Micromax launches its new flagship smartphone

 The Micromax Dual 5 is the first device of the premium range and is the company’s new flagship device.

The Micromax Dual 5 smartphone has dual rear cameras, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 SoC and a 5.5-inch full-HD screen.

The first thing you will notice about Micromax Dual 5 is its design. The phone has an ergonomic body and has been built with aircraft-grade aluminium. The power button is conveniently located on the right along with a volume rocker, and the fingerprint sensor is at the back. Interestingly, there is a Smart Key on the left to which users can assign any function of their choice. There is a USB type-C port for charging, which is on the bottom along with the speaker grilles. The device weighs in at 164 grams. We found that it fits comfortably in one hand despite its large screen, and has a sturdy, premium feel.


Micromax had almost gone into hibernation for last six months. Rumours were all is not well in the company and they have run out of ideas, as a result, they were not coming out with anything new.  So what did the Indian handset giant do to address all the loose talk, they today launched their latest smartphone Micromax Dual 5  for Rs 24,999 and hope it will do the talking for them.

The Dual 5 now, is cut from a very different cloth. It looks downright classy and is well designed. We got the gold model and well, it definitely does not look made for the penny-pinching crowd. It is impressively slim and is even more compact than the highly acclaimed OnePlus 3T.


The front is all about the 5.5 inch Super AMOLED display made of 2.5D Gorilla Glass 3, below which are three touch keys for navigation, and above which comes a selfie camera with flash. The left has the hybrid dual SIM slot and a customizable button with red accents. The right has the volume rocker and power/display key, the base has a USB Type-C port flanked by speaker grilles and on the top is the 3.5 mm audio jack with an infrared port. The back curves out gently giving the phone a very hand-friendly feel, and comes with the feature that gives the phone its name, we suspect, the dual 13.0-megapixel cameras, one of which captures snaps in monochrome and another in color. Below these are the dual LED flash and a spherical fingerprint sensor.

The phone runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 SoC (with four ARM Cortex-A72 cores clocked at 1.8GHz and four Cortex-A53 cores clocked at 1.4GHz) coupled with 4GB of RAM. There's 128GB of storage, expandable via microSD card (up to 128GB). The phone has a hybrid dual-SIM configuration so you can have either a microSD card or a second SIM. It also supports 4G, VoLTE, Wi-Fi ac, and Bluetooth 4.1. In our time with the device, we didn't face any performance issues or lag while loading applications.

 Micromax also says that this is the first phone in India to offer EAL 5+ military grade security.

Micromax has focused on security and privacy with the Dual 5. The company says that this phone has an independent chip that stores passwords for the user to ensure security. Further, users can create a private profile that can be kept separate from general profile. Different fingerprints can be assigned to each profile to keep their files and folders secure from other users. 


In case it is ever stolen, the Dual 5's anti-theft SafeSwitch feature can be used to lock it and prevent anyone from shutting it down, making it easier to trace. Further, it has a self-destruct feature so you can wipe all data within 60 minutes of it being stolen. The phone will have a Micromax Care app preinstalled, and the company has also announced a 24-hour service promise along with a 1-year replacement warranty.

There is an accelerometer, an ambient light sensor, a gyroscope, an infrared sensor, and a proximity sensor. The Dual 5 has a 3200mAh battery and supports Quick Charge 3.0 to enable it to be charged up to 95 percent in 45 minutes. Ten minutes of charging is claimed to provide up to 4 hours of usage time. 

The big question, of course, is whether all this is worth the Rs 24,999 price tag that Micromax has placed on the device. Yes, it has the looks and to an extent the specs, but the Dual 5 is attempting to go bravely into a price segment where no Micromax phone has gone before. A lot is going to boil down not just to the performance that the phone churns out of that spec sheet but also just how well it gets communicated to a public that has never really seen Micromax as a player in this price segment.