Micromax seems to have picked up its momentum with the launch of the Canvas Flagship, the Micromax Canvas 5 E481. The Canvas series from the Indian phone-maker has been offering pretty decent specs at pocket friendly prices since a long time. But with foreign phone makers, providing high specs at very affordable prices, the company needed to come up with something very nice. The Canvas E481 with its beautifully curved front glass and leather touch aims to please. But will it survive against the Korean giant’s first ever metal phone, namely the Samsung Galaxy A5? Let’s find out.
Micromax Canvas 5 E481 vs Samsung A5
Design
The Micromax Canvas 5 E481 is carved out of metal and features a soft touch leather finish which is essentially made from plastic and is quite flexible. The device has metal edges on the sides and a 5.2 inch curved 2.5D screen which gives it a unibody appeal. So there is no arguing that it oozes premium looks. Design-wise Samsung has gone very clean and minimalist with the Galaxy A5. The white-painted metal frame is precision cut and has no protruding corners along its length. The metal frame is chamfered at the edges allowing for a sharp, edgy feel in the hand and the corners at each end are ever so slightly rounded, although not taking away from the square feel and look of the handset. It is also the first Samsung smartphone with a full metal body.
The Canvas E481 is available in Slate Grey and Tan Brown. The Galaxy A5 on the other hand can be seen in 6 enticing colour variants, Pearl White, Midnight Black, Platinum, Silver, Soft Pink, Light Blue and Champagne Gold.
Display and OS
The Micromax Canvas 5 E481 comes with 5.2-inch curved 2.5D FHD IPS LCD display having a pixel density of 423 PPI. The Samsung Galaxy A5 sports a 5-inch HD Super AMOLED display with a pixel density of 294 PPI. Both the devices, offer protection against scratches by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Software-wise, the Micromax Canvas E481 runs Android v5.1 (Lollipop). While the Galaxy A5 disappoints with its Android v4.4.4 (KitKat) OS. Though Samsung is currently rolling out an update for this phone so this issue should be solved over the coming weeks.
Configuration
Coming to the configuration part, the Micromax Canvas 5 E481 nestles a1.3GHz octa-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6753 processor paired with a 450MHz Mali-T720 GPU. There’s also 3GB of DDR3 RAM thrown in for good measure that guarantees that multitasking isn’t something you’ll have reason to be concerned about. The Galaxy A5 utilizes a 1.2GHz quad-core 64-bit Snapdragon 410 processor with 2GB of RAM. An Adreno 306 GPU takes care of graphical needs pretty well. Both the devices harbor 16GB of internal memory with addition to microSD card slots to expand the storage upto a maximum of 64GB.
Camera
The Micromax Canvas 5 E481 and Samsung Galaxy A5, both offer similar camera specifications. Both have 13MP rear shooters accompanied by LED flash and 5MP front facing snappers. The Micromax has added an LED flash to the selfie camera to perk up your selfies. Both the phones come with camera features like Auto Flash, Exposure compensation, Face detection, Geo tagging, High Dynamic Range mode (HDR), ISO control, Touch to focus, White balance presets etc. The presence of the famous CMOS lens makes the A5 capture better pictures as compared to the Canvas E481. Even in low light conditions, the phone focuses well and produces pictures that suffer from very little noise as compared to those of the Canvas E481. Both the devices can shoot full HD videos at 30fps.
Connectivity and Battery
Connectivity features of the Micromax Canvas E481 and Samsung Galaxy A5 are quite similar, and includes 4G LTE support, 3G, dual-SIM slots, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, MicroUSB 2.0, USB port, etc. The A5 also comes with NFC and GLONASS. The Canvas E481 is packed with 2,900 mAh Lithium-ion battery providing you a decent battery backup. On normal usage, you can expect a battery backup of 10-12 hours, whereas on heavy usage Canvas 5 is supposed to give 3-4 hours of backup. The Galaxy A5 on the other hand is fuelled by a much smaller 2,300mAh battery which is very deceptive. With the help of its two useful power saving modes, namely– Power Saving and Ultra Power Saving, the battery can cater for a full day usage. Power saving can be used to restrict background data and certain power-hungry apps, whereas Ultra mode limits your app usage.
Conclusion
With the Galaxy A5, Samsung has finally done something to perk up its traditional looks and has set a great example of a quality handset at such a price range. But Micromax is nowhere far, with the launch of its Canvas 5 E481. Both the phones offer good specifications, so it is really hard to choose. The Samsung seems to lag behind a little in terms of performance, with a meagre quad-core processor, whereas the Canvas 5 E481 focused on speedy performance. Leaving out the average performance part, Samsung has covered other areas with efficiency. If you are one of those who likes to multi-task, then the E481 is your soul mate. Sd for shutterbugs, grab your Galaxy A5’s as soon as possible.
