Micromax A091 Canvas Engage review – with dual SIM smart mode

Micromax Mobiles has launched 2 new handsets running on the KitKat OS. The Micromax Canvas Engage A091 is the second handset launched along with the Unite 2. The A091 houses the Broadcom quad core chipset, sports a 4 inch screen with WVGA resolution and comes with 512MB RAM. This handset is priced at approx Rs. 6,500.

A091 unboxing : Inside the box you will find the handset, user guide, warranty card, screen guard, travel charger, data cable and standard quality earphone. SAR value – 0.48W/kg @ 1gm head and 0.46W/kg @1gm body. On the box (back) its mentioned Made in India.

Design and Display
I got the grey colored Micromax canvas engage, the rear cover is with a metallic finish and almost covers 80% of the handset. The rear is slightly curved on the right and the left. Build quality is very good. A091 weight with battery is just 117 grams and it is 10.24 mm thick.

Power button is on the right, volume rockers on the left, 3.5mm audio jack and micro USB port on the top. There is only one mic at the bottom.

Screen is LCD TFT of size 4 inches with 800 x 480 pixels (WVGA) resolution. Viewing angles are okay (not able to see the screen clearly from certain angles), touch is smooth and responsive. There are 3 sensors – Accelerometer, light and proximity.

Memory, OS and storage
The Micromax A091 runs on Android KitKat 4.4.2 out of the box with 512MB RAM and 4GB storage. Of the 512MB RAM, 148MB is available (on first boot) and of 4GB, 1.35GB is allocated as phone storage and 1.11GB (0.95GB free) is the space for apps.

You cannot install apps on the external storage and there is limited space of 1.35GB available on the internal storage. OTG however is supported.

Performance
The 091 is using the ARM cortex A7 Broadcom BCM23550 chipset clocked at 1.2GHz coupled with VideoCore IV HW GPU. Even with 512MB RAM the performance is pretty smooth and lag free.

Benchmark Scores

Entertainment and Camera
The Canvas Engage can play full HD videos in H/W mode using the MX player. The FHD videos in S/W mode goes out of Sync and freezes at time.

This handset comes with 5MP rear AF camera with flash and a front camera too of VGA resolution. The front camera quality is below average (not good really), but the rear camera quality is pretty good considering the price tag.

The long shots are clear and sharp and close-ups /mid shots looks very good. However if you go through the sample images you will find that on some images there are red lines clearly visible on shots especially close-ups and indoor shots. There is no option to set the megapixel resolution in the camera settings instead you get some other options (check video). You can choose from 4:3 and wide screen modes.

There are 3 modes – camera, video and panorama. The rear camera can record 720p videos, but by default it is set to record in 480p resolution and there is no option to select 720p, however if you change the aspect ratio from 4:3 to wide screen you will get the 720p option (the only option). The 720p video quality at 25fps is good, do check the sample video at the end of the review.

Gaming
As mentioned earlier there is limited internal storage space and you cannot install / move apps to external SD card. I installed the Asphalt 8 on the internal storage. Played the game at highest visual level, it was playable but you could see the frames dropping, I tried in low visual quality mode and it played very well.

Others
3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth worked well. GPS lock is almost instant and it worked indoors too. Sound is load and clear. This is a dual SIM handset and you need 2 normal SIM’s. There is one more interesting feature that I found in the settings. It’s called the Dual SIM smart On – with this option you will be able to receive calls from both the SIM’s even when any one of it is being used during a call.

You need to enable this option and setup the SIM card, what this feature basically does is forwards the call to SIM that is currently active. You need to enable call waiting and call forwarding on both the SIM’s for this to work.

1500mAh Battery
As per the company the talk time is up to 5 hours. I used the handset for 19 minutes running benchmark apps, the battery dropped by 9% and when playing the Asphalt 8 game for 20 minutes the battery dropped by 13%. I also played an HD video in a loop for 1 hour 42 minutes, the battery dropped by 38%.

When using heavy apps like playing games you can expect battery backup of up to 3 to three and a half hours and you can play HD videos using the loudspeaker with Wi-Fi on and with Auto brightness mode for over 4 hours.

Verdict
For the price of approx Rs. 6,500 the Micromax Canvas Engage A091 is a very good package. The rear camera is AF and gives a pretty good quality. Moreover the handset runs on Android Kitkat. Now between this and the Moto E, both these handsets come with some unique features, camera is better on A091. There are two more handsets in this price range / OS category the Unite 2 and the lava iris X1 would be better to check their reviews too.

Micromax A091 Canvas Engage is currently priced at Rs. 6,499.

Micromax A091 Image Gallery

Sample Images shot using A091

Front Camera Sample

Micromax A091 Canvas Engage handset and gaming review