Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

By Vijaykumar
|

Micromax's subsidiary Yu Televentures unveiled its first flagship smartphone, called Yutopia, after weeks of teasing it on various platforms. The company calls Yutopia to be the most powerful smartphone priced aggressively to fit users' pocket.

 

Rating:
3.0/5

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

As promised, Yutopia does boast heavy specs that include metal design, 2K display, 4GB RAM, 21MP camera, fingerprint scanner, Android-based Cyanogen OS and more, which are usually seen on top of the line smartphones from top brands like Samsung, Apple, LG, Google Nexus and more.

 

With all the heavy specs, the smartphone has certainly got right ingredients, but how will it come together, in the end, let's find out. Here is our review for Yu Yutopia have a look.

Design and Built

Yu Yutopia is all metal unibody design, according to the company it has used aircraft graded aluminum, which does give it a premium look and feel, however, it does not exactly stand out from the crowd.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

Yu has used a similar design language in all of their products, and the Yutopia is no different. It has the resemblance of its previously launched budget siblings, but with a better feel. The phone is slim at 7.2 mm, and is light on hand, and sits comfortably on hand and offers strong grip.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The Yutopia has rounded corners around the edges and it keeps the same ring-style feature on the camera on the back and a fingerprint scanner placed below the camera. You can see a 3.5mm headphone jack in the center on the top edge, and the speaker grill section at the base on the rear side.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The front is dominated by an excellent 5.2-inch Quad HD IPS display. You can also see the three soft keys at the base, a front-facing camera on top. On the left-hand side, there is a hybrid SIM card slot, which takes in a micro SIM and nano SIM card. The right side has volume rockers and power button, which can be reached easily for single handed operation. Overall, the Yutopia is a superb looking smartphone, with a well built and great for single handed usage.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

Display

Speaking of its display, the Yutoipa has a 5.2-inch QHD display with 2K resolution (2560x1440 pixels) with an impressive 565ppi pixel density. The QHD display looks nice with good color reproduction, and viewing angles, however, it is usually battery hogging. Unlike most smartphones that come with a bigger display, the Yutopia's smaller screen makes it more comfortable in the hand.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The display comes with Corning Concore Glass for protection on top. Color reproduction and viewing angles are very good and the sunlight readability is quite impressive, thanks to some software tricks working behind.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

Performance

The company has claimed that the Yu Yutopia is the most powerful phone ever. With Snapdragon 810 SoC and 4GB RAM, there is a lot expected from the performance. The Yutopia does deliver, but not all the time. On Antutu benchmark test, the phone scores 69581, which is below all the top flagships of this year.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The phone warms up pretty fast even with some simple tasks and get really hot around the rear camera area especially when gaming, using the camera, watching videos or when using heavy apps. However, gaming was quite smooth. We managed to play Asphalt Nitro without any sort of shutter or lagging. But, the phone well gets warm, unfortunately, this issues are unavoidable, especially when the Snapdragon 810 is prone to heating.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

Notably, the 2K display looks awesome while playing a game and watching high-resolution videos, reproduction vibrant colors, and deep black.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The audio speakers on the phone failed to impress. But Yu Yutopia comes bundled with the Little Bird headset from House of Marley, which provides a wonderful audio experience. The headphones provided excellent ambient noise isolation and produce great sound.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The fingerprint scanner on the Yu Yutopia is something which really needs improvement. While it is easy to set-up, but there were several instance, we literally place the finger in multiple positions to unlock. And ended up using the pattern unlocking. When it comes to unlocking the phone using fingerprint, it is surely nowhere close to the flagship smartphones such as Google Nexus 6P, OnePlus 2 and more.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

Camera

The Yutopia is packed with 21-megapixel Sony IMX230 sensor rear camera and an 8-megapixel on the front. The camera comes with phase-detect autofocus system, Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and both the cameras you have a f/2.2 aperture lens.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The camera app user interface is similar to the Cyanogen OS interface, that we have seen on the Yu Yureka and the OnePlus One. The camera app offers a good mix of auto and manual controls. You swipe up or down on the camera app screen to cycle between shooting modes such as Auto, HDR, ChromaFlash, OptiZoom, Action, Night and Steady Photo. While the option for flash, front camera, white balance and more shooting controls are placed in front for easy access.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The autofocus in the 21-megapixel rear camera is fast and it works great if you are taking close-up shots. The daylight images are quite good packed with details. While the HDR mode is disappointing, instead we preferred shooting in Auto mode. The selfie snapper is good, but not as sharp as the rear camera. The front camera produces fairly detailed selfies, both outdoors and indoors.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

In terms of video, the Yutopia is capable of shooting 4K UHD videos, HD videos at 60fps and slow motion HD videos at 120fps. Videos are quite good for casual shooting in daylight, but it struggles to focus in low light. However, the OIS managed to get smooth video. Overall, the camera performance of the Yu Yutopia is quite good.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

User Interface

The Yutopia runs on Cyanogen OS 12.1 based on Android Lollipop 5.1.1 and is expected to get Marshmallow-based update sometime this year. The interface is better but does not feel smooth. However, the beauty of Cyanogen is the ability of customization that offers the additional features integrated into stock Android apps. You have an option from a theme pack to customization individual components like icons, status bar and more.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

The phone comes with Yu's brand new software service called Around Yu. It is one giant integrated service platform. You can shop, browse through services like flights, train, or book a cab and do much more. In addition to this, there is a YUniverse - a file manager and a screencast app, which is customized Opera Turbo for the Yutopia.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

Battery Life

The Yu Yutopia is packed with 3,000mAh non-removable battery. The handset gives around 9 to 10 hours of usage on a regular day of usage involving a camera, calling, messaging, streaming video, surfing the web and music. The phone also packed with Quick Charging 2.0, which charge the device from 0 to 40 percent in less than 30 minutes.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

Verdict

The Yu Yutopia is certainly not a bad effort at all as the first-time flagship. The smartphone has some great qualities like 2K display, a very good build quality and finish, quick charging, great multimedia and service integration. The 2K display is great, makes it ideal for watching videos and the 21-megapixel rear camera does a decent job. However, the chipset and the fingerprint scanner in the device is a bit of hit-or-miss affair.

Yu Yutopia Review: A Specs-Heavy Phone with Some Shortcomings!

However, the device seems to have improvements and hope the company will release the update in the coming days to fix it. At the price tag of around Rs. 25,000, the OnePlus 2 is still a good option. But, one can also consider the Google Nexus 5X which got a price cut, offering a pure Android 6.0 experience.

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