SYMPHONY XPLORER Z II

Pro
Let's start with the good things first. It has a bright super AMOLED screen with 306ppi. The gorilla glass gives it a smooth, cool and tactile feel. It's light and at 10mm it is thin enough so it can be easily carried in the pocket. Although the 4.8 inch screen surrounded by a thick bezel means it is not for totally one handed operation.
1Gig RAM is contemporary enough but not so for something marketed as a flagship. Everybody else has moved to 2GB. But for now, it suffices. The Quad core Cortex A7 1.2 GHz coupled with the mid range GPU is fast enough for most games out there. Asphalt 6 ? Runs smooth as Vin Diesels head.
The speaker is louder than the average ones. The 2200mAh battery  will last the entire day on average use. As for connectivity, it is 3G enabled with simple tethering software and bandwidth control. It comes with Android JB 4.2.1 out of the box and is upgradeable to 4.2.2 now.
Camera app is full of features. It has 1080p video recording and a 5MP front camera for better 'selfies'. The rear sports a 13MP camera with auto focus, geo-tagging etc.
Con
Now comes the bad part. Megapixels don't make a great camera unless the sensor is updated. In case of Z2, the camera takes very good pictures in bright daylight. As light conditions deteriorate, so does picture quality.So does the auto-focus . So if you plan to take pictures after dusk, forget about it.
Volume buttons are hard to get at but that's just a personal quibble. The launcher is terrible and great at the same time. If you love iPhone, you'll love this. Otherwise, you'll hate the same old look. The auto brightness feature is supposed to help save battery life but it simply doesn't work; the screen only flickers. The frame rate is surprisingly low for a quad core unit. Benchmark tests show about 40fps whereas it's expected to give at least 50fps. So far Symphony has not provided any firmware update which might have fixed this issue. Maybe they should take a page from similarly spec-ed Walton phones and provide more regular updates so that Symphony sets don't feel outdated a few months into the purchase.
The phone comes overloaded with bloatware and apps. Factory reset doesn't remove installed apps. Aside from the camera issues, this is a great performing phone. In my opinion, this phone would be better if it came with vanilla android, meaning the version they release for Nexus devices. We contacted Symphony about rooting the device and they removed our question from their website which leads me to believe they have no expertise to deal with such tasks.
It is common practice to install custom ROM on android devices but it doesn't look like the Symphony phone will allow it. But I have found a way to root it and remove all the bloat ware.
Step A. Turn on, connect to WiFi or the newly available 3G.
Step B. Enter Gmail info and register device with Google.
Step C. Let the already installed apps update.
Step 1. Install any other launcher (nova, go, sicksky, aviate) from play store.
Step 2. Disable as many of the thousand of apps already installed, as you can (the non system ones)
Step 3. Uninstall the half games and get what you want.
Step 4, choose a black wallpaper (requires less battery)
Step 5. Brightness should be at the lowest.
Step 6. Copy some music and videos to it or don't.
Step 7. Reboot phone and I think you're good to go

Reviewer runs Aalok IT and takes the occasional break by giving new smartphones a thorough workout

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