itel S42 First Impressions: Android Oreo and big-screen experience at budget price-point

Sleek and Sturdy design

itel S42 might not win the beauty pageant but it surely catches the attention with its sleek all metal build. With its curved edges and rounded corner, the smartphone comfortably fits in one hand and also feels quite sturdy. At the front of the device is a 5.65-inch 18:9 display with some noticeable bezels on top and bottom. The top of the display has a 13MP selfie camera accompanied by the LED flash light.

The back panel of the smartphone has been given a brushed metal finish and houses a conveniently positioned fingerprint sensor. The 13MP rear camera is placed alongside a LED flash light. The power button and the volume rockers are positioned on the right side of the device while the left side houses the hybrid SIM card slot. You will find the 3.5mm headphone jack at the top of the smartphone, while the micro USB charging port rests at the bottom of the device with two speaker grilles.

Overall, itel S42 is a sleek and sturdy budget Android smartphone that is also comfortable to use with one hand.

Big and sharp HD+ screen

Most of the smartphones priced around Rs. 10,000 have started to offer 1080p screens; but itel S42 still sports a 720p resolution display. However, the screen on itel S42 is quite impressive and will not give you any major reasons to complain. The 5.65-inch display with HD+ resolution punches vibrant colours and offers crisp content even under challenging lighting conditions. You also get a Blue-light filter mode to offer comfortable viewing experience in absence of light. The HD+ screen is also protected by a 2.5D curved glass to prevent damage from scratches.

Qualcomm CPU and Android 8.0 Oreo

itel has managed to offer the latest Android flavor and Qualcomm's entry-level chipset with the budget smartphone. itel S42 is backed by 64-bit quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset, which is paired with 3GB of RAM to handle multitasking. The combination is more than enough to offer a lag-free everyday performance.

In our short testing period, the Oreo (Android 8.0) ran smoothly and the S42 also handled multiple apps without breaking a sweat. The smartphone can also handle light games and photo-editing apps without any performance slowdown. The 16GB internal storage can be expanded further by up to 128 GB with the help of microSD card.

13MP front and rear cameras

The new itel S42 features 13MP camera sensors on front and rear. Both cameras are accompanied by dedicated dual LED flash lights to offer better results in low light environment. The camera app offers a variety of modes such as HDR, Panorama, video, beauty, lowlight, etc. You also get a Pro mode, wide-selfie, live filters and stickers to enhance the photography experience.

During our testing period, we took some shots in daylight which came out really well. The images showed good detailing and colors also looked quite punchy on the HD+ display. The low-light performance is not very good as both the sensors work on a darker F/2.0 aperture and struggled to capture information. We will give some more time to S42's cameras to find out its true potential in our comprehensive review.

Battery and Connectivity

itel S42 is backed by a 3,000mAh battery unit that also gets Quick Charge support. The battery power is not as high as Xiaomi Redmi handsets but S42 did last for day on medium to heavy usage. For connectivity, itel S42 comes equipped with 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth v4.0 and OTG.

Conclusion

There's a lot to like about the new itel S42. It offers a sleek all-metal build, vibrant 18:9 aspect ratio screen and a snappy processor with sufficient amount of RAM. It is also quite appreciable that the handset offers the latest Android 8.0 Oreo in budget price-point. We will further evaluate the handset's gaming and camera performance to give you a better understanding of its performance. Stay tuned on Gizbot.