In such a situation, how can Lava Mobiles stay behind. The company has presented its claim in this segment through its premium brand Xolo. The Xolo Black handset is available for Rs 12,999. This handset comes with many useful features like dual rear camera and front flash and also tries its best to show itself as ‘premium’. Will Xolo Black be able to leave its mark in the market? Let’s find out.
Look and design
The Xolo Black looks similar to the Sony Xperia Z3 due to its curved edges and matte finish metal frame. Glass has been used in the body of the Xolo Black. Corning Gorilla Glass protection is also present on the front and rear panel, which will help in keeping the handset scratch free. The front camera and the flash used with it have been placed on both the top corners. The back panel has a dual-camera setup along with the Xolo and Hive branding. The charging port and speakers have been placed at the bottom of the phone and the 3.5mm headset socket at the top.
The SIM tray is on the left side of the phone and the power and volume buttons are on the right. The second SIM slot can also be used as a microSD card slot. The power button also acts as a status light, which we found odd. However, at a price of Rs 12,999, the company has introduced a phone with a good build and it looks more premium than its competitors.
Specifications and software
The Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 (2nd Gen) processor has been used in Xolo Black, which means it supports 4G. The good thing is that it also has support for the 4G bands used in India. The 5.5-inch display of the handset has full-HD resolution, with a pixel density of 401ppi. The device has 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage (support for microSD card up to 32GB) and a 3,200mAh lithium-polymer battery. There are two sensors in the rear camera setup, the primary camera is 13 megapixels and the secondary is 2 megapixels. The front camera is 5 megapixels. In Xolo Black, the company has used its Hive UI, which is based on Android Lollipop 5.0.2. Hive is an interesting UI, which has many features that are not present on other devices in this price range. The app drawer is a little different. In this, apps can be customized based on alphabet, installation time and app category.
However, Hive performs a bit slow at times. Sometimes the screens load slowly and the animations also take a long time to load completely. Well, it works fine most of the time, so we don’t have much to complain about. The default Hive lock screen is terrible, it doesn’t appeal at all. The good thing is that it can be disabled. You can customize the quick launch keys and display notifications. Overall, its user interface is much better than other manufacturers. Users get multiple options of customization and a lot of changes are also possible through the settings.
Camera
Interestingly, the Xolo Black uses a dual-camera setup on its rear panel. This setup increases the speed of autofocus and gives the option to refocus on different parts of the photo. The same dual-camera feature was present in the HTC One M8 device as well. The device autofocuses fast, but not very fast. The refocus feature also works well, but it is not of much use. It is important to mention the OptiZoom and ChromaFlash features. The job of OptiZoom is to improve the zoom quality of the photos, but it is not that effective. ChromaFlash is needed to take two consecutive pictures, one with flash and the other without it. After this, the software combines these frames and creates a single image, on which the effect of the flash is less and the result image is more real. Its performance made us happy.
The camera does a good job of taking sharp, detailed and vibrant pictures, but whites appear too bright. The 5-megapixel front camera works as standard and also has its own flash. Selfie lovers will like this feature, as this flash will help in taking better selfies in low light. It would not be wrong to say that those who are fond of taking regular photos will be happy with the camera of Xolo Black.
The camera software is easy to use and has all the features and modes you would expect from a smartphone. There are two apps for the camera, one is the normal mode which has several filters and the other is the dual camera app which also uses the 2 megapixel secondary camera. We got a bit confused while using both the apps as per our requirement. Hopefully this shortcoming will be removed in the next version.
Performance
The performance of Xolo Black is good. The device easily completes most tasks. Hive UI sometimes slows down, but it does not affect the performance of apps and games. The phone never crashed during the time we had it with us. Voice quality was also good. The sound from the headphones and speakers of the device was good. It played most HD videos easily. However, there was a problem with the file format with some. We also played the game Sonic Runners on the phone and found that there was no lag or performance problem anywhere. The phone did slow down during multitasking, so we would suggest not using too many apps at a time. The display is full-HD, but it is a bit weak in terms of color and contrast.
The Xolo Black scored 32,519 and 20,996 points in AnTuTu and Quadrant tests respectively. We also ran 3D Mark Ice Storm Extreme and GFXBench on the device and got results of 5427 points and 14fps respectively. Other devices based on Snapdragon 615 have also given similar results. The battery lasted 9 hours and 41 minutes on our video loop test, which is a bit low for a 3,200mAh device. With normal use, the battery easily lasted a day.
Our verdict
The Xolo Black is an above average smartphone that is easy to use and offers performance that is on par with other smartphones in its price range. It also looks good and has some features that stand out.
Its dual rear camera setup, front flash and decent photography performance make the device stand out. We liked this phone and hope you will too. If you are looking for a phone that does its job well and doesn’t cost too much, then definitely consider the Xolo Black.