Given how aggressively Apple wanted to be part of the refurbishing market in India, it’s clear that there is an audience within the country who aren’t opposed to the idea of buying pre-owned phones, if it means affordable prices, it’s a trade-off that many people are willing to make.
How refurbishing works here
“We define ourselves as a company that handles anything happening to a product after the point of sale," says Hitendra Chaturvedi, CEO, Greendust. “Anything that happens after the point of sale, which includes in warranty service or taking a return back, there could be multiple reasons, it could be transportation damage, it could be defected products, what you call dead on arrival or DOA, it could be multiple reasons and there is a certain percentage of those products that do come back, in the case of traditional retail and OEM’s, that is about 4 to 5 percent and in the case of E-commerce, its almost 15 percent,” he adds.
The journey that these products take after being returned is where Greendust comes in. “There are two angles to the refurbishing market, one of those is after the products are returned, somebody needs to look at them and say what percentage of these can be refurbished and sold versus the products that have to scrapped,” says Hitnedra.
“Selling these products not as new, but as refurbished in the seller-distribution channel, so anything happening to the product after the point of sale is called reverse logistics,” he reveals. “Now there are a second category of products that come under the purview of used products, which have been sitting in your homes for a while and then sold as used, the guesstimate for the volume of these products would land them squarely at roughly five times more than even the returned products, majority of which are either sent to the scrap yards and have their parts recycled,” he adds.
Funnily enough, there is also a religious angle to this. Refrigerators, for example, find themselves scrutinised on basis of their use. Since there is a sizeable population divide among vegetarians and non-vegetarians in India, the humble fridge finds itself categorised in the same way.
“Which is one of the reasons why in the used market, goods usually go to recycling and scrap,” Hitendra says. “Within the market, there are also some products which are also considered evergreen like smartphones for instance or Air conditioners during the summer season, refrigerators also sell pretty much around the year,” he says. “Some products like Apple devices for instance, also command a high resale value” he adds.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the conversation is the stigma associated with refurbished products, the perception that refurbished products are somehow inferior to normal.
“When I started this company in 2008, there was a stigma associated with refurbished goods but the value to the customer is what has helped in breaking through this barrier, there are obviously still problems but we have made significant inroads since we started,” he remembered.
An example of a refurbished phone
Telling our readers about the goods is one thing, using and reviewing one of these is another, we got in touch with Overcart and they graciously agreed to provide one product just for us to test out. The product that we sourced is the Moto X Play.
When it launched in 2015, the Moto X Play was the epitome of value, priced at Nineteen thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine rupees, there was no other phone at that time that offered a stock Android experience, great battery life and reasonable specs for the price. It’s amazing what a difference a year or two makes in the smartphone industry, prices have now come plummeting down and specs that were once excellent value now reside within the budget category. So, the question then becomes is the X Play still worth it? That’s what we intend to find out.
Design
A refurbished X Play sells for about eleven thousand at the site, which is par for course when considering the price. The design is still uniquely Moto, the back curves to fit snugly in the palm of your hand, while the Metal unibody around the sides ensures a solid grip in your hands. The removable rubberised back cover is purely for cosmetic purposes, the SIM card and SD card slots live on the top of the phone. The front of the phone houses the five point five-inch IPS LCD display with a 1080p resolution. On the top are the microphones and sensor array, while at the bottom is the solitary speaker flanked by a mouthpiece.
The front and the back of the phone form two distinct halves that rest on top of each other when viewed from the sides, the metal unibody rests a bit below the front creating an illusion that makes it seem like the display is emerging upward from the metal beneath, it’s a little outdated in an era of zero bezels, single piece metal unibody and whatnot but the phone still looks good.
Performance
The Snapdragon 615 that powers the phone no longer feels like the fastest in its class but that is to be expected, the new in vogue processor in the price range is the Snapdragon 625, which is more powerful and more battery efficient. The 615 feels slower in comparison, there is lag and slowdown abound in the phone, you can noticeably make out the animations stuttering when transitioning in and out of each other. The phone also noticeably slows down when you open more than fifteen apps in the background. Granted that could be due to the 2GB RAM module onboard, which seems ancient when compared to the 4GB de-facto standard these days. It’s an okay performer, it won’t blow you away but it’s a consistent experience if you don’t push it too hard.
Dipslay
The five point five-inch IPS LCD display was a crowd pleaser at launch and it still is. The display is nice and bright, with colours that pop and sharp text that is perfectly legible outdoors. It also seems colour balanced to the point it displays true black and if you aren’t looking closely, you will be fooled into thinking it’s an AMOLED panel, owing to the deep blacks.
Software
When the X Play launched, it ran a near stock version of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box, after receiving an update to Marshmallow, many users reported performance problems which sadly hold true with this device as well. The version of Marshmallow that the X Play runs is as close to stock as you can get without a Nexus device. The X Play has no bloatware out of the box and the Moto features that come with the phone are useful. There are third party apps that pretty much let you do the same thing on any phone now but Moto’s active display is still unique in its implementation letting you have a peek at notifications without having to unlock the phone, it also displays the clock in a low-powered state, making it perfect when you need to glance at the time quickly.
There is also the hands-free voice activated commands that you can give the phone, these may seem redundant, as they come packed in with the Google app now but Moto’s implementation lets you customise a catchphrase or make the phone ring when you can’t find it. It also seems to be better optimised on the X Play, almost never failing to catch a command, even in my thick Indian accent (Think Apu from The Simpsons).
There is also an update to Nougat planned at the end of January but the phone’s hardware is now unfortunately at a point of diminishing returns.
Camera
Now a Moto Phone has never been known for an excellent camera and the X Play is no exception. The 21-megapixel camera on the back is great in outdoor, lit environments. During the day, it clicks excellent photos that are robust with detail but colour reproduction seems a bit off. The photos also tend to come out soft, thanks to one of the most annoying camera software implementations in any device. One tap to focus, the next tap to click a photo almost always resulted in an unintentional extra touch causing the camera to lose focus. Over simplifying an interface is also bad and the X Play is guilty as charged. In low light, the camera struggles to frame a good picture, the output is noisy and lacks detail.
The front facing 5-megapixel camera is okay, enough for all your Snapchat shenanigans and perhaps Instagram too.
Battery
One of the biggest things that seems to have taken a hit after the update to Marshmallow is the USP of the phone, the battery life. On Lollipop, Heavy usage with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Mobile radios turned on and the screen brightness set to full, yielded close to twelve hours on single charge, while that number wasn’t groundbreaking, even in 2015, it was still impressive. Post the update, those figures have disappointingly come down to about seven hours, meaning under moderate use expect to reach for the charger, at least twice a day. Thankfully, the X Play does come with a Turbo-Charger and a charge of 15 mins will allow you to juice up about twenty-five to thirty percent of the battery.
Conclusion
At a price of nearly eleven thousand rupees, it just breaks my heart to say that the X Play is no longer worth it, even if it’s one of the few phones at the price point with stock Android. The laggy performance and disappointing battery life make the decision for you, there is still a certain charm to going Moto, just not with this one anymore.
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