Micromax YU Yureka: The Zeus of Phones Has Arrived

The last Mobile Review I wrote was about Xiaomi Mi3 and Now it’s Micromax YU Yureka, just because I haven’t found any other company coming out with something with the caliber of breaking the market, but this one is a bit different.

“Zeus of Phones Has Arrived”, The Tag Line of the company says, “YU Play God”, which itself answers the attitude of the company. The brand as well as its products aims to put the ‘user’ in control of almost every aspect of the smartphone.

YU is a new brand launched by Micromax in partnership with Cynogen OS, the commercial variant of the Android-based operating system popular with the 'hacker' community, that loves being in control of their devices. As Lava achieved great success with the Xolo brand it launched in 2012, And Xiaomi thrashed Indian Market with its only brand Mi, Micromax is trying to follow the same path. You'll find no mention of Lava in Xolo's marketing material, and Micromax is going down the same route with Yu.

The Yu Yureka runs on a custom-build of Cyanogen OS, Cyanogen OS 11/Android KitKat 4.4.4 an Android 5.0 Lollipop-based build is promised. What Rahul Sharma, co-founder of Micromax, calls the "temple of customisation" and "Android on steroids". With YU Yureka Users can entirely change the look of the phone by even editing the themes available in the store. Changing elements like icons, fonts, and even boot screen animations to suit their moods. This is similar to what Xolo has done with its Hive UI, but Micromax goes a step further.

One of the standout features of the Cyanogen OS, that we've been wishing for years Google would add to Android - privacy controls on the Cyanogen OS let you edit permissions of every app. What’s the point behind a photo editing app asking access to your call logs. In a usual Android you can either agree to install the app or reject it, but with Cynogen OS you can install the app and restrict its access to your call logs. Similarly, you can do this for other apps as well, and use them in the most legitimate way that suits you.

Other new software features like supporting 24-bit high-resolution lossless audio, support for slow-motion video @ 60fps (with the promise of 120fps video via a software update). YU will delight the developer / hacker youth community with the Yureka by offering features like unlockable bootloader, availability of kernel source and full Android build tree. In addition, most importantly Micromax will not void the warranty, in case anyone entirely roots the Yu Yureka. Also, they are offering 1 Year free onsite warranty, which is new in the smartphone market.

Well, its a Dual Sim 4G phone with slots for Micro-SIM cards (4G+3G). The smartphone notably also features 4G LTE connectivity with up to 150Mbps download speeds and 50Mbps upload speeds, apart from Band 40 and Band 3 support.

While the software features are outstanding, YU Yureka, has the required hardware to support such features. At a jaw dropping price of 8,999 phone offers a 5.5-inch IPS display, with a pixel density of 267ppi, with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for better protection against scratches. The rear includes a 13MP Sony Exmor CMOS sensor camera with a f2.2 aperture and flash for better low-light photography. In addition, there’s 5MP front camera that has a 80 degree wide angle lens. Micromax’s Yureka runs on a 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset with a 1.5GHz octa-core processor, an Adreno 405 GPU, 16GB of inbuilt storage expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB), and a 2500mAh Li-Po battery. 

With a surprising price tag, the phone “is as good as it sounds”. HTC Desire 820 supports similar specifications and is priced at around 2.5 times its price. Undoubtedly Micromax is inspired by Xiaomi that's been selling devices at a discount compared to ones with similar specifications. The Yu Yureka will be sold via the flash sale model made infamous by Xiaomi, where customers will need to pre-register at Amazon India and then compete with each other to complete the purchase. The Phone will be sold only on Amazon India on 13 Jan on from 2 pm for which one has to Pre register on Amazon by 25 December. 

Few mismanagement and glitches have been recorded into the registration procedure, Well, that more or less seems like a Publicity Campaign now a days. Also, Micromax has signed an exclusive partnership with Cyanogen to be the only seller of Cyanogen smartphones in India. It recently filed a lawsuit against OnePlus for allegedly infringing upon its exclusive rights over Cyanogen OS and now OnePlus has been banned from selling CyanogenMod OS phones. The Chinese company has now told the Delhi HC that its version of CyanogenMod is different from the one on Micromax.

Rahul Sharma, did not answer queries on how many units will be made available for the first and subsequent sales, although he admitted that it would take them some time to ensure smooth stock for this phone. Hope Micromax will get more open about how many Yureka smartphones will be up for grabs in each flash sale closer to the date, So it's not a case of lakhs of people competing to buy a handful of units.

Co-founders of Cyanogen Inc, Kirt McMaster and Steve Kondik, appeared at the event via webcast, and spoke about their motivation for creating CyanogenMod, wanting to "modify and change Android". McMaster said there was a "level of stagnation in the smartphone market ever since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, where the predominant mobile paradigm was to swipe, tap, and open an app." He explained how Cyanogen set out to defeat that paradigm. He added that the partnership will see the company bring a number of global and local services to Cyanogen in India, which he described as the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, "There's a battle being fought in India, and Cyanogen+Yu, we intend to win that battle."

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