Priyanka Communications under CENTRiC brand has launched the CENTRiC A1 in India. The smartphone cost Rs. 9,999 and it comes in three colors – Gold, Black & Grey, White & Gold. The smartphone available on company’s official website and it is very-well placed smartphone in the mid-range segment. The smartphone touted as a value-for-money smartphone as it offers high-end specifications when compared with others.
At a price tag of Rs. 10,999, the CENTRiC A1 is a good smartphone as it comes with a premium looking metal class unibody design, USB Type-C port, and other features. After spending a considerable amount of time with this device I’m sharing my initial experience with you.
CENTRiC A1 First Impression
Packaging and Box Contents
The first thing that catches your eyes was the packaging. Each and every accessory that came with the smartphone has the individual little box and it clearly shows that the company is focused on making your unboxing experience super pleasant. The company also providing silicon clear protective case, a tempered glass, and 3.5mm earphones with MIC, making sure that you don’t have to spend anything extra. Just to mention that not all phones under this price tag offer all the accessories.
Display
The CENTRiC A1 features 5.5-inch Full HD IPS Oncell 2.5D curved glass display with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels that translates to 401 pixels per inch and offers 72.02% screen to body ratio. The bigger display seems good, and when it comes to media consumption & browsing content online, the experience is really good as the colors appear bright with good contrast & viewing angles. Above all, with adaptive brightness feature, the details on the screen are sharp, and the display automatically adjusts the contrast & colors of the screen according to the surrounding light resulting in better outdoor visibility. The best part is that the panel is not a reflective one.
To prevent the display from scratches, the display is covered with a smooth scratch resistant glass featuring 2.5D curve on the edges.
Design
The CENTRiC A1 is a good looking smartphone as it has a sleek design, curved edges and comes with a metal body. Apart from this, the smartphone has a shiny metal rim surrounding it and the phone feels very sturdy in hand. On the back side, there is a 13MP rear camera with LED flash and a fingerprint sensor that unlocks your smartphone in just 0.02 seconds.
At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port which is sandwiched between two speaker grilles, out of which one is a loudspeaker.
At the top, there is a 3.5mm audio jack while on the right side you will find volume & power keys. Below the display, you’ll find three keys out of which one key is for the back, while the other one is for home and the last one is for recent apps menu. All three keys are not backlit.
The CENTRIC A1 measures 152x76x7.85mm and weighs 160 grams.
Performance, and Operating System
Under the hood, the CENTRiC A1 is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor which is paired with Adreno 505 GPU. The processor consists of eight Cortex A53 cores that clocks at 1.4GHz and when compared with its predecessor, it is 30% faster, and better in multitasking & battery efficient as well. Further, the Adreno 505 GPU which is decent enough allow you to play high-end graphics games flawlessly and enhancing your gaming experience. On CENTRiC A1 smartphone, played heavy games like Real Racing 3, Asphalt 8 Airborne, etc. and the smartphone performed brilliantly well each and every time. The smartphone has 3GB LPDDR3 RAM and features 32GB internal storage which can be expanded further up to 256GB via microSD card.
The smartphone runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system and comes with features like Google Assistant, split-screen multitasking, and more. The smartphone comes with few gestures such as three fingers screenshot, region screenshot, double tap to awake, etc. All the gestures work without any issues.
Camera
On the camera side, the CENTRiC A1 features 13MP rear camera with an LED flash support, and before taking a picture you can select the size of the picture in your preferred ratio – 13M (4:3), 8M (16:9), 8M (4:3), 5M (16:9), 5M (4:3). Apart from this, you also have the option of selecting the quality of the image as well as the ISO level. The rear camera comes with features like auto face detection, red eye reduction, HDR mode, professional mode and triaxial leveling. The images captured with rear-camera comes out good and that too without losing any details.
For the selfie lover, there’s an 8MP front camera with LED flash which means you can easily take stunning selfies even in low-light conditions.
Both the camera – rear & front camera allows you to record videos at a maximum resolution of 1080p. You can also use the fingerprint sensor to click a selfie.
Fingerprint Sensor
The CENTRiC A1 features a circular fingerprint sensor located on the back side of the device and it adds an additional layer of security, and you can store up to five fingerprints there. Even with single hand usage, the finger easily reaches there and unlocks the phone in just 0.02 seconds.
DTS Sound
The CENTRiC A1 comes with DTS Sound Technology (Digital Theater Sound), offering pretty good music experience with the amazing inbuilt sound engine and ensures that you get immersive sound experience on the phone. Like another smartphone, the speakers in CENTRiC A1 are placed at the bottom and the sound through the loudspeaker is much clearer and loud.
For your information, the Digital Theater Sound (DTS) is a digital audio technology developed by DTS, Inc. and the technology uses four times less compression & digitizes audio sounds at 20 bits instead of 16 bits. This not only makes DTS-based audio richer in sound & more detailed but also much better when compared with Dolby Digital-based ones.
Connectivity, and Battery
The CENTRiC A1 comes with connectivity features like 4G LTE, VoLTE, ViLTE Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, and GPS. There were no call drops and the cellular reception is really good.
The CENTRiC A1 smartphone packs 3000mAh Li-ion battery with support for Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 and offers a standby time of up to 210 hours & talk time of up to 15 hours. With Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0, the smartphone charges up to four times faster than conventional charging and offers 4 hours of talk time with just 10 minutes of charging. The smartphone offers fast charging and if you are using this smartphone, then there won’t be any worries even with the low battery notifications.
Final Verdict
The CENTRiC A1 cost Rs. 9,999 and the specifications/features it offers has set the bar in its segment and when compared, it can easily compete with many other smartphones that cost much higher. The things that stand out are – unique design, powerful loudspeaker, stock Android Nougat, DTS audio experience, 8MP selfie camera with LED Flash support, all-aluminum body, and Qualcomm QuickCharge 3.0 technology for faster battery charging.
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