The XOLO Q1000 Opus seemed something different. It comes powered by Quad core Broadcom BCM23550 processor running Android 4.2 over a 5 inch screen with FWVGA resolution. This is with the same GPU that powers the Samsung Galaxy S Duos 2.
Update: Xolo has rolled out an update for Q1000 Opus (2 firmware updates). The heating and Camera issues are now fixed.
Box Pack
inside the box there are a few extra surprises. You will find the handset, screen guard, a free flip cover, travel charger, 2000 mAh battery, data cable, user manual, earphone and warranty booklet. The free flip cover is of a good quality but is a bit out and not exactly glued to the back cover (check video review).
Design, Display and OS
The XOLO Opus handset is no different from other XOLO handsets. The white glossy look with the silver side gives an elegant look. Handset weigh with battery is 155 grams, thickness is 8.90mm, breadth is 72.84mm and length is 142.18mm.
The volume rockers are placed on the left, power button on the right, micro USB and Mic at the bottom and 3.5mm audio jack on the top.
The 5 inch screen with IPS display supports 854×480 pixels resolution (196ppi). Colour reproduction is good, touch is smooth and responsive. Opus runs on Android 4.2.2 (Jelly Bean). There are accelerometer, light and proximity sensors.
Memory and Storage
This dual SIM handset comes with 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage plus micro SD card slot that can add cards of up to 32GB. On first boot you will get around 611MB free RAM. 1GB is the free storage available for apps and 1.68 is the built in phone storage.
You can move / install apps on external storage. OTG is also supported.
Performance
Q1000 Opus houses a 1.2GHz Broadcom BCM23550 quad core processor with Videocore IV GPU. The performance is smooth, but I found some issues. The camera app crashed many times and most of the time the handset got heated up (when using all the cores) quickly –temperature was over 60 degrees.
Benchmark scores
- Quadrant Standard – 3748.
- AnTuTu – 13767.
- Vellamo – HTML5 crashed, Metal 517.
- Nenamark 2 – 49.8 fps
- Multi touch : 2 points.
Camera and Entertainment
The camera interface is new and looks exciting. However the app crashes a lot, especially when you are clicking close-up subjects. You can click images even when the video recording is on but the still image quality (during video recording) is not that good. Q1000 Opus camera can record videos in 720p resolution. The still image is good but video quality is below average.
The handset can play full HD videos using MX player in H/w and S/w modes.
Gaming
MC4 and Asphalt 8 played well and got installed on the external storage. The Modern combat 4 game play was smooth. Asphalt8 also played well but by default it was set to ‘very low graphics’ mode and there was one more option ‘low graphics’ mode. I played the Asphalt8 in low graphics mode.
The handset got heated up pretty fast. The temperature increased from 39 to 66 degree in just 10 minutes, which is not really good. The handset got pretty hot, I never experienced this before. I tried playing the game using power management app but the result was the same. The next day I tried playing the game again after a reboot and it did well with max temperature around 42 degrees (around 10 minutes play). I guess it was some buggy app that might have cause the temperature to rise.
Others
Sound output is good/ clear. 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth worked well and GPS with GLONASS got the first fix in less than 5 seconds. With auto brightness option the screen is hardly visible in direct sunlight, but if you change the brightness manually to max you can work.
Battery
The handset heats up a lot and when that happens it will drain the battery much faster. The 2000 mAh battery gives talk time of up to 11 hours as per the company. When running benchmark apps for around 32 minutes battery level dropped by 13% and max temperature was 41 degrees. I played some high end games for about 10 minutes and for some reason the battery dropped by 10% and max temperature was 66.8 degree.
Verdict
There are some OS issues that need to be fixed. The camera app freezes many a times and at times the handset get extremely hot. Not sure if this is the case on all the handsets or the particular one I got for the review. Probably we can expect an OS update from XOLO. But given the hardware and specifications the handset is worth for the price. Incidentally the Samsung Galaxy S duos 2 (dual core with around the same benchmark scores) is also priced around 10K and users might get attracted to it cause of brand value.
Image Gallery
Sample Images
XOLO Q1000 Opus unboxing and review
720p video shot using the Q1000 Opus handset
Opus Gaming Review
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