Introduction
The new smartphone Black 1X is the second smartphone in it's smartphone series Black. This device has a upgraded specs with newer chipset than the previous Black but priced lower than it at Rs.9999. This device Black 1X might look little bit small with 5" display compared to Black's 5.5" display but still having the high resolution of 1080p. This phone is very light and it is only 127 grams
Key features
Mediatek MT-6573 Octa core cortex A53 clocked at 1.3GHz
Dual sim (one nano and other is nano hybrid)
3 GB LPDDR3 RAM
5" 1080p display
32GB internal storage and expandable upto 128GB. USB OTG is supported
13 MP rear camera with LED flash (uses samsung isocell sensor used in note 3). video is taken at 1080p.
5MP front camera with flash
2400 Li-po non removable battery
Design and build quality
The build of this phone is very good. The design looks similar to the XOLO 8x-1000 with glass in back. As said this phone has glass in back with no protection but the front comes with dragontail protection. The sides of this phones are metal finishing and on the top and bottom it has leather. There is xolo branding at the back of the device.
There are volume rockers on the left side of the phone and power button is also in the left side of the phone just below the volume rockers. the volume buttons are nicely placed and are easily noticeable but the power button is kept at the same margin as the side metal, so it might be hard for new users but soon as soon as you start using the device you will get used to it. On the bottom you have the Micro USB port and the primary microphone. On the top there is 3.5 mm audio jack for headphones.
Camera
The phone comes with 13 MP rear camera with samsung isocell sensor used in note 3. The camera is very good in bright light conditions. The image comes out with good sharpness and less noise. The colours are natural. Here are some shots taken by this camera in moving train. But in low light conditions the camera performance is little bit lower and comes out with noise which xolo claims to be improved in upcoming updates. I was comparing Black 1X camera with Mi3 and the camera of Black 1X beats Mi3 but not the Mi4i. So you can say the camera performance is between Mi3 and Mi4i. The front camera is 5MP camera with flash. The front camera is not so good but it is decent and the flash helps a bit for good images. The camera interface is basic mediatek camera interface unlike the previous Hive interface in Black. But it comes with modes like mono, sepia etc. Also you have panorama and photosphere options. And you have the HDR mode which is very useful.
Images clicked with camera
Display
It has a 5" 1080p display which is sharp and viewing angles are very good. colour reproduction is good but not great. The display has a slight yellowish tint. It comes with mediatek miravision. MiraVision is equipped with specific features that enable users to enjoy DTV-grade display picture quality on their mobile devices. With MiraVision, contents will be displayed more vivid and saturated with more details, providing a far richer and more colorful viewing experience previously only available on a high-end DTV. Miravision comes with options like standard, vivid and usermode. Usermode is helpful and it helps a lot in making the display according to the user's needs
Benchmarks
I ran benchmarks for 3 times and got an antutu score of 33865 and it got 54.4fps in nenamark 2 and 16281 in Quadrant
User Interface
The Black 1X comes with Hive Atlas based on android 5.1. Unlike the previous Black, Hive atlas in Black 1X is AOSP with some hive features. The four main Hive features include Edge, fusion x, Secure and connect. The other Hive apps are comet browser which is a collaboration with opera, Fusion x which is a music player developed by Hive team and underground where you can hide your apps.
Edge : Edge is a theming engine for Black 1x where you can download various themes available in the Edge and apply them. You can also download wallpapers from there. Also we found some feature in edge that we can apply supported icon packs where you have to download it from the edge through playstore and apply to the launcher through edge app.
Secure : secure is a app developed by Hive team where you have to login into it with your google account and it keeps track of you. Once you enabled secure app if your phone is lost you can remotely lock and erase the data on your phone. Also you can provide two hero numbers and if your phone is lost and you can send a message from hero number and secure wil track your device and will send you the location every 30 minutes with the help of that you can get your device back. To mention one of the 8x-1000 user got his stolen device back using secure app.
Fusion x : Fusion x is a ,usic player developed by Hive team. But the fusion x that was in Hive 1.0 is totally different from the fusion x in atlas. unlike fusion x in Hive 1.0 which ate lot of battery forcing users to keep it disabled, fusion x in Hive atlas take very less battery but gives great music experience.
Connect : Connect is a app which allows users to connect them to official Hive forums where people can give suggestions, report bugs suggest new features, connect with developers and Hive team. Connect is a platform which allows users to interact each other and with Hive team.
Microphone and Sound
The Black 1x comes with a primary microphone at the bottom and there s no noise cancellation microphone. It has two speaker grills in the bottom but the one in left side is only the speaker and the other one is for design. The loudspeaker volume is audible and good but not the great. The headphone volume is also good and the quality of audio in headphones are very good. I found that both headphone volume levels and the loudspeaker volume levels are kept low which can be increased easily through engineer mode.
Battery
Black 1X comes with 2400 Li-po non removable battery. Some think non removable battery is a issue in case if the device gets hanged but it is not a isuse at all. Press the power button for 8 seconds and the phone will restart. I have done only basic tests with battery and haven't done extensive battery testing. As per my testing you should get 4.5-5 hours of on screen in wifi and 3.5-4 hours of on screen with 3G usage. My battery usage here is little less because I have ran many benchmark tests
My testing with wifi usage
