There was a time, not too long ago, when great design used to be reserved only for high-end flagship smartphones, with budget handsets having to make do with less premium materials and unflattering lines. No longer true, if a slew of new design-first budget phones from Obi, Lenovo and Qiku are anything to go by — here’s my take.

QiKu Q Terra 

Using the Q Terra has been an eye-opener in more ways than one, and it starts right from how you pronounce QiKu (‘cheeku’, a joint venture between Coolpad and Chinese security major Qihoo 360). The Q Terra isn’t a small phone by any measure, but thanks to an 83 per cent screen-to-body ratio and 1.7mm thin bezels, it manages to pack in a 6-inch full-HD screen into a form factor that’s typical of 5.5-inch phones. And it is gorgeous to boot — from the sleek unibody magnesium-aluminum alloy metal to the chrome finish on the chamfered edges, this phone has class written all over, and I’ve had more than a few folks mistake it for the premium HTC One series.

Under the hood, the Q Terra packs a Snapdragon 808 hexa-core processor, 3GB RAM and 16GB storage, which is expandable up to 128GB via microSD card, and there’s a massive 3,700mAh battery. The unique dual-13MP camera setup takes two pictures simultaneously — one camera takes the photo in color and the other in black and white — which renders a final image with better depth, contrast and color accuracy. I quite like the thoughtful software add-ons, in particular App Freexer which lets you ‘freeze’ certain apps to prevent them from using system resources in the background. As long as you can snag the invite which cuts two grand off the listed price, the Q Terra comes out of nowhere to become a serious contender in the sub-20k price range.
♦ Rating: 8/10
♦ Price: Rs 19,999 (with invitation); Rs 21,999 (without invitation)
♦ URL: bit.ly/TT-QTerra808

Obi Worldphone SF1

Obi is a name some of you may remember. The ex-Apple CEO John Sculley-backed phone brand had a disastrous debut last year, but they’ve gone back to the drawing board and returned with the SF1. This time around, the SF1 makes quite an impression, right from the moment you pick up the iPod Touch-esque acrylic box and take out the metal-accented SF1. It’s got touches of inspiration from various phones from the past — a bit of the Mi3 here, a likeness to the iPhone and the Nokia Lumias there — but the design choices come together well in the final product. I’m not sure the marquee ‘floating glass’ raised display is such a good idea though from a durability perspective.

There’s a lot to like in the SF1 — a bright and sharp 5-inch full-HD display, a 3,000mAh battery that’s good for a heavy day of use, and some great audio quality thanks to the Dolby audio enhancements. Even the hardware is competent, if you pick the 32GB variant with 3GB RAM, and the custom LifeSpeed interface is light on bloatware, but there are serious lags and stutters which plague the experience of using the SF1. While this may just be a software fix away, it hobbles the device enough for me to reserve my recommendation.
♦ Rating: 7/10
♦ Price: Rs 13,999 (32GB); Rs 11,999 (16GB)
♦ URL: bit.ly/TT-ObiSF1

Lenovo Vibe S1

The Vibe S1 from Lenovo is one of the first few phones to show off the design synergies from the Motorola acquisition, and boy, does it impress with its good looks! All glass and metal, the S1 has a sleek profile and an understated appeal to it that I really liked, and I often felt I was handling a device that was twice as expensive. The S1 has this gently curving back that sits really well in the hand, and thanks to the 5-inch full-HD screen, handling the device is so much easier when you’re out and about than say with the Q Terra, which is still quite the handful.

Despite its mid-range price, the S1 has made no perceptible com-promises in the specs department. An octa-core MediaTek chip, 3GB of memory and 32GB of storage (expandable to 128) run the now familiar Vibe UI well. A dual camera set-up in the front detects foreground and background data, which you can then use to swap out the background with any background of your choice! Perfect for selfie lovers who want to travel the world…virtually of course!!
♦ Rating: 8/10
♦ Price: Rs 15,999
♦ URL: bit.ly/TT-VibeS1

technocool@kanwar.net; follow me on twitter @2shar