A couple of months ago, it is really difficult to find a good Smartphone in the budget category, and usually the Smartphone buyer is the ultimate person who has raised his budget to meet the performance he need. But with the growing market needs, many manufacturers indeed striving hard to bring best quality devices at a reasonable price tag. With the recent entry of Moto E into the market, the war for budget phones has seen its pinnacle. But looks like the local manufacturers are not yet ready to accept their defeat.
Many local Smartphone manufacturers came up with quality devices in the budget range to compete with the hot selling Moto E, yet here is another Smartphone from the Intex which is dubbed as Intex Aqua I5 Mini comes at a price tag of INR 6850 with many promising features and advance UI. The device comes in the same price tag as the Moto E and looks like the war in the budget section is still live at going further.
For those who didn’t yet met the Moto E, it was launched by the Motorola company with decent features at a remarkable price tag. This little smartphone running KitKat OS launched at a mind-blowing INR 6999 price tag. This surely depicts that Motorola is striving hard to offer its users, quality devices at affordable prices for all ranges. And looking at the sales of these devices, it is sure that this plan is working for Motorola.
Today we are doing an in-depth comparison between the Moto E and Intex Aqua i5 Mini. So let’s get going now !!!
BUILD QUALITY
Moto E
The Moto E’s rear panel is curved and is made of a soft polycarbonate shell, which is comfortable to hold. The front panel sports two speaker grilles on top and bottom with a chrome tone. Moto E comes with curvy edges and chunky looks. The phone with the dimensions 124.8 x 64.8 x 12.3 mm weighs 142 gms and feels comfortable in hand. The device is a bit thick in this era of slim phones though. However for the sub $130 device, the thickness and size are never the biggest concerns.
Intex Aqua i5 Mini
The Intex Aqua i5 Mini comes in white color and mostly made of plastic except for the back shell covering the battery which is metallic coated. The rears bears the Camera and LED flash at the back and the speaker at the bottom and on the front we have three capacitive touch buttons for navigation. The device has the dimensions of 135 x 67.4 x 9.5 mm, and weighs 140 grams which is pretty sleek for a budget device. But the screen to device ratio is a bit less which is common for local branded devices.
Moto E offers a high quality poly carbonate shell which is quite preferable to the Aqua i5 mini’s plastic shell which looks glossy and attracts a lot of fingerprints. The Aqua device get an upper hand on thickness factor, as Moto E is a bit bulky for this generation. The weight of both the devices is comparable, so win-win for both considering the weight factor. But Moto E has compact build design and quality, and has a better screen to device ration compared to Intex Aqua i5 Mini which bears low quality glossy plastic.
So it’s gonna be Moto E that takes this round on Intex Aqua i5 Mini.
Winner: Moto E
DISPLAY
Moto E
The Moto E sports a 4.3 inch Capacitive touch screen with a 540 x 960 pixel resolution which brings the pixel density to 256 ppi which is great for a budget device. The display offers fairly well saturated colors and good contrast. Motorola has used Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the new Moto E, which protects it from scratches. This feature gives an edge to Moto E over other devices in its range. The viewing angles are great for normal usage and display is bright enough for daily usage.
Intex Aqua i5 Mini
Intex Aqua i5 Mini features a 4.5 inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with 480×854 pixel resolution which brings the pixel density to 218 ppi. There is no protection for the screen, so it is advisable to buy a Screen protector to avoid damages to the display. The device sports a 16M color depth which should produce some vivid colors but we should wait until the device gets out to comment on brightness levels and color reproduction.
Moto E comes with a qHD display and a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection is definitely the best display you’ll get on an $129 device. Moto E has definitely an edge over Intel Aqua i5 Mini which has slightly bigger display size but with less resolution which will definitely not impress the most. So Moto E takes over the Intel Aqua i5 Mini in the Display section as well.
Winner: Moto E
CAMERA
Moto E
Moto E packs a 5.0 MP camera, but lacks LED flash support as well as front camera. The camera is good for capturing few pics every now and then but it is not great for serious camera junkies. It will suffice the purpose of regularly posting pictures on social networking sites though. The camera cannot be used in low light conditions and HDR option is also not available on Moto E which is available on Moto G. Camera is one of the few downsides of this device, but is an inevitable strategy the company should take for cost cutting.
Intex Aqua i5 Mini
Intex Aqua i5 Mini packs an 8 MP camera with flash support along with a 2 MP front-facing camera for video calling. The camera sports all the basic mojo like touch-to-focus, geo-tagging etc. The specs are great on paper, but it’s not possible to decide on the picture quality and others factors without laying hand on it. But considering the previous devices from the company which featured the same camera modules, we believe that the device offers a decent performance.
Though we don’t know how the Intex Aqua i5 mini performs with its 8 MP camera, but we firmly believe that it’s going to be above average and satisfy the needs of budget user. Moto E’s 5 MP camera has not been that great and the lack of LED flash further limits its functionality to well lit conditions. So Intex Aqua i5 Mini takes the camera section with more camera pixels (Remember, more pixels doesn’t mean more clarity but it can outperform the Moto E’s camera) and the inclusion on LED flash light as well as front-facing camera.
Winner: Intex Aqua i5 Mini
USER INTERFACE
Moto E
Moto E comes with the latest version of android i.e KitKat 4.4.2. The android interface is pretty much close to stock and user can experience pure vanilla flavor in their hands. The device comes with a few preloaded apps though like Motorola Assist for intelligent control options and Motorola Migrate that makes moving from older device easier. It also comes with Motorola Alert, an app that is designed to share your location with your friends and family.
Intex Aqua i5 Mini
Intex disappoints its user with the out-dated Jelly Bean 4.2.2 OS. Most of the local manufacturers already started manufacturing devices with KitKat 4.4.2 out-of-the box, so it’s a down side for this device. However it comes with a customized UI that brings a theme-based layout, which allows users to access the features on the device by clicking on the related theme. But that doesn’t cover the fact that it runs on an outdated OS.
Moto E offers the pure Vanilla flavor of the android and also provides the latest KitKat OS while the Intex Aqua i5 Mini comes with the custom-themed OS and runs on Android 4.2.2 Jellybean which is outdated. However, the themed based UI is one notable feature of Intex, but it’s just another method of customizing your Android. Most Android lovers love the vanilla flavor of Android rather than customized OS which will use considerable amount of system’s resources. So Moto E beats Intex Aqua i5 Mini with the latest and Pure Android interface.
Winner: Moto E
PERFORMANCE
Moto E
The Moto E features a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 processor, clocked at 1.2 GHz, and is backed up by the Adreno 302 GPU and 1 GB of RAM. The device offers a decent hardware for a low cost device. The device can perform all basic tasks like web browsing, Video streaming etc.., but understandably it struggles with processor intensive apps and multitasking. But it isn’t that bad, you can even play Asphalt 8 with minor frame drops.
Intex Aqua i5 Mini
Intex Aqua i5 Mini house a Quad-core MediaTek MT6582 which is clocked at 1.3 GHz and is backed up by Mali 400 GPU and 1 GB of RAM. The Quad core processor is good considering the price tag. The device can do some heavy lifting with the Quad core processor and 1 GB RAM and can seamlessly get along with the multitasking. A dedicated GPU can always come in handy when playing graphic intensive games.
This section gets really tougher to decide between the processors from Snapdragon and Mediatek. Before we start, we want you to know that more cores doesn’t mean more power, the architecture of the cores also play a major role in the device’s performance. Mediatek chipsets are known for their powerful cores and comes cheap but they lack intensive graphical support, so they have to rely on GPU, while Snapdragon processors are known for their balanced performance between graphics and processing power.
Considering the chipsets, the Quad core Mediatek processor would easily take on the Snapdragon 200 processor in terms of performance and the support of Mali 400 GPU gives upper hand to Aqua i5 Mini over the Moto E.
Winner: Intex Aqua i5 Mini
STORAGE
Moto E
Moto E comes with a 4GB internal storage onboard, out of which just 2.2 GB is available to the user and the rest is occupied by the Operating System and apps. But Moto E is provided with a Micro SD slot through which you can expand your storage up to 32 GB. You can transfer most of the apps and multimedia files to the SD card to free up your device.
Intex Aqua i5 Mini
Intex Aqua Mini comes with a 4GB internal storage onboard, out of which 1.7 GB is available to the user and the rest is occupied by the Operating System and apps. The device also comes with a Micro SD slot through which you can expand your storage up to 32GB.
Storage wise both the devices have similar specs, so we call it even in this section. So it’s a tie.
Winner: It’s a tie.
BATTERY
Moto E
Moto E comes with a non-removable Li-Ion 1980 mAh battery which can easily last for a day at normal usage, considering the specs of the device. So no need of carrying the charger wherever you go.
Intex Aqua i5 Mini
Intex Aqua I5 Mini comes with a removable Li-Ion 1500 mAh battery which is tiny for a Smartphone that too for a Quad core device. So it’s pretty obvious that the device drains up in the middle of the day which is not at all desired in a smart phone.
The battery of the Moto E is better compared to the battery of Intel Aqua i5 Mini. Both the devices have a non-removable battery so you can’t switch batteries which is a drawback. So we are considering only the onboard battery power, Moto E emerges as the Winner.
Winner: Moto E
FINAL VERDICT
Looking at the in depth review of both the devices, it is a tough call to declare a winner. Intex Aqua i5 Mini clearly sweeps Moto E in the camera and Processor sections while the Moto E gets an upper hand design wise and the software front. Going by the reputation, Motorola provides android updates more often while the updates from Intex is not trustworthy. So if you’re looking for a budget device with latest features, go for Moto E. Moreover Intex Aqua I5 Mini terribly fails in providing good battery backup and a Quad core processor will surely drain the battery with in no time, so we opt for Moto E as it provides a good design, better display, latest updates and decent performance which is all backed by good battery power.
Overall Winner: Moto E
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