Recently Intex launched their latest series of smartphones, known as Intex Aqua series. This series consist of three smartphones, priced in the mid-range segment. The lowest priced smartphone is known as Intex Aqua 4.0 and the highest priced is known as Intex Aqua Supreme+, the one priced in between them is known as Intex Aqua Crystal. We covered the launch event of the Intex Aqua series smartphones and even shot some unboxing & hands-on videos (You can catch them on our YouTube channel) there. About a week ago, Intex sent us the Intex Aqua Crystal & Supreme+ smartphones from their Aqua series and today we're going to review one of them, the Intex Aqua Crystal. We've been using Intex Aqua Crystal & Supreme+ for more than a week now and have decided to share our experience through an individual review of both the devices. Let's talk about the Intex Aqua Crystal in this one.
Unboxing
Intex Aqua series smartphones come in a similar kind of box, which is rectangular in shape, the cover slides open revealing the box, which contains the smartphone & accessories. On opening the box, you'll see the Intex Aqua Crystal smartphone resting, underneath the smartphone, are the accessories. Intex Aqua Crystal comes with a Charging Adapter, a MicroUSB cable, Earphones, Transparent Hard Plastic case, a Screen protector, SIM ejection tool and finally a User manual. You can watch the unboxing video on our YouTube channel.
Design
Intex Aqua Crystal looks amazing, it has a glass finish back and a metal-like side frame which I doubt is plastic with metal finish. The smartphone is 8.3 mm in thickness and weighs 140 grams, which is pretty lightweight. The phone looks quite simple and is available in White & Black colors. The top section contains the 3.5 mm audio jack for your earphone connections. The bottom section contains MicroUSB port for charging, loud speaker & main microphone.
The right side of the Intex Aqua Crystal contains the Volume Rocker and the Power button, while the left side contains SIM tray, which is a hybrid sim tray and can hold a Micro SIM + Nano SIM or Micro SIM + MicroSD card.
The section above the display contains the earpiece, 5 Megapixel front camera and the proximity sensor and light sensor, while the bottom section of the display contains the three navigational touch sensitive keys.
Display & Hardware
Intex Aqua Crystal packs a 5" Inch IPS HD Display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels and pixel density of 296 ppi. Under the hood, the smartphone packs a MediaTek MT6737 chipset, 64-bit Quad-Core 1.25GHz processor along with 1GB RAM, Mali-T720 GPU and 8GB of internal storage. You can further expand the storage of your Intex Aqua Crystal phone by inserting a microSD card up to 32GB.
The display of Intex Aqua Crystal is pretty decent, you can't expect much at this price range but still, Intex managed to provide a nice looking display with good viewing angles. The sunlight legibility of the display was satisfactory, the display was readable in direct sunlight, I found the display to have a bit of blue tint which made the colors appear in a cooler tone. The performance wise Intex Aqua Crystal was average, I was disappointed that Intex decided to stay with 1GB RAM while some other smartphones in the same price segment, offer 2GB RAM. Also, the processor equipped inside Intex Aqua Crystal is not that good when it comes to performance, Xiaomi Redmi 3S, which is priced similarly as Intex Aqua Crystal, offers Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 Octa-core chip, which is way better than MediaTek MT6737 chipset when it comes to performance.
Performance & Connectivity
Intex Aqua Crystal runs on Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Google launcher and stock experience. Out-of-the-box, the smartphone is loaded with bloatware which takes a big chunk of memory and slows the system down. Fortunately, most of the bloatware can be uninstalled, making the system perform better. The overall software performance was average, probably because of low-end hardware but it still managed to run pretty smoothly (when not gaming). Multitasking on Intex Aqua Crystal is not that great, you can multitask between a couple of apps, but when you increase the number of apps opened in background, you'll start to see the performance degrading.
We did run some major benchmarks on Intex Aqua Crystal smartphone to get a better idea and see how it performs. The AnTuTu score was 26367 and the Geekbench 4 score for single-core was 534 and multi-core was 1485.
Intex Aqua Crystal supports 3G and 4G LTE networks, other connectivity options includes Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and FM radio. The network reception throughout our testing was quite good, we didn't experience any call drops or any other network related issues. The call quality was pretty good, both the parties were able to hear each other clearly, without any issues. The smartphone packs a G-sensor, ambient light sensor, and a proximity sensor.
Camera & Battery
The rear camera on Intex Aqua Crystal is an 8 Megapixel shooter, which comes with Autofocus and VGA video recording support with EIS setting. The camera comes with quite a lot of options like; GPS Location tagging, Scene Modes, Color Effects, White Balance, ANti-Flicker, Anti-Shake setting, Face Detection, Smile Shot, Self Timer and Continous shot up to 40 shots. It also comes with a Dual-LED flash on the rear. So talking about the rear camera, the output is pretty average and disappointing, I've seen a lot of 8 Megapixel cameras in the past, but this one didn't stand a chance in front of them. The camera was able to capture somewhat decent photos in the daylight, but they lacked detail and colors seemed washed out. The front 5 Megapixel camera was also quite basic, the selfies clicked were average, nothing special here. You can face beauty feature which enhances your selfies. The camera interface is self-explanatory.
Intex Aqua Crystal comes with a 2100 mAh Li-Polymer battery, which is non-removable and does not support fast charging. The battery easily lasts a day with moderate usage and takes around 3 hours 15 minutes to charge fully. We did test the charging time, it took around 3 hours 12 minutes for it to charge from 3% to 100%.
Verdict
Intex Aqua Crystal is priced at Rs.6,990, which is quite low for a decent smartphone and yes, Intex Aqua Crystal is pretty decent, except for some hiccups here are there, the phone has quite a lot to offer and will be easily available, unlike those Chinese smartphones which are mostly Out-of-Stock and requires flash sale experience. However, if you are looking for a powerful smartphone in low-budget range and don't mind waiting, then Xiaomi Redmi 3S is the best bet, but if you can't wait for it to come back in stock, you can take sneak peek at Intex Aqua series smartphones, if your purpose of buying a phone is for calls, Internet browsing, music, movies etc, then you won't be disappointed with Aqua Crystal.
My Rating: 3 out of 5
The best thing about Intex Aqua Crystal is that it is Made in India and is quite decent when it comes to looks & performance, It does disappoint when it comes to multitasking, gaming or video recording but for a price tag of Rs.6,990, it is not that bad at all.