Feel premium without paying premium: Maximus iX

It's a hefty smartphone. There is a certain weight to it that makes it feel quite more premium than it actually is. And that's always a good thing. The weight has the right balance; not too much, not too light either. The edge is bordered by a thin aluminum strip with very steampunk-like exposed screws. They kept it simple on the back with a matt rubberized coating that has so far been quite good at resisting smudges and fingerprints.

The sleek squared design reeks of robust industrial simplicity. The phone comes with a flip cover but we'd suggest leaving that off. You would want to show off the sharp looks.

So: first glance and feel is promising. Let's move to the performance specs. It comes loaded with the almost latest KitKat 4.4.2.  The hardware packs a standard 1.3 GHz Quadcore supported by 1GB RAM and 8GB of internal memory with 32GB expandable memory. That's standard fare to be expected from most mid-range smartphones these days. What works is that the RAM doesn't get too cluttered so user experience is mostly very smooth. I've run Real Racing 3 while doing some background task switching and it mostly passed without a hitch. The game itself is pretty high on graphics detail but the Mali 400 chipset managed to run it without any frame rate issues.

The display is a 4.5 inch FWVGA (854x480) resolution. While the entire screen interface looks sharp enough with punchy colours, slight jagged edges are visible on small lettering and game graphics. Of course, it's barely noticeable and the simpler display should effectively help save more battery life. The FWVGA screen means you get proper wide screen video playback without any cropping.

The 2000mAh battery will last you through a day as expected. No disappointments there. The battery performance tests we ran showed a better score than the Nexus 4. Overall performance score placed the phone just below the Nexus 4 in our benchmarking tests.

The camera is an 8MP unit on the back and a 2MP unit up front. The main camera produces quite sharp pictures with neutral colors. The images look natural and well detailed. Low light images also come out well helped out with the LED flash. The camera works best with still images because the focus lags a little. Selfies will be terrific, group shots will be sharp as long as nobody is busy jumping around. We suggest downloading the Google camera app for a few more tweaks.

Specs

Display: 4.5" , IPS OGS Display with Gesture Recognition, FWVGA (854x480)
Processor: 1.3 GHz Quadcore
Operating System: Android 4.4.2
RAM: 1 GB, ROM: 8 GB
Camera: Primary- 8 Megapixels, LED Flash & Secondary- 2.0 Megapixels
Sensors: Motion sensors: Accelerometer, Proximity etc
Battery Capacity: 2000 mAh

Price: Tk. 9,600/-

VERDICT

The Maximus iX is a surprise on many levels. Try as I might, it didn't creak or squeak. Why is that important? The price. At just under 10000 taka, this phone is very good value for money and offers premium look and feel. The build quality is way above its price range. I've found disappointing levels of fit and finish on phones costing four times as much.
The low price means some sacrifices had to be made. The non-HD screen means just a little less image sharpness but it's still something that renders small web fonts clearly enough that you can read without eye strain. The OS is relatively clean with little bloatware so the memory stays free enough to provide a constant smooth experience.

What you get for your money is a good looking phone with excellent build quality, ample power, good battery life and all the features you could want. And if you're a kid of the 90's that spent tons of money playing video games in neighborhood game shops, then this has a surprise in store. Cadillacs and Dinosaurs (also known as Mustafa in our Dhaka alleys) comes preloaded. If you've wasted much money feeding coins to the game machine, don't feel bad. At least now you don't have to spend too much to get a cool smartphone.