Centric L3 First impressions: Decent budget smartphone for price conscious consumers

The domestic handset maker Priyanka Communications that operates Centric Mobiles has recently launched its affordable smartphone Centric L3 in India at Rs 6, 749.

The new smartphone comes with a dual-SIM card slot, a fingerprint sensor on the front, 4G LTE connectivity and a battery of 3,050mAh power. Centric L3 also has additional features like gesture control, HotKnot, Light, Proximity and Triaxial Acceleration sensors.

We've had a chance to play with the phone a bit and here's what we think of the new handset.

Design and Display: Plastic back with full HD display

Centric L3 is very comfortable to hold thanks to its lightweight and rounded corners. The new smartphone comes with removable back cover, dual-SIM card slots, microSD card slot, and is backed by a 3,050mAh battery unit. The smartphone sports a 13 MP rear camera and a 5 MP front camera.

The rear camera works on a 5P lens with a f/2.2 aperture and is accompanied with an LED flashlight to capture better pictures in low-light. Centric L3 also has an HD recording capability @30FPS and full HD video playback.

At the right side of the smartphone, you will find the volume rockers and textured power button while there is nothing on the left side. The headphone jack is placed at the top along with micro USB port.

Centric L3 comes with a 5-inch IPS HD OnCell display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels with 2.5D cover glass.

The display seemed quite responsive, bright, decent and viewing angles were also good. However, it is worth mentioning that Centric L3's display has the conventional 16:9 aspect ratio, which seems dated as compared to some entry-level handsets like Infocus Vision 3 and iVoomi i1 that offers 18:9 aspect ratio screens.

Camera: 13 MP rear camera and 5MP selfie

The new smartphone has 13-megapixel rear camera with f/2.2 aperture, autofocus and LED flash plus the 5-megapixel front camera for selfie lovers and for video calling.

The camera app also has face beauty mode, HDR, and Panorama.

We tested both the cameras for a brief period and found that the images clicked during the daytime come out fairly decent.

The images showed decent detailing on the 5-inch screen.We will evaluate this entry-level handset's imaging abilities in the coming week during our detailed camera review of Centric L3 on GIZBOT.

Processor and RAM: MediaTek MT6737 processor and 2GB RAM

Centric L3 is powered by a 1.3GHz Quad-Core 64-bit MediaTek MT6737 processor which is paired with 2GB of RAM. The smartphone has to fight Xiaomi Redmi 5A, which offers 2GB RAM + 16GB storage and a Snapdragon CPU at an introductory price of Rs 4,999 for the first five million units.

Centric L3 comes with 16GB storage space which can be further expanded up to 256 GB through a microSD card.

During my short span with the smartphone, I did not face any delay while opening applications and navigating through the user interface. The smartphone serves well for everyday tasks.

We will evaluate the handset's gaming, computing and multitasking performance in depth in our comprehensive review.

Battery, Software, and Connectivity: 3,050mAh battery and Android 7.0 Nougat

CENTRiC L3 packs 3,050mAh battery Li-Polymer battery and it can last for a whole day with moderate usage.

On the software front, the Centric L3 comes with the latest Android 7.0 Nougat and user interface is very near to stock, however, the company is providing inbuilt apps like Microsoft apps like word, Excel, and Powerpoint, Swiftkey, and Top Doctors Online.

On the Connectivity front, Centric L3 supports like 4G, VoLTE & ViLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and USB OTG.

Verdict

Centric L3 seems like a decent budget smartphone for price-conscious consumers. We didn't face any major issue with the smartphone in our brief usage. However, there is tough competition in the entry-level segment from smartphones like Xiaomi Redmi 5A, Moto C Plus, Infocus Vision 3, Xiaomi Redmi Y1 Lite, and Moto E4.

Stay tuned on GIZBOT for our comprehensive review of Centric L3.