
	Sensors	Accelerometer, proximity
	Messaging	SMS(threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
	Browser	HTML5
	Radio	FM radio
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support
	Java	Yes, via Java MIDP emulator
	Colors	Black, White
		- SNS integration - MP3/AAC/WMA/WAV player - MP4/WMV/H.264/H.263 player - Organizer - Document viewer - Google Search, Maps, Gmail, Youtube, Calendar, Google Talk - Voice memo/dial - Predictive text input

BATTERY		Li-Ion 2000 mAh battery
	Stand-by	Up to 174 h
	Talk time	Up to 5 h

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