Yu Yureka Camera Review
The Micromax Yu Yureka has been in the news for a while now for various range of reasons. One of the main highlight of this phone is the 13 megapixel camera. Not a lot of phone in this range have such a good camera to begin with. So I thought of going ahead and putting the camera on the Yu Yureka to the test.
Yu Yureka
Hardware
We are looking at a 13MP IMX 135 Sony Sensor which provides an aperture of f/2.2. You will notice the aperture playing its role in these pictures. Stunning background defocus in the name of a bokeh never fails to appeal to the masses. This hardware, on paper simply blows the Zenfone 5 out of the water. But it is a bull charging towards the Xiaomi ‘Red’mi Note with the same megapixels count and price. However, Yureka does have an upper hand because of the Sony tag it carries.
Usability
The build of this phone also has an advantage.The lightweight body makes it easy to handle this phone but on the other side, huge screen size may make it difficult to operate the shutter button. Making use of the volume buttons to capture instead of zooming is becoming a norm and that’s the workaround for huge phones. But since it is running on Cyanogen, it has an added way of customization and the power button can also used for shooting.
Interface
Since we are talking about Cyanogen, Cyanogen Camera is the default camera application. It is highly tweakable. Yet, it does not affect the ease of use. You can just flick to change shooting modes which is very convenient, compared to the hassle of going through menus. But when you do get to the menus, you see some useful controls. You can switch between a fast burst shot or a better low light shot; You can set how auto exposure reacts by choosing between spot metering or calculative frame exposure. That’s not all, it also lets you decide what video and audio codec you want to record the video in. Lastly there is a built-in timelapse mode that can be set to a desired interval. It is totally up to the user if they want to tweak or go with the stock-like interface which will get the job done.
Interface is fast and you won’t find any lag on the software front but the hardware lags in low light conditions which we’ll get to in a minute. Camera doesn’t fry up the phone when used but it does get somewhat warm when you exceed 3 minutes of video recording.
First Use
I was impressed with how it captures outdoor pics in broad daylight. The ISO performance is average as it tends to record some grains but the Yu Yureka has great control on focusing giving you some sharp focused shots. Talking about focus, Touch to Focus is buttery smooth and you realize that when you shoot a video. It focuses differently depending the mode you are in. Its quick, in photo mode and it focuses gently in video mode. Giving a nice smooth transition while getting the job done!
Front Camera
Front camera is a 5MP sensor and it is the party pooper here. Smuggy images irrespective of the lighting condition is the first downer. The second one, comes from no gesture, smile or voice recognition, nor it has any beautification features that may have comes handy for the selfie generation. It is a no nonsense front camera, that’s just there.
Image Results
For the price range it comes from, I loved the images the Yureka delivered. It yields nice looking shots. Colors are accurate and details are sharp. If you watch it on the phone’s display, it looks sharper than it actually is. Pictures from the macro mode stand out. It seems that this phone learnt about depth from Sony’s flagship as it tries to give the same to the entry level market.
HDR
HDR Mode tends to oversaturate a bit. As you can see the low light shots are really bad. The shutter speed gets slower to get you a brighter shot which in turn leads to situation where you need to keep the hands steady in order to get a nice shot. Grainy photos in low light make me conclude that the camera fails to perform in low light and you’d find yourself using the flash more often. Even with such flaws, it beats the Moto G Gen 2 and Redmi Note in terms of quality.
Video Results
Video quality is above average but it will pass your expectations. Its not the sharpest. It shoots in 1080p @ 30 fps. You can also shoot in 60fps in 720p, that is one of the Cyanogen Camera Setting. But lack of stabilization gets evident when you shoot at a higher frame rate. Front camera only records video at 720p which might not satisfy video bloggers but it is not required to be full HD, considering the audience it is targeted at. Audio gets blown out at high db because it doesn’t normalize the audio. Issues with video is same as that with photos – Good quality in daylight; Grainy in low light.
The Yu Yureka can be termed the God in entry level phone in terms of specifications and performance, and with my extensive tests, I think its also the best camera in the segment. If you want to buy a phone with a good camera, these are the points you should look out for.
- Yu Yureka Camera Review - March 10, 2015
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