Lava Mobile’s Iris 406q made a lot of buzz on the net for its price tag and the specifications. It is powered by qualcomm Snapdragon quad core processor with Adreno 305 GPU. This dual SIM handset runs on Android 4.3 and is upgradeable to KitKat 4.4. It is available for a price of under Rs. 7,000.
Box content: Handset, screen guard, data cable, user manual, travel charger, earphone, 1700 mAh battery (Li-po) and flip cover (ordinary flip cover you need to stick it onto the back cover). On the box it’s mentioned that the GPU is Adreno 302 but its Adreno 305.
Design, Display and OS
For the price the handset looks too good. The glossy touch on the back and the sides along with the silver lining gives a very premium look. Handset weight is 135 grams (with battery) and is 10.68mm thick. Though not very slim but still an eye-catcher. Built quality is good but I saw minor gaps between the back cover and the handset body – on the black color version it will not be easily visible.
Volume rockers & power button are on the left the buttons too have got the glossy touch and blends well. Micro USB and 3.5mm audio jack ports are on the top. This is dual SIM handset (GSM + GSM), SIM 1 supports 3G and you need normal SIM’s.
The screen is of smaller size – 4 inches with WVGA 800 x 480 pixels resolution. Viewing angles are poor. Touch is good. There are accelerometer, proximity and light sensors. The 406q runs on Android 4.3 and will get the KitKat update soon.
Memory and Storage
Of the 1GB RAM, 380 MB free RAM is available on the first boot and of the 4GB storage 1GB is allocated for apps and 1.5GB as the phone storage. OTG is not support – you can connect external pen drives, but it will not work. There is an option to select the external SD card as the preferred install location however that does not work as expected.
By default the apps get installed on the internal storage, there is option to move the app to external storage, but the files are never moved from the internal storage particularly the data files need for high end games / apps.
Performance
The iris 406q houses the MSM8610 quad core qualcomm snapdragon processor @ 1.2GHz with Adreno 305 GPU (on the box its mentioned Adreno 302 GPU). The 8610 chipset does comes with 302 GPU but benchmark apps are showing as Adreno 305. The performance is smooth and lag free.
Benchmark Scores
| App | Result |
| Quadrant | 8182 |
| Antutu | 16395 |
| Vellamo | HTML5 (2053) Metal (464) |
| Nenamark 2 | 58.1fps |
| Multi Touch | 2 point |
Camera and Entertainment
There is 5MP on the rear and VGA on the front. Both the cameras are fixed focus. The flash support for the rear camera is no good. Camera quality is average. Since it is a fixed focus camera close up shots will be blurry. Longs shots look good. Front camera quality is below average. The rear camera can record 720p video at 30fps. The video recording quality is good but in-video sound recording is low.
The 406q comes with a powerful hardware that can play full HD videos with ease.
Gaming
Because of limited internal storage space of 1.5GB and issues with preferred install location, I was not able to install MC4 but was able to install Asphalt 8 on the internal storage; however it did not work as the available free space was just 98MB – the game crashed.
All of the games were getting installed on the internal storage even when preferred install location was set to external SD card. I then downloaded dead trigger 2 which is less than 500 MB, it got installed on internal storage and played really well in the highest graphics mode. I even tried moving the dead trigger 2 game to SD card it showed it moved but the data files were still there on the internal storage.
Others
3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth worked without any issues. Sound is loud and quality is good.
Battery
There is 1700 mAh battery that does a pretty decent job. I played around with the handset (benchmark / gaming) for 35 minutes the battery dropped by 11 percent and max temp was 35 degrees. Estimated very high usage time is about 4 to 5 hours.
Verdict
Considering the hardware and the price it is a very good option. The Lava Iris 406q is loaded with a powerful hardware and performance is very good. The 406q can play high end games, unfortunately even after selecting SD card as the preferred install location the games were installing on internal storage. If the internal storage free space is low then the game will crash.
If lava mobiles can fix the issue and roll out an OTA update it will be one of the best low cost handset for gaming users. The camera quality is average and battery backup is good enough. Screen resolution is low and viewing angles are not great. If you are particularly looking for low budget handset with better cameras then you should look for the one with auto focus, there are many options available in this price range.
Lava Iris 406q current price is Rs. 6,999.