Symphony Xplorer H250

When it comes to market a smartphone on budget, Symphony is the reigning king. In just three to four years, Symphony has brought out nearly hundreds of cut-price models of smartphones.  One of its latest additions to the galore is the latest Xplorer H250.  In a market where competition means closing the price gap, quality becomes a key differentiator; Symphony understands that very well. Hence Xplorer H250 is a down-to-earth premium quality smartphone that's devoid of the usual budget-defying specs. Let's find out more about this humble device:

Build
Xplorer H250 design is a combination of glass and aluminum. Clearly this phone took some design cues from the Sony Xperia Z series. The anodised aluminum frame running around the edges of the phone has a smooth and almost seamless curve finish. The back-plate is non-removable. Despite having glass screens on front and back, the phone isn't thick- just 6.95mm. So basically it's slimmer than most budget smartphones but not quite as slender as the Oppos and iPhones. The phones narrow frame makes this device ideal for one-handed use (you have to have a big hand though!). The dual SIM/Hybrid tray is on the top left, volume rocker and power button on the right, and the speaker, microphone & charging slot at the
bottom.

Display
Xplorer H250 has a run of the mill 5" IPS HD Display with 1280X720 resolution (294 ppi). The colour rendition is great. Pixels are sharp and images looked vivid. The touch screen is smooth as silk, hence extremely responsive. Only one thing we found odd: even at the lowest brightness the screen is quite bright. So late night browsing might give you sore eyes.
 

Performance
The heart of the phone is a 64 bit Mediatek MT6735 1.3GHz Quad core processor. It's complemented by 2 Gig's of RAM and Mali-T720 MP2 GPU. So as you can see both the GPU and CPU are purely mediocre performers. Meaning; graphic intensive games are a no, but regular apps a person might need are a yes. We ran several benchmarking tools on the phone. AnTuTu Benchmark v6.0.1 scored it 32689 and puts it somewhere between Xiaomi Mi3 and Samsung Galaxy S4. NenaMark2 v2.4 shows it having 62.3 frames per second.

Camera
Xplorer H250 comes with a mundane camera, both on the front and back. The primary camera is a 13 MP snapper. The camera is capable of taking decent snaps only in outdoor environments. The details of the image start to deteriorate drastically the moment you take images in a comparatively low light environment. The camera supports HDR, Panorama, PIP, Smile Shot, Object Tracking, Multi-Angle View Mode etc. The front facing camera is a 5 MP average snapper- good enough for everyday Skype call and selfies.

UI & OS
The OS of the phone is Android Lollipop 5.1. And, me nagging the product managers of Symphony finally paid off. The UI of Xplorer H250 is one of the cleanest UI we ever encountered in a Symphony device. There are very little customizations, but that's something we can live with.

Battery
Under the back glass of Xplorer H250, lurks a non removable 2,350mAh battery. It might not sound like much but our standard run down test found it quite capable. Thanks to the near stock Android Lollipop 5.1 UI, the phone conserves a huge amount of battery. With 4 hours on Wi-Fi, 2 hours of 3G and 4 hours of talk time the phone managed to last at least 12 hours and 35 minutes, which is quite good!

SPECS:
Display: 5 inche inches, 1280 x 720 (294 ppi),
CPU: 1.3 GHz Quad Core
GPU: Mali-T720 MP2
OS: Android OS 5.1
ROM: 16 GB
RAM: 2 GB
Camera: Rear- 13 MP; Front- 5 MP
Battery: 2350 mAh
Sensors: G-Sensor, Gyroscope sensor, Ambient Light Sensor etc.
Price: Tk. 10,990/-

Verdict
Finally, Symphony is getting the basics right. Now they are focusing on user experience rather than bewildering specs. The Xplorer H250 is the very evidence of that. It comes with a very snappy UI and smooth touch screen. The camera is of mediocre quality. The design and build of the phone is fantastic. For a price of BDT 11k, this is phone is certainly a bargain buy.

Words: Shahriar Rahman
& Photos: Rahin Sadman