Indian smartphone maker iBall has launched a budget Android smartphone mSLR Cobalt 4, which comes with an interesting concept. In addition to high resolution lenses that come fitted as integral parts of the body, mSLR Cobalt 4 bundles three extra lenses for different photography needs.
Offered in India for just ₹ 8,499, the iBall smartphone will be available across the country within a few weeks. It will compete with the popular budget smartphones in the market, including Yu Yuphoria, Lenovo A7000, Huawei Honor 4C and Xiaomi Mi 4i.
IB Times-India received the review unit of mSLR Cobalt4 on Friday and here is our first impression about the smartphone.
The handset comes along with the USB Cable, charger, earphones, three lenses and a clip to fix them on the phone. The clip fixes the external lenses on the rear camera to make sure that it does not move while clicking.
The clip has a screw mount on one side, while the other side has a rubber casing to ensure that the screen does not get damaged.
Of the three additional lenses, the telephoto lens offers 8X optical zooming and can capture subjects well within a distance from 3m to 24m. Another lens, the fisheye lens has 180 degree viewing angle, while the third one, a wide angle lens, can capture subjects up to 0.65X wide.
The extra lenses come with a front cap for protection from dust, fungus, fingerprints and smudge. However, iBall forgot to feature a similar lens cap for the back. So you need to replace and carry the lenses carefully.
mSLR Cobalt 4 features good built quality with polycarbonate rear and glass front with a metallic bronze strip on both the sides. The curvy rear of the smartphone feels comfortable and looks stylish in hand.
The phone features a 5-inch, 540x960 resolution display and runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat OS. It is powered by an octa-core processor, backed with 1GB RAM. It offers 8GB internal storage, actually offering 3.5GB to the user, expandable by up to 32GB.
The phone houses an 8mp rear camera on board with a dual-LED flash and autofocus, while on the front it packs a 3.2mp front-facing shooter with a soft LED flash for high quality selfies.
The handset feels nice to use, while the interface and camera app are quite similar to the stock Android KitKat. However, it looks a bit outdated even as iBall has added all the necessary filters and modes, like beautification and live photo mode.
After mounting an additional lens on the phone, you need to control the camera from the app itself as telephoto and wide angle lenses do not offer any adjustable feature. The telephoto lens offers a control ring, but on operating it the clip starts moving.
At the same time, the stock camera app offers fine control after attaching any of the lenses. Though we clicked a few pictures, we will elaborate its quality in the final review.
mSLR Cobalt 4 is a bold step by iBall in the higly competitive budget smartphones market. It is decent in use and focuses well on the USP of the phone. But if iBall is serious about the smartphone business, it needs to focus on interface and feature the latest operating system on its future handsets.
