itel S42 review: Budget smartphone with big screen, a worthy buy

India’s crowded budget smartphones segment has a new player – itel. The Singapore-based company has launched S42 at a competitive price tag of Rs 8,499. While the S42 competes with the likes of Xiaomi, Comio, Oppo, Vivo and Samsung in India, does it have enough gumption to make a mark?

Let’s find out.

itel S42 Unboxing

The S42 comes neatly packed in a box which contains accessories such as a travel charger, in-ear headphones, a screen-guard, protect case, a micro USB cable along with a retrieve-card pin.

itel S42 design and form factor

A budget smartphone itel S42 doesn’t disappoint in looks, thanks to a metallic finish and a curved-edge design. The phone comes with thin-bezels and has navigation keys at the bottom of the display.

At the top of the screen, the phone houses an LED flash, earpiece, selfie camera and a proximity sensor. At the bottom of the phone the phone has a USB charging port along with speaker and microphones at both the sides. The lockscreen button and the volume rockers are placed on the right edge and the dual-SIM tray with a dedicated slot for microSD card can be found on the left edge.

The phone has metallic finish on its back which houses the fingerprint sensor along with the primary camera and the LED flash.

itel S42 display

The S42 features a 2.5D curved glass 5.65 inch display with an aspect ratio of 18:9 and a display resolution of 720x1440p. The screen is sufficiently bright in both indoor and outdoor conditions. Display legibility falls when held against direct sunlight. The phone does a fairly good job in colour reproduction and the screen is quite sharp in normal viewing. Those who have had devices from Xiaomi, Samsung and others may find itel S42’s display a bit underwhelming, but not a deal breaker.

itel S42 specifications and performance

itel’s S42 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon’ quad core 425 processor clocked at 1.4 GHz. The phone’s quad core processor performs most operations smoothly. The processor shows no signs of lag even during multi-tasking. S42 can easily let you run a few apps, surf the internet, WhatsApp and play a few games simultaneously without any worry about abrupt freezes or unresponsive screen.

The phone can process everyday tasks with ease. However, the processor shows signs of lagging when playing heavy games such as Asphalt 8 Airborne or a Sniper 3D. The sides and the back panel heat up slightly after a few minutes of heavy gameplay.

The processor is backed by a 3GB RAM and has a 16GB internal memory. However, users only get about 10 GB of available memory as the OS and other system files take up the rest of the space. The 128GB microSD slot takes care of storage woes should you run out of the internal memory.

One other plus point of the phone remains the fact that the phone comes with the latest Android version, Android 8.0 Oreo out-of-the-box which is a big boost considering the phone’s price point.

itel S42 camera

itel S42 features a 13 MP primary camera with PDAF along with a 13 MP selfie camera with dual front soft light. The camera offers plentiful options such as HDR mode, ability to record Full HD resolution videos.

As far as clicking pictures are considered both the cameras do a fairly satisfactory job in well-lit conditions. However, in dim-light conditions pictures come out as faded and grainy. Picture quality improves significantly with HDR mode turned on. Tempered expectations on the camera front will let you enjoy itel S42’s camera performance.

itel S42 battery

S42 is powered by a 3,000 mAh battery. With a fully charged battery, the phone could easily last more than 14 hours of moderately heavy usage which included multiple phone calls, light browsing, constant messaging, etc. Take care while performing intensive tasks as the battery starts discharging at a quicker pace. For example, playing Sniper 3D with moderate graphic settings for 20 minutes resulted in battery drainage of more than 16 percent. The battery took more than 2.5 hours to fully charge. With low or moderate usage the battery could easily last for more than a day.

itel S42 verdictitel S42 is a phone which may not be able to boast of heavy duty performance. However given its price point, the phone gives a stiff competition to most mobile phones in its category. With premium looks, above average performance, latest OS and a good camera the phone does completely justifies its price. Another plus point is the company’s 100-day replacement guarantee which very few companies offer. Given Xiaomi is mostly focussing on online platform and itel focussing solely on offline the phone virtually has very less competition which can be called worthy. Overall itel has delivered a winner.