Zen Cinemax 2 Review: Nothing to boast about
Zen Cinemax 2 is an average phone with an attracting price tag of Rs 4199, else there is nothing to boast about this phone
By Mohd Ujaley
Every week there is some new launches in affordable smartphone segment and at times its really become a daunting task for a reviewer to differentiate the devices as they all look identical, have almost similar features and all claim to be the best. The only way to know, what a phone is all about, is to get one’s hand dirty by using the device and that is what, we did with recently launched Zen Cinemax 2.
It is considered to be the improved version of Zen Cinemax 1, but nothing substantial seems to have changed except operating system and RAM. Both of these have improved from KitKat 4.4.4 and 512 MB in Cinemax 1 to 5.1 Lollipop and 1GB in Cinemax 2. All other key features including camera, processor and connectivity remain the same. In fact, battery power has gone down from 3100 mAh in Cimemax 1 to 2900 mAh in Cinemax 2.
Priced at Rs 4,199, the Zen Cinemax 2 offers 5.5-inch display, 5-megapixels rear camera, battery capacity of 2900 mAh and look & feel of Microsoft’s Lumia smartphones. Zen Mobile which is a brand of Teleecare Group has been a distributor for mobile brands in India since 2009. It makes feature phones, smartphones, phablets and tablets. So far the majority of the devices sold by the Zen had been feature phones but for the past few years, it has shifted its focus to smartphones and Cinemax is one series among many of Zen Mobile. Will Cinemax 2 be able to impress the people looking for affordable smartphone? To know, let us look into the device.
Out of the box, the first thing you notice about this phone is its look and feel which highly resembles with Lumia smartphone series from the Microsoft family. But there is no comparison in terms of performance, Microsoft’s Lumia is way ahead of Zen Cinemax 2. When we started reviewing the Cinemax 2, we were quite taken a back, by the unacceptable level of lag, stutter and delay even in using the basic features such as Call or Google Play Store. An enquiry to the company made us believe that perhaps the one we received were defective piece, hence company replaced the review unit with the new one but unfortunately unacceptable level of lag, stutter and delay remains.
On the front Cinemax 2 has 5.5-inch screen with 960×540 pixels qHD resolution. The display quality has been fairly satisfactory. The user can read in direct sunlight and also Android Lollipop adaptive display works fine indoors. A 3.5mm headset jack and USB cord are placed on top edge while three capacitive touch keys are placed on the bottom. The power key is on the right edge while left has space for volume rocker keys. The detachable rear panel which is made of plastic is home to Zen branding and speaker grille in the bottom and a rear camera at the top. All the keys are not customisable, so you may not be able to assign the task to keys as per your convenience. With thickness of 9.40mm and weight of 157 gms, Cinemax 2 is neither too thick nor too heavy but help of second hand is required to use this device. Otherwise, it is comfortable to hold and operate, and is also non-slippery.
The Zen Cinemax 2 runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system and its entrails are powered by a 32-bit 1.3GHz quad-core Spreadtrum 7731 processor paired with 1GB of RAM. The phone has 8GB internal memory for storage that can be expanded up to 32GB via a microSD card. While doing multi-tasking between the apps, we had some tough time as apps crashed or many a times reported unbearable lag. Also it failed to perform when we tried to play some graphic intensive games. In fact, on some occasion, we had to took the battery out to re-start it.
On the camera front, Zen Cinemax 2 comes with a 5-megapixels rear camera with an LED flash for low light photography and 2-megapixels front camera for selfies. Both the camera offers decent picture in regular lights. However, they failed to deliver even an average quality in low light conditions. Also, when you see pictures with full zoom, they turn out to be blurry with lot of visible noise in the images.
The device is packed with a replaceable 2900mAh battery that offers decent standby time and could last between 5-7 hours with multi-tasking and regular data usage. The device support 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth but quite strange, it does not support 4G, especially at time when people are looking for affordable 4G smartphone.
Overall, Cinemax 2 is an attempt of Zen Mobile to improve upon its previous offering in Cinemax series but overall there is nothing substantial for the users except that it has been attractively priced for the budget segment.
SPECIFICATIONS
Display: 5.5 inch – 960×540 pixels
Processor: 1.3GHz quad-core Spreadtrum 7731
Operating system: Android 5.1 Lollipop
Memory & storage: 1 GB RAM + 8 GB internal storage (expandable upto 32 GB with microSD)
Camera: 5 MP front; 2 MP rear
SIM type: Dual Sim
Battery: 2900mAh, replaceable
Estimated street price: Rs 4199
