U Utopia Review
Far from being rhetoric, it is clear that Yu has his eyes on Chinese smartphone manufacturing companies OnePlus, Xiaomi, Gionee and Oppo, which have been offering “flagship handsets” at affordable prices in the Indian market for a long time. Through U Utopia, the company is trying to present the perfect smartphone, while also keeping in mind that it should be within reach of the user’s pocket.
U Televentures’ efforts are in the right direction. Has the company succeeded in achieving anything from this? Does Utopia’s performance justify the company’s claims? Let us know.
Look and Design
The aluminum and magnesium chassis is one of the key features of this handset. It gives a premium feel. The phone is slim, but not so light that it feels like holding a toy in your hands. Due to the satin texture, the phone slips in the hands. We wish Yu had provided a bumper case with the handset.
The primary SIM tray and the secondary hybrid tray are housed in a single flap on the left side. On the right side are the volume and power buttons, which are sturdy and easily accessible. The headphone socket and Micro-USB 2.0 port are present at the top and bottom respectively.
The rear part has a circular dial which houses a 21-megapixel camera and dual-tone LED flash unit. There are fingerprint sensors below the rear camera and the speaker grill at the bottom. As expected, the glass cover of the camera is not scratch free and we saw marks on it only after two days of use. This is another important reason to buy a handset cover.
The front features a 5.2-inch Quad HD IPS display with Corning’s Concor Glass protection. Color reproduction and viewing angles are good. There is no problem in reading on the handset even in sunlight. However, for this you will have to adopt some software tricks. Touch response can sometimes bother you, we faced this problem several times during the review. This problem does not occur frequently, but you will be troubled from time to time. The notification LED is at the bottom.
Along with the Yu Utopia, you’ll get a transfer cable, a charger that supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0, a Little Bird in-ear headset, and an instruction manual. The quality of the accessories is good and gives a long lasting feel. Overall, Yu Utopia is a good looking phone which is designed in such a way that the user does not face any problem in using it with one hand. It would have been better if scratch protection was provided for the camera bump.
Specifications and Software
In terms of specifications, Yu Televentures has tried to do the best. You will get the best Snapdragon 810 chipset, 4 GB RAM and 32 GB inbuilt storage. Storage can be expanded with a microSD card up to 128 GB. Other features include dual-band Wi-Fi b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, USB OTG, and FM radio. NFC is not present and wireless charging is also not provided. Apart from other standard sensors, Utopia also has a barometer sensor. The handset has a 3000 mAh battery which supports fast charging.
Yu Utopia will run on Cyanogen OS 12.1 which is based on Google’s Android Lollipop 5.1.1. It will also soon get an update based on Marshmallow. By default the page freezes several times on first boot. Therefore we would suggest you to switch to some other page. The U theme by Cyanogen is much better, it displays Wi-Fi and cellular status correctly.
In U Utopia, the company has introduced its new software service Around You, with the help of which you will be able to do many things on a single platform, like booking a cab and booking a hotel.
Apart from this, UUniverse app is also provided. This is a customization of Opera Turbo for Utopia. Cyanogen has done a great job with the audio. The AudioFX app gives you the option to choose different profiles for speakers and headsets. Apart from this you also get DTS sound feature. The stock music player is integrated with the Gaana music streaming app. And the results are excellent.
performance
After removing the default theme, Yu Utopia performs as expected. The performance of the app is good and multitasking is also done easily. On average you will always have 2GB of RAM left for apps. The Snapdragon 810 chipset heats up even when performing small tasks. The handset gets very hot around the rear camera, especially while playing games and shooting videos. Sadly, there is no cure for this disease when the fault lies in the chipset itself. Call quality is good and 4G connectivity is available on both SIM slots.
You can store up to five fingerprints and use them to unlock the phone. It can also be used to take selfies in the camera app. The sensor is not very accurate, sometimes it will misread your fingerprint. Sometimes it will not even register the fingerprint. It appears that it is working with its own mind. The handset gave good results in benchmark tests.
House of Marley’s Little Bird headset is another great accessory that comes with the Utopia. We didn’t like the video player app very much. The rear speaker is not very powerful and becomes weak when used outdoors.
The 21-megapixel rear camera is capable of taking close-up and landscape shots with detail, although there should be suitable lighting. You can choose different shooting modes by swiping up or down. You will be able to easily access the flash, front camera, white balance and shooting modes.
The camera does not focus fast and becomes very slow in low light. HDR mode didn’t work well. Photos in this mode came out blurry and unnatural.
Optical image stabilization will help in taking smooth videos. The surprising thing is that its 8 megapixel front camera works well. Pictures taken with this camera come with details.
The 3000 mAh battery lasted 8 hours 57 minutes in our video loop test. It wouldn’t be called bad, but it could have been better. In normal use the phone’s battery will last for an average of 18-20 days. The good thing is that it supports Quick Charge 2.0.
our decision
It wouldn’t be wrong to call Yu Utopia a good premium effort from Yu Televentures. But it is not as powerful as the company has claimed. Just fitting top end specifications into a device of a fixed budget does not make a great product. Yu Utopia also has many special features. Amazing 2K display, great build, attractive finish, quick charging, great multimedia and service and good quality accessories, you get all this with Utopia.
However, there is still scope for improvement in many departments. Hopefully these shortcomings will be removed in the next version. The fingerprint sensor present in this handset sometimes works and sometimes not. Battery life could have been better. Camera performance is not up to expectations and the 810 chipset is not a stranger to overheating of the handset. We would like NFC and wireless charging features in the next version.
OnePlus 2 is a better option for Rs 25,000. If you want a device with a higher resolution, the LG G3 is still a great option at this price.
