Micromax and Cyanogen together launched a new brand called YU. Here is the YU Yureka review that many of you were waiting for. I got the review unit a bit late, but finally I got it. Yureka is powered by qualcomm Snapdragon 64 bit octa core processor, 4G supported, running Cyanogen 11 with 2GB RAM all this for a price of just Rs. 8,999.
Box Pack
It is sleek box pack – inside you will find the handset, 2500 mAh battery, good quality ear phone, data cable, travel charger, user manual and warranty card.
Design, Display and OS
The handset weight is 151 grams with battery and dimensions are 78.16 x 154.90 x 8.25 (mm). It is big and got a good built quality and finishing. The back panel has got a nice texture that feels really good, smooth to touch and gives a very good grip. Back cover covers up almost 80% of the handset.
There are no sharp edges on the Yureka; side are curvy. The back panel is flat and the speaker out vent on the back will get blocked when placed on a flat surface. Power button is on the right, volume rocker on the left, 3.5mm audio jack on the top and micro USB at the bottom.
There are dual mics for noise cancellation. Dedicated touch sensitive navigation buttons looks great. There is LED notification and 4 sensors – accelerometer, Gyro, proximity and light. Yureka is a dual SIM handset (micro SIM slots) with 4G support.
The 5.5 inch touch screen is with gorilla glass 3 protection, supporting 1280 x 720 pixels resolution (267 ppi). Colour reproduction, viewing angle are good. Touch is very smooth and responsive.
The YU Yureka runs Cyanogen 11 OS out of the box. It is a popular OS worldwide that is based on Android 4.4.4. You can also expect regular updates.
Memory and Storage
The handset is packed with a good 2GB RAM, 16GB storage and micro SD slot that supports up to 32GB external cards. Of the 16GB users will get about 13GB space for apps and for their personal storage space. On the first boot you will get about 1.3GB free RAM.
OTG is supported. Apps by default will install on the internal storage. There is no option to move apps installed on internal storage to external storage.
Performance
The handset houses the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 64 bit octa core chipset (1.5GHz cortex A53 quad core + 1GHz cortex A53 quad core) coupled with Adreno 405 GPU. The performance is very smooth, lag free and the Cyanogen OS is the icing on the cake.
Benchmark
| App | Result |
| Quadrant | 18194 |
| Antutu | 31428 / 30517 |
| Vellamo | Metal (947) Multi core (1169) Browser (2318) |
| Nenamark 2 | 55.0 fps |
| Multi Touch | 5 point |
Gaming
I downloaded Asphalt 8, it got installed on the internal storage. I played the game in highest visual quality mode and it performed really well. No issues found – check video review at the end.
Camera
There is 13.1 MP auto focus camera on the rear and a 5MP fixed focus on the front. LED flash light when shooting images / videos is not that effective. Still camera quality is average and video quality is very good, above average. Rear camera can shoot 1080p videos at 30fps and if you change the resolution to 720p you can even shoot slow motion videos at 60fps.
Camera resolution is 13.1 in 4:3 aspect ratio and surprisingly in 16:9 aspect ratio the max resolution is 2.1 MP.
To change the camera mode you will need to swipe from top to bottom on the screen when using the camera application. Focusing is pretty fast. The camera auto mode is not properly optimized as a result you will get slightly over exposed shots outdoors and grainy shots indoors.
Go manual and you will see better results. Check the sample images at the end using auto mode and here are some similar images shot using different exposure modes, just to give you an idea about the difference it makes.
Others
The handset does get heated up. The max temperature I encountered was when I was shooting the images / videos outdoor – the temp went up to 45 degrees.
As mentioned the handset is big and in most cases users will be holding the handset in such a way that their fingers will be touching the area under the YU logo on the back. You will feel the heat-up if your fingers are touching the area above the logo – in the same line next to the camera module.
No issues with 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS (got first lock instantly) and Bluetooth. Could not test 4G as it is not available in my area. Call quality is good. Speaker sound is average (good enough), not very high not very low – check the video review.
When you connect OTG pendrive the LED keeps glowing.
Handset supports off-screen gestures you can double tab to wake up the screen.
Battery
There is 2500 mAh battery that should give 4 to 5 hours of continuous moderate to heavy usage.
| Task | Time | Battery drop (%) (max temp) |
| Running Benchmark apps | 24 minutes | 9% (38) |
| FHD video playback with Wi-Fi on + full brightness | 16 minutes | 5% (35) |
| Asphalt 8 Game Play | 15 minutes | 6% (38) |
| Full Wall Charge | 3 hours 16 minutes | 1% to 100% |
As per my daily usage I am getting over 24 hours of normal to moderate usage on a single charge.
Verdict
The YU Yureka is no doubt a very good option with 4G support. I did not find any such major issues. For this price the camera quality is good and the overall performance is excellent (it’s snapdragon octa core with highly customizable cyanogen OS). Battery backup is decent enough depending on your usage.
For the price tag of Rs. 8,999 you can definitely – PLAY GOD!.
Yureka is exclusively available on Amazon.in for Rs. 8,999.
Image Gallery
Sample Images shot using rear camera
Sample Images shot using Front camera