Karbonn Titanium Mach Five review: Specs that matter

By Mohd Ujaley On Sep 5, 2015

Karbonn Titanium Mach Five, price tagged at Rs 5,999, is a decent budget smartphone with powerful specs.

If you are looking for a decent budget smartphone with maximum specifications and powerful front camera, Karbonn Titanium Mach Five can be a good option because it offers a bigger screen, good display quality, faster performance with 2 GB RAM, decent pictures quality with both rear and front cameras.

From the detachable lenses gimmick of iBall mSLR to the ‘more in less’ of Phicomm’s Energy 653, there is a lot of action happening in the affordable smartphone segment in the country. And, the recent one to add-up the race is Karbonn’s Titanium Mach Five. Priced at Rs 5,999, the device has an impressive list of specifications but things that sets it apart are: IR blaster and Peel Smart Remote app which convert any smartphone into a smart remote control, 5-megapixel front camera with LED flash and 2 GB RAM with 16GB storage. With a little extra effort, I was able to get the remote app and IR blaster sync with my TV. It worked as efficiently as a normal remote control. Not too many phones under this price range offer all these features but will it help Karbonn, which is a strong competitor in the affordable smartphone segment, sell more? Let us look into the device.

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Exclusively available on e-commerce website Amazon.in in white, silver grey and champagne gold colours, Titanium Mach Five is a decent phone. On the front, it has 5-inch screen with HD IPS display with a 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. The display quality has been fairly satisfactory. You can read in direct sunlight and also Android Lollipop’s adaptive display works fine indoors.

Despite being an entry-level device, Karbonn has maintained a premium look to the Titanium Mach Five. The screen is surrounded by a thick rectangular black strip. A 3.5 mm headset jack, IR blaster and the front camera are placed on the top, while there are three capacitive touch keys in the bottom. The detachable rear panel with a criss-cross texture is home to Karbonn branding at the centre, along with rear camera and LED flash at the top and a speaker grille at the bottom. The power and volume rocker keys are placed at the right edge while left is completely free from any distraction. Unlike other Android phones, all the buttons and keys are not customisable, so you cannot assign the task as per your convenience. With thickness of 8.8 mm and weight of 157 grams, the device is neither too thick or slim nor too heavy. It is comfortable to hold and operate, and is non-slippery at the same time.

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The Karbonn Titanium Mach Five runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop and its entrails are powered by a 1.3 GHz quad-core Mediatek MT6582 processor with Mali 400 GPU and 2 GB RAM. During the review period, the phone worked without any hiccup. While doing multitasking or switching between the apps, there was no stutter or lag to write about. In fact, the device handled some of the graphics intensive games quite easily. The phone has 16 GB of internal memory for storage of which about 11 GB is available for use. The storage can be further expanded to 32 GB with the help of a microSD card.

On the camera front, Titanium Mach Five comes with a 8-megapixel auto focus, LED flash rear camera and a 5-megapixel front camera with flash and BSI sensor. Both the cameras are decent and take pictures with good quality and fine details in regular light. However, the images were little dull and less vibrant in low light condition. If you compare four competitors of Karbonn’s Titanium Mach Five such as Micromax Canvas Xpress 2, Xiaomi RedMi 2, Lenovo A6000 Plus and Micromax Canvas Spark, none of them has a 5-megapixel front camera with flash and BSI sensor. Hence, Titanium Mach Five could be a phone for a great selfie. Also, camera app uses the phone’s accelerometer to give a level indicator on screen, eventually helping users in taking straight and focused shot. Given the price tag, the device is an impressive performer in the camera department.

The device is packed with a replaceable 2,200mAh Li-on battery. The overall performance of the battery has been at par with any other Android device in this range. It has decent standby time and could last between 5-7 hours with multitasking and continuous data usage. The device supports 2G, 3G Wi-Fi, Bluetooth.

SPECIFICATIONS
* Display: 5 inch, 720 x 1280 pixels
* Processor: 1.3 GHz quad-core Mediatek MT6582
* Operating system: Android 5.0 Lollipop
* Memory & storage: 2 GB RAM + 16 GB internal storage (expandable upto 32 GB with microSD)
* Camera: 5 MP front; 8 MP rear
* SIM type: Dual SIM
* Battery: 2200mAh, replaceable
* Estimated street price: Rs 5,999

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