Karbonn Titanium S5

Overview

Very Capable Android Smartphone

Karbonn is one of the few mobile companies which have constantly captured the consumer minds with it excellent and reasonably priced mobile phones. Karbonn S5 Titanium fits the bill perfectly.

Karbonn S5 Titanium Design and Build Quality

On the surface, the phone looks very sleek and premium just as the name sounds. However, the body is prone to fingerprints and you might have to wipe it up often to keep the screen smudge free. The phone is very slim and feels very light in hand. The battery of the phone lasted for 24hours with music, games, and decent calling. The phone’s build speaks of plastic and it is not very strongly built which is probably the only drawback of the phone. The phone is available in sleek white and midnight blue colours.

User Interface and Comfort to Use Karbonn S5 Titanium

The phone comes with Android Jellybean software and a Quad-core 1.2 GHz processor with Snapdragon Chipset. The phone also supports Dual SIM, which is an added plus for the phone. The phone has a massive 5-inch screen, which is qHD and not full HD (although we wish it were). The phone‘s UI is very easy to understand and adapt to. The display is sharp but we found is very difficult to read and view pictures in the sunlight.

Telephony and Phonebook

The call quality is good and contacts can be easily pulled from the various social networking sites. The dual SIM feature works for both 2G and 3G networks. The phonebook entries are unlimited. The phone becomes a little warm on long use but the temperature does not rise and remains comfortable.

Messaging and Emails

SMS threaded view, MMS, Email, Push Email, IM and SNS integration services work very well on the device. Messages can be accessed from the home screen directly.

Gallery, Photo Viewer and Video Player

The Jellybean OS offers a multitude of options for photo editing using the marketplace. The actual photo viewer itself is very simple and has very few options. The video player does not play HD Videos but plays MP4, AVi etc. formats so that you can watch all the normal videos.

Karbonn S5 Titanium Music Player and FM Radio

The phone as decent loudspeakers and the music quality is quite good. FM radio is also very fast to catch on to even weak signals indoors.

Karbonn S5 Titanium Camera and Image Quality

The rear camera of the phone is 8MP and the front camera is 2MP. The rear camera has 3264 x 2448 resolutions. The camera has digital zoom, auto focus, and flash. The low light photos from the camera are not satisfactory. The images in natural light turn out to be quite OK. The front camera turns out decent pictures but it is only suitable for video calling.

Video Camera and Video Quality

The video camera on the phone is nothing to talk home about. The video records well but shutters when you move the camera about fast.

Connectivity Options

The connectivity options on the phone include Bluetooth, USB, Wi-Fi, 3G, and GPRS. The phone scans and connects quickly.

Organiser and other utility tools

The phone contains all the basic utility tools like alarm, clock, calendar, organiser, document viewer, notes, to-do and calculator and convertor. More tools can be downloaded from the marketplace. Some additional features include Application Backup, Scheduled Backup, Audio Recorder, Voice Search, and Outlook Emails. Games like Temple run play very well on the phone.

Web Browser and Applications

The phone’s browser is very fast and we did not have any problem in loading even high data websites like news websites. The applications on the phone include Google Play and Apps, Gmail, Google Search, Messenger Google Plus, Gtalk, WhatsApp, We-Chat, YouTube, nexGTV, TOI, News and Weather, Flipboard, PoPi, and PayTM.

Google Maps and GPS

The phone comes with A-GPS, which works well with Google Maps. The Maps come preloaded with the phone.

Value for Money

The phone is priced at INR 11500 (approx., may vary) in the Indian market. The price of the phone is just right for its super-fast processor.

Verdict

We would rate the phone a 4.2 stars out of 5 for the lack of a good camera and being a finger print magnet.