Yu has been teasing their flagship device for quite some time on social media and finally in December, the company announced what they call the “The most powerful phone in the world”, the YU Yutopia. The Yu Yutopia comes with high-end specs which include a 5.2 inch Quad HD (2560×1440) display protected by Corning Concore glass.
Under the hood, the device is powered by the Snapdragon 810 64-bit processor paired with 4GB of RAM and 32GB internal storage along with microSD card expansion slot. So is it really the flagship you were waiting for? Let’s find out in this review.
Design and Build:
The design is one of the highlights of this phone with the aluminium and magnesium chassis. It has an unibody design which feels premium and also looks great in hands. Yu has carried forward the design elements of Yuphoria with the integrated power and volume keys and the Saturn ring for the camera unit. The sides of the device are curved and is made of metal. The left side houses the SIM tray which is micro + nano and also is a hybrid, which means you can use the second SIM card as micro SD card as well.
The right side has the power and volume keys integrated. The rear panel the projected camera unit along with dual tone LED flash and fingerprint scanner below it. The speaker unit is located at the bottom section of the rear panel. The top houses the audio jack while the micro USB is located at the bottom. The front panel has 5.2 inch Quad HD display, front 8MP camera, sensors and YU logo.
Overall, the Yutopia is a well-built phone with good build quality and feels good in hands with the compact form factor.
Display:
The Yu Yutopia comes with a 5.2 inch Quad HD display with a resolution of 2560×1440. It has 565PPI and this indeed a lot of pixels per inch. The display is one of the strengths of Yutopia and is protected by Corning Concore glass. With smaller display size and having a quad HD panel, Yu has managed to get a stunning display. It is vibrant and colorful and crisp. The touch response is also very good.
The viewing angles are also good and so is the sunlight legibility, but occasionally you might want to increase the brightness slide when you are outside in bright sunlight. The software allows you to choose between night mode and daylight so that the brightness and color of the display are adjusted accordingly.
Overall, the Quad HD display is a treat to use.
Software:
Yu Yutopia runs on Cyanogen OS 12.1 which is based on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. If you have used Yureka or Yuphoria, you might have already tried the Cyanogen OS which is one of the highly customizable ROMs for Android. The ROM offers added features and personalization options which is seldom found on stock Android while retaining the look and feel of stock. It comes with an app drawer which has apps arranged in alphabetical order. You can also switch between the normal Lollipop style drawer. The notification center has also been customized and you can rearrange the toggles.
The settings panel offers added options like gestures, ability to customize the notification light, on-screen navigational buttons and more. The phone also comes with a fingerprint scanner, hence, you have the option to add multiple fingerprints.
The phone also comes with support for gestures which includes opening camera app, music or flashlight. You can customize the position and number of navigational buttons from the settings. Similar to the previous version, the phone comes with support for themes. You can download themes and customize the phone with the app.
Apart from these options, you also get Audio FX app which enables DTS sound, there is also FM radio, File Manager, Boxer email app and YUniverse browser.
Another useful feature in Yutopia is around Yu which can be accessed by swiping to the right. This is basically a search utility where you can search for hotels, shopping, cab, flight, bus and more. You can instantly search and book using the feature.
While the software offers a variety of features, it is not a perfect one. There are certain bugs and performance issues along with crashes which need to be sorted out. We are sure Cyanogen would be working on this to fix the issue.
Performance:
Yu Yutopia comes with powerful hardware in the form of Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 Octa core chipset coupled with 4GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 810 is the most powerful processor available as of now and the Yutopia performs almost all tasks with ease. But the buggy software makes the experience on Yutopia poor. The fingerprint sensor is a hit-or-miss affair and worked only 50-60% of the time and here again, the software is to be blamed.
The three on screen buttons also had a fair amount of lag when you click them. The multitasking was good on the device, with more than 2GB RAM available most of the time, you wouldn’t have an issue with performance. The phone comes with 32GB internal storage and you can also expand the storage using the hybrid SIM card.
The phone has good gaming experience, but the heating is also pronounced as it has the Snapdragon 810 processor. The phone comes with dual SIM card support along with 4G LTE. The call quality is pretty good and we never had issues. The Little Bird headset from House of Marley is a great addition on Yutopia and the earphone performance is good. It also comes with Audio FX wherein you can enable DTS sound. The speaker output is also decent.
Camera:
Yu Yutopia comes with a 21MP camera with dual tone LED flash. It has Sony’s powerful lens IMX230 with phase detection autofocus and OIS. There is also 4K video recording along with slow motion. The phone also comes with 8MP front camera with 86-degree wide angle shot. The camera interface is typical Cyanogen interface which we have already seen on Yureka. The camera app has all the bells and whistles you would want on the camera. You swipe up or down on the screen to cycle through the shooting modes available.
Talking about the camera quality, the Yutopia has a good camera for daylight photos and the colors are pretty good. The overall clarity of the photos taken in daylight was good. The HDR photos did add some white haze. The close up shots were very good with excellent color reproduction. The low light photos were also decent, but considering that it has 21MP sensor we expected slightly better photos. The video recording is also good with OIS and it supports both 4k and slow motion. If you are looking for selfie experience, the phone comes with 8MP front camera capable of 1080p recording. The front camera is decent, but colors aren’t as rich you would want of a selfie camera.
Related Watching: Yu Yutopia Camera Review
Here are some of the samples taken with the camera.
Battery Life:
Yu Yutopia comes with a 3000mAh battery and the performance is decent with the high-end hardware. We tested the battery performance with the dual SIM card with 4G LTE along with social apps running in the background, emails configured, playing games and few calls. With this usage, we got around a day of usage with 3 hours screen on time.
While this isn’t really great battery life, the battery on the Yutopia will be able to run through a day of usage. It also supports quick charging which is an added feature.
Verdict:
Yu Yutopia is a great attempt by the company to bring a flagship quality hardware at affordable pricing, but it is far from being perfect. Yutopia shines with excellent Quad HD display, great finishing, good camera and Cyanogen OS. But it also misses out on other aspects like performance, inconsistent fingerprint scanner, no NFC, and wireless charging.
These issues can definitely be fixed with software updates and we are sure Yu would be working with Cyanogen on this. Yu Yutopia is still a great option at Rs 24,999 for the hardware it offers. If Yu can sort out the issues on Yutopia, it definitely is one of the best affordable flagships around.
