Speaking to Gadgets 360 on the sidelines of the event, the company’s founder Rahul Sharma stressed that the Yu Unicorn should be compared to budget or midrange handsets available at this price. He said that the Yu Unicorn has many features that were not part of the older Yu handsets. This smartphone will challenge the flagship handsets available at a higher price.
Yu’s new flagship smartphone comes with a full-HD display and a metal body. Apart from this, it is the first Yu handset equipped with a physical home button that works as a fingerprint sensor. This feature lover will like it. This smartphone runs on Android OS in which the company’s Around You feature is integrated. This is the company’s service aggregator platform which was introduced with Yu Utopia last year. We spent some time with Yu Unicorn during the launch event. Let us tell you about it in detail.
The Yu Unicorn looks beautiful, especially from the front. We think it is the best looking Yu smartphone yet. The aluminium finish gives it a sturdy look. The curved edges give it a good grip. The metal back of the Yu Unicorn is a bit slippery in the hands. We have said the same about other metal phones like the HTC One (M8). At 172 grams, the phone feels a bit heavy, especially when compared to other smartphones in the same price range.
The power and volume rocker buttons are on the right side. We did not face any problem in using them during our usage of this smartphone. The micro-USB charging port is at the bottom of the handset, while the audio socket is at the top. This smartphone comes with DTS sound enhancement and has a dual microphone setup.
At first glance, the rear of the Yu Unicorn looks similar to the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. However, Yu has deliberately made some changes in the design, such as placing the speaker differently and the dual-LED flash being vertical.
Unicorn is the company’s first smartphone to come with an integrated fingerprint sensor on the home button. The company said at the launch that it comes with chip level security. When we asked Rahul Sharma about this feature, he told us that if it does not get the correct fingerprint, the sensor will not allow unlocking even if the handset is rooted. He also told us that this handset can store up to five fingerprints at a time. In the little time we spent with the handset, we found that the Unicorn’s fingerprint sensor works fine. The home button has been positioned in such a way that users with small hands will be able to use it easily. It will be easy to use this handset with one hand.
The smartphone has a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) IPS display which is equipped with 2.5D curved glass. The screen looks bright and crisp. We did not face any problem in viewing the screen even in sunlight. The viewing angles of the smartphone are also good.
The biggest change that Yu has made to its Unicorn flagship smartphone is by using stock Android instead of Cyanogen OS. The phone comes with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with some customizations by Yu. At the launch event, the company said that Unicorn runs on “Android on steroids” which means integration of Around Yu in the launcher. The customized interface of the handset comes with a vertical app drawer.
Yu Unicorn has a 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-LED flash. It also has a 5-megapixel front camera. The rear camera comes with phase detection autofocus, electronic image stabilization and slow motion video recording feature. We found the pictures taken with the camera of Yu Unicorn in artificial light to be quite crisp. There was no lack of detail in them. The front camera took decent pictures. We will get more information about the performance of the camera only after reviewing it.
U Unicorn has a 4000 mAh battery. It is claimed to give up to 20 hours of talk time and up to 500 hours of standby time. The phone supports 4G LTE. On using U Unicorn, we found that this smartphone gave a good response to touch input. There was no problem even during multitasking. It has 4GB RAM with octa-core MediaTek Helio P10 processor. We will not say much about the performance of Unicorn right now. For this you will have to wait for our detailed review.
Final Thoughts
At a launch price of Rs 12,999, the Yu Unicorn will compete with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Moto G4 Plus, Lenovo Fab and Zenfone Max (2016) in the market. Like other Yu handsets, the Yu Unicorn will be sold exclusively through flash sales on Flipkart. The company said that after a month, the price of Yu Unicorn will be Rs 13,499.