First glimpse of You Unicorn
Speaking to Gadgets 360 on the sidelines of the event, company founder Rahul Sharma stressed that the U Unicorn should be compared to budget or midrange handsets available in this price range. He said that Yu Unicorn has many features which were not part of the old Yu handsets. This smartphone will challenge the flagship handsets available at higher prices.
Yu’s new flagship smartphone comes with a full-HD display and metal body. Apart from this, it is the first U handset equipped with a physical home button that works as a fingerprint sensor. Fans of this feature will like it. This smartphone runs on Android OS in which the company’s Around You feature is integrated. This is the company’s service aggregator platform which was introduced with Yu Utopia last year. We spent some time with You Unicorn during the launch event. Let us tell you about it in detail.
Yu Unicorn is beautiful to look at, especially from the front. We believe this is the best looking Yu smartphone yet. The aluminum finish makes it look sturdy. The curved edges give it a good grip. The metal back of the U Unicorn feels a little slippery in the hands. We said the same about other metal phones like the HTC One (M8). Weighing 172 grams, the phone feels a bit heavy, especially when compared to other smartphones in the same price range.
The power and volume rocker buttons are on the right side. As long as we used this smartphone, we did not face any problem in using it. The micro-USB charging port is at the bottom of the handset, while the audio socket is at the top. This smartphone comes with DTS sound enhancement and has a dual microphone setup.
At first glance, the rear part of Yu Unicorn looks similar to Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. However, Yu has also deliberately made some changes in the design, such as giving separate space to the speaker. Dual-LED flash being vertical.
Unicorn is the company’s first smartphone to be equipped with an integrated fingerprint sensor on the home button. The company said at the launch that it comes with chip level security. When we asked Rahul Sharma about this feature, he told that if it does not get the correct fingerprint then the sensor will not allow it to be unlocked despite the handset being rooted. He also said that this handset can store up to five fingerprints at a time. In the short time we spent with the handset, we found that the Unicorn’s fingerprint sensor works well. The home button has been given such a position that users with small hands will be able to use it easily. It will be easy to use this handset with one hand.
The smartphone features a 5.5-inch full-HD (1080×1920 pixels) IPS display with 2.5D curved glass. The screen looks bright and crisp. We did not face any problem in viewing its screen even in sunlight. The viewing angles of the smartphone are also good.
The biggest change Yu has made to its Unicorn flagship smartphone is by replacing Cyanogen OS with stock Android. The phone comes with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop with some customisations. At the launch event, the company said that the Unicorn runs on “Android on steroids”, which means the integration of Around You into the launcher. The handset’s customized interface comes with a vertical app drawer.
U Unicorn has a 13-megapixel rear camera with dual-LED flash. It also has a 5 megapixel front camera. The rear camera comes with phase detection autofocus, electronic image stabilization and slow motion video recording feature. We found the pictures taken with Yu Unicorn’s camera to be quite crisp in unnatural lighting. There was no lack of detail in these. Decent pictures came from the front camera. We will be able to get more information about the performance of the camera only after reviewing it.
Yu Unicorn has a 4000 mAh battery. It is claimed to provide talk time of up to 20 hours and standby time of up to 500 hours. The phone supports 4G LTE. While using Yu Unicorn, we found that this smartphone responded well to touch input. There was no problem even during multitasking. It has an octa-core MediaTek Helio P10 processor with 4G RAM. We won’t say much about the performance of the Unicorn right now. For this you will have to wait for our detailed review.
last thoughts
With a launch price of Rs 12,999, Yu Unicorn will compete with Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Moto G4 Plus, Lenovo Phab and Zenfone Max (2016) in the market. Like other UK handsets, the Unicorn will be sold exclusively through a flash sale on Flipkart. The company said that after one month the price of Yu Unicorn will be Rs 13,499.
