Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 Review: Low on Budget But Not on Performance

Canvas Xpress 2 is another budget smartphone from the house of Micromax. The Indian market is already flooded with smartphones  in 6K sub-category from smartphone manufacturers all over the world. Chinese brand such as Xiaomi already has the great presence in this category with its Redmi series. Another one is MOTO E which is a decent choice. The company has launched this smartphone with octacore processor which is unique for budget smartphones.

Beautiful design aspects that has a feel of a premium phone

 Micromax Canvas Xpress 2 comes with a jet black matte finish panel which is made of  high quality plastic with a gold rim and has a narrow bezel that add looks of a premium phone. The smartphone Canvas Xpress 2 features a CNC drilled speaker grills at the bottom edge with champagne accent around the rim. It has power and volume rockers key at the right edge of the phone.  This smartphone feels gripy, handy and light weighted in hands,comfortable to use with single hand. The phone buttons are easily accessible to both right and left handed people while holding the phone, and are quite sensitive in response.

Vivid 5-inch Display

 It has a 5-inch HD IPS display laminate with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and Oleophobic coating for Fingerprint resistance. We used the device in outdoor conditions and the good brightness level make the display content easy to see. We found the viewing angles of smartphone is quite impressive as it has no significant color shifting while tilting the display to different angles. We did lot of stuff like watching full HD videos and playing graphic intensive games on the vibrant display and we found it decent.

The phone recognizes even the slightest touch without fail. While browsing through the home screen and main menu we found it doing well in basic functionality such as contacts, messaging, and browsing. Micromax UI in budget phones of micromax is decent and good in response.

Camera that catches natural colors

Xpress 2 has a 13 MP rear and 2 Megapixel front cameras. The rear camera has auto focus and dual flash that deliver good images and HD video recording as well. Its 2 MP front camera is for selfie lovers, and even has a panorama mode for taking selfies that can include all your friends and family.

Day light image

Image taken with Beauty mode

Image taken with 2x zoom

Other modes in the camera are multi-viewing, face detection, HDR, face beauty mode, live photo mode and normal mode. There are multiple ways to capture an image such as voice capture, face detection, smile shot etc. The camera clicks good image quality even in low light,there is no lag in colors,as it catches natural colors.

Performance-Computing and Software

Canvas Xpress 2 has a hardware comprising of an Octa-core processor, 1 GB RAM, and 8 GB internal storage that’s expandable up to 32 GB. The phone gives us lag free operations in switching between multiple apps, or playing heavy games like Asphalt 8 and Dead Trigger. It performed better than many other phones in all our tests, including Antutu, Quadrant, 3DMark, and Vellamo.

Antutu: 26767

Quadrant: 11089

Vellamo: 1596

3D Mark: 3971

The bug we encountered is in camera, sometimes while using it the camera rotating option is not on the  screen. Also, sometimes the camera hangs and we were unable to see the objects in the camera. 

 The call quality is fine, and the audio from the ear-piece and the speaker unit is loud as well as every single beat can be felt.

Average battery life

The Canvas Xpress 2 has a 2500 mAh Li-polymer battery, during day-to-day usage, which includes 12 to 15 calls, continues messaging, half hour of music playback, casual gaming, navigation, browsing, etc. the smartphone lasted for a little more than 9 hours. And in our video playback test (full HD video playback on Wi-Fi at maximum sound and brightness) Canvas Xpress lasted for 4 hours, which is average.