Micromax Canvas Fire A104 review – with dual front speakers

The Micromax A104 Canvas Fire comes with a pretty good hardware but when you go through the specifications the A104 will hardly impress you. This dual SIM handset is priced at Rs. 6,899 and not really a good option, read the review to find out.

Box Pack
This Canvas Fire comes in a very attractive box pack. Handset is available in Golden / White and Golden / Black colour options. It is called fire because of dual firing speaker’s (two front speakers). The SAR value as mentioned on the box : 0.38W/kg (Head) and 0.41W/kg (Body).

Inside the box you will find the handset, travel charger, data cable, screen guard, user manual / download goodies / warranty card, standard earphone and battery of 1900 mAh capacity.

Operating System, Design and Display
The good part is that the Micromax Canvas Fire A104 runs KitKat Android 4.4.2 out of the box. As far as the design is concerned it looks good but when you hold the handset in your hand you are not going to like it, it is bulky and not at all slim.

Handset weight with battery is 163 grams and dimensions are 67.36 x 135.86 x 9.84 mm. The rear and the font are with glossy finishing. The sides are golden colour, looks good however if the handset was a little slimmer it would have felt better.

There are dual speaker on the front. If you look closely the speaker vents are not properly aligned (check video review). I think on the white handset the vents are clearly visible but on the back handset it will blend well.

Micro USB and 3.5mm audio jacks are placed on the top. Volume rockers and power button are on the right and there is a mic at the bottom. This is a dual SIM handset. The SIM 1 is normal SIM and SIM 2 is micro SIM. There is a micro SD card slot too.

This handset comes with a 4.5 inch screen with FWVGA i.e. 854 x 480 pixels resolution. Viewing angles are okay, touch is smooth and responsive. Colour reproduction also looks good.

There are just 2 sensors – Accelerometer and proximity. Light sensor is missing.

Memory and Storage
The A104 comes with 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage with micro SD card support of up to 32GB. Of the 1GB RAM, 633MB is available on the first boot. There is 0.89GB space for apps (694MB free) and 1.53GB space for phone storage. OTG is not supported. You can install some of the apps on external storage.

Performance
It is using the well known MediaTek MT6582 quad core chipset clocked at 1.3GHz with Mali 400 MP GPU. Performance is smooth. This hardware is used on many other handsets.

Benchmark scores

Gaming and Entertainment
The handset can play 1080p videos. I installed the MC4 and the Asphalt 8 on the external storage. Both games played smooth. In MC4 you do see a lag sometimes but it is playable. Asphalt 8 worked in high visual quality mode. Many of the high end games will work with ease.

Camera
There is 1.3MP front camera and 5MP rear camera. The camera quality is good. You can record 1080p videos, the video quality is also decent enough. There is LED flash but it doesn’t really help.

Others
There are dual speaker on the front and hence the sound is pretty loud. In call sound is also good. 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth worked well without any issues.

Battery
There is 1900 mAh removable battery. Here is the A104 battery performance.

You can expect battery backup of 5 to 7 hours with continuous low to moderate usage and when playing games / using heavy apps expect backup time of up to 3 hours.

Verdict
The A104 as mentioned comes with very good hardware (MediaTek quad core 1.3GHz). The handset weighs more and is not that slim, the design makes it look even bulkier. Light sensors are missing. The Micromax Unite 2 is better option that this, it is a little slimmer and light weight. The price is almost the same.

Micromax A104 current price is Rs. 6,990.

A104 image gallery