The Karbonn A5 is a dual SIM smartphone also called Karbonn Smart. It is powered by a single core 800 MHz processor with 3.5 inch touchscreen and a 2MP camera. The handset is priced at under Rs. 5,000.
The A5 is a trimmed down model of Karbonn A7. The A5 design is different as compared with A7. The A7 comes with 5MP camera with LED flash and a front VGA camera whereas the A5 is with a 2MP camera without flash and with no front cameras. The A7 is priced at under Rs. 7,000 and the A5 comes for under Rs. 5000. Karbonn had recently launched another model called the Karbonn A7+ which is the Karbonn copy of A7 but with a 1GHz processor.
Box pack
The box pack contains the handset, earphone, 1420 mAh battery, charger and user manual / warranty card. Apart from that you also get a screen guard and a free additional cover panel. The handset by default come with the pearl white back cover and the additional free cover is of black colour. You can switch over as and when required.
Karbonn A5 design
The handset looks impressive, the front black and the rear pearl white blends well. If you want a full blackish look you can use the black cover. There are 4 touch sensitive buttons on the front side, 3.5mm jack, power button on top, volume rockers on the left and micro USB port at the bottom. The Karbonn A5 feels good and in fact I find it better than the A7 model (look wise).
A5 Performance
It is with 800 MHz processor (Qualcomm) with Adreno 200 GPU. The RAM is 512MB and internal storage for apps is around 202 MB. Micro SD card slot is available and you can move most of the apps to the external storage and free up internal storage for better performance.
You get around 325 MB free RAM which is really good and 158MB storage for installing apps. When you have 158 MB storage available you cannot install apps with are above 158 MB, for example the Prince of Persia game which is around 230+ MB. But most of the apps are well under 25MB and should not be an issue. Moreover there is the apps2SD app pre-installed which will notify the user if the apps they just downloaded can be moved to SD.
The touch is smooth and I did not find any issues with it. There was no lag and the processing is pretty smooth. There is a mild rendering lag when zooming in using the web browser, which is normal. By default flash is not supported you may need to install the flash apk manually.
The Loudspeaker volume is loud, quality is really good and much better via earphones. The earphones are of low quality and if you can replace it with a better one you will experience even better sound output. There is Bluetooth, GPS and Wi-Fi which worked pretty well.
There is 3G supported via SIM 1 and SIM 2 can be used only for 2G network. This is dual SIM phone with dual Standby mode. 3G HSDPA up to 7.2 mbps is supported. USB tethering and Wi-Fi Hotspot is supported. The display screen is 3.5 inches with 480×320 pixels resolution and also supports 2 point multi touch. Viewing angle is low.
Benchmark Score
Quadrant = 1240 (nearly same as A7 that got 1260).
Antutu = 2700.
Camera
There is a 2MP camera without flash and no front cameras. 2MP is too low but good enough for sharing images on Facebook and other social sites. Picture quality is better outdoors.
Multimedia
I tried playing 720p video using MX player which lagged, did not play well and the decoding was done only via the software as hardware decoding was not supported. Other video formats in lower resolution worked flawlessly and it could also play AVI files. Check out the video at the end of the article.
Games on Karbonn A5
I could play Angry birds, Temple run and some more, I also tried downloading Prince of Persia game but it could not cause of less storage space. You can check the gaming video at the bottom.
1420 mAh Battery
The battery easily lasts for over a day of moderate usage with 3G on.
Karbonn A5 review
A nice professional looking phone which I believe does better than the Ninja 4 and the Ninja 3. The issue with Ninja 4 and 3 is that Micromax has loaded too much stuff by default which has reduced the internal space to such a low that it is impossible to install many apps. Moreover Ninja 4 and 3 are with 256MB RAM which also hampers the overall performance. So in all A5 does have an advantage.
The A5 is priced at Rs. 4,990.
Image Gallery
Karbonn A5 unboxing and video review
Games and Movie playback demo
Karbonn Smart A5 Key Features and Specifications
- 800 MHz single core + Adreno 200 GPU.
- 512MB RAM, 512MB ROM and 202 MB internal storage with microSD card support.
- Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread OS.
- 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen with 480×320 pixels resolution.
- 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, micro USB, FM radio and 3.5 mm jack.
- Sensors : GSensor and Proximity.
- 1420 mAh battery.
- Price Rs. 4,990.
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