The Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 was recently launched in India and what made it attractive was the octa core processor with a price tag of ₹5,999. An octa core for under ₹6K sounds attractive, but is this handset really worth it? Read the full review.
Xpress 2 unboxing
Inside the box you will find the Xpress 2 handset (Model E313), screen guard, user guide, warranty card, data cable, travel charger (5v ~ 1.5A), earphone and battery of 2500 mAh capacity. SAR value as mentioned on the box : 0.54 W/kg @ 1g (head) and 0.48 W/kg @ 1g (body).
Design and Display
The Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 looks really cool. I bought the Black and Champagne colour variant, the colour combination worked really well giving it a very royal look. On top of it the build quality and finishing is very good.
Weight with battery is 135 grams and dimensions are 69.62 x 140.25 x 9.16 (mm). Body is made of plastic and rear side is with a matte finish, soft to touch and non-slippery. The back is flat by curvier on the side, handset is comfortable to hold.
Power button + volume rocker is placed on the right side, audio jack on the top and micro USB port at the bottom. There are dual mics for noise cancellation. There is a single speaker and the speaker vent is located at the bottom along with USB port.
The Xpress 2 E313 sports a 5 inch screen (HD IPS) supporting 1280 x 720 pixels, with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. Colour reproduction, viewing angles are good. Touch response is very good.
This is a dual SIM handset – there are 2 micro SIM slots. Both the slot supports 3G. There is LED notification and native video calling is supported. There are good number of sensors accelerometer, proximity, light, gyro and magnetic – usually you don’t find so many sensors on a Micromax handset, specially on smartphones priced under ₹8k.
Memory, storage and OS
The Xpress 2 comes packed with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage along with micro SD card slot. On the first boot you will get around 4.1GB free storage space and 502MB free RAM. Apps by default are getting installed on internal storage and there is no option to move them to external SD card. OTG works, you can connect external pen drives.
Canvas Xpress 2 E313 is running Android KitKat 4.4.2 out of the box. Though on the box it is mentioned that the handset is upgradable to Android Lollipop, I am not sure how much time that will take.
Performance and Benchmark
Though this handset is octa core powered it is using the 32 bit MediaTek MT6592 1.4GHz cortex A7 chipset (kind of outdated) coupled with Mali 450 MP GPU. Performance is smooth, lag free and handset heat up is normal (max battery temp I encountered was 41 degrees).
Benchmark
| Benchmark App | Score |
| Quadrant | 11603 |
| Antutu (32 bit) | 1st – 27307 , 2nd – 27475 |
| Nenamark 2 | 58.6fps |
| Multi touch | 10 point |
Gaming
I played Asphalt 8, in high visual quality mode. It was playable but was smoother in Medium quality mode – even gaming controls were better. Hardware is powerful but since apps/ games are getting installed on the internal storage you will run out of free space.
Camera
A 13MP AF camera with flash is packed on the rear and a 2MP camera on the front. Rear camera can shoot FHD videos. Camera quality is above average however it takes time focusing the subject and not able to focus near close up objects that many smartphones can. Do check the sample images and videos at the end of this review.
Others
Sound quality is good but sound volume is slightly lower than when compared with other smartphones, but good enough. In-call sound clarity is also pretty good. No issues found with 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. GPS lock was pretty fast (under 10 seconds).
The handset comes pre-loaded with many apps you can remove them if needed.
Battery
The 2500 mAh battery does a good job. I faced battery calibration issue. The % drop was faster at higher battery level and much slower at lower levels. For my daily mixed usage the handset easily lasted for almost one and a half day.
| Performance | Time | Battery drop % | Battery Max Temp |
| Benchmark | 13 Minutes | 8% | 35 degree |
| Gaming (Asphalt 8) | 20 Minutes | 12% | 40 degree |
| FHD movie play with full brightness + Wi-Fi on | 32 minutes | 19% | 41 degree |
| Wall Charge (on standby) | 3 hours 5 minutes | 4% to 100% (wall charge) | 35 degree |
Verdict
No doubt the Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 is a very good handset for the price but it is not the best. It comes with outdated specs (32 bit hardware) and outdated Kitkat (32 bit software), but still very good for price tag of ₹5,999. Also do note the Xpress 2 comes with 3G / 2G support only – 4G is not supported.
If you are looking for something latest then better invest in smartphone with 64 bit hardware with 4G support – the price difference is not much. But in case you are happy with 3G then the Xpress 2 is a very good option.
Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 is available on Flipkart for ₹5,999.
Xpress 2 Image Gallery
Rear camera sample
Front camera sample
Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 video review