Intex Aqua Crystal Plus

The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus is a very decent smartphone with premium looks. The glass and metal design in a budget smartphone is very rare to see and hence we appreciate Intex's intentions of providing a premium experience to budget smartphone users. In addition to that the performance is also moderately good, the display is bright and vivid, the cameras also shine in good lighting conditions. However, the battery life is a disappointment and we also do not get fast charging and fingerprint sensor. The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus gets a thumbs up from us and you can surely purchase this smartphone from this segment. However, if you want to check out the competition, then do have a look at the Yu Yunique 2, Xolo Era 2X and Panasonic P85.

Intex Technologies had launched the Aqua Crystal Plus smartphone in India back in May 2017. It is one of the stylish budget smartphones in the market from the house of Intex with relatively decent hardware and software. The main USP of this phone is its sleek body that looks quite premium. It is a slim smartphone that looks quite attractive. So let us check the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus review in order to find out if it has more to offer than just good looks. However, take a closer look at the specifications of the mobile first.

The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus is powered by a MediaTek MTK6737 quad-core processor, coupled with 2GB RAM and 16GB internal memory (expandable up to 128GB). The phone sports a 5-inch HD display and runs on Android 7.0 Nougat OS out of the box. In the camera department, we get a 13 megapixel primary rear camera and a 5 megapixel selfie shooter. There is Dual SIM connectivity along with 4G VoLTE support. Others include WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. In the sensor department, we get a gyroscope, proximity and ambient light sensor. Under the hood, there is a 2100mAh non-removable battery.

On the front, we get a 5-inch display along with the selfie camera, LED notification, earpiece and couple of sensors. There are three capacitive buttons below the display for navigation and they are backlit. The volume rocker and power/lock buttons are placed on the right side of the phone, while the left side houses the hybrid slot for SIM and microSD cards. The microUSB port, primary microphone and loudspeaker are found at the bottom while the top houses the 3.5mm audio jack. Turning towards the back side, we get the primary camera along with the dual LED flash on the top left. The Intex branding is found below the camera. The back cover is made up of metal and hence you cannot open it but a 2100mAh battery sits underneath it. Overall, the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus has an ergonomic design with a great metal body.

The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus features a 5-inch IPS display, which comes with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (HD). It is a generic display in this category and it does a good job. We get a good display that is meant for content consumption. The colors look natural, bright, vivid and crisp. It obviously does not look as good as a Full HD panel but the viewing angles are decent and sunlight legibility is good as well. You do not have to adjust the brightness of the phone manually as it comes with an ambient light sensor. We get an added glass protection on top of the screen but Intex has not mentioned any brand name. Hence, it might be an unbranded glass but it does protect it from daily wear and tear.

The touch response of the phone is very smooth due to the display quality and fluid OS. Overall, the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus has a good display that is meant for high-definition content consumption.

The Aqua Crystal Plus is powered by a quad-core MediaTek MTK6737 processor clocked at 1.25GHz and 2GB RAM. Like most good budget smartphones, the Crystal Plus also handles most of the day-to-day tasks with ease. The 2GB RAM onboard provides a decently good multitasking experience and it can also handle most of the normal apps and casual games. The UI is mostly smooth throughout but we did feel some hiccups with large apps and games. In terms of gaming, you can easily play the casual games but it will be a struggle to play the high-end graphics intensive games. The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus has 16GB of internal storage, out of which you will get around 9GB of free space. Although, if you want more storage, you can get that by inserting a microSD card (up to 128GB). We do not get a fingerprint sensor on this phone.

Talking about connectivity, there is 4G VoLTE support along with Dual SIM (micro + nano) but you can only use one SIM if you insert a microSD card since it comes with a hybrid slot. The battery capacity of the Crystal Plus is 2100mAh, which is on the lower side in this segment of smartphones. Hence, you will get an average battery life of less than a day with moderate usage. Also, there is support for fast charging.

Overall, the performance of the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus is very decent but battery life could have been a bit better.

The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus rocks a 13 megapixel primary rear camera. In terms of picture quality, the images clicked in bright outdoor conditions look really good and have a lot of details. The colors look natural and are not over saturated. However, the low light performance is not the best as we get some grain and noise in the pictures. Thus, we would suggest you to use the dual LED flash in dark environments or just use optimal lighting condition to click photos. The focusing mechanism is fairly quick and accurate. HDR images had a lot of dynamic range and it is the best mode for landscape pictures. Also, macro images had some amount of background blur. Now coming to the selfie camera, we get a 5 megapixel shooter and you can click pretty good selfies using it. There are also filters and beauty mode to enhance those selfies.

The camera app of the Crystal Plus has a very simple and easy to use interface, which can even be used by first time smartphone users easily. There are a couple of shooting modes in the stock camera app but for better performance you should install a third-party camera app like Google Camera. The primary shooter can record Full HD videos and the quality is moderately good. Overall, the camera department of the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus shines in bright lighting and performs decently in low light.

The battery capacity of the Crystal Plus is 2100mAh, which is on the lower side in this segment of smartphones. Hence, you will get an average battery life of less than a day with moderate usage. Also, there is support for fast charging.

Overall, the performance of the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus is very decent but battery life could have been a bit better.

The machine drilled speaker holes of the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus is placed at the right bottom. The loudspeaker is quite audible and the audio quality is good. It did not distort at high volume like most budget smartphone's speakers do. As the speaker is located at the bottom, the sound gets muffled by your palms when you play games or watch videos holding the phone in your hands. There is a native music app but it does not have a lot of features and hence for the best audio experience, you can download a third-party app of your preference. A bundled earphone comes with the device but it is average in quality. So we would suggest you to invest in a decent pair of earphones.

The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus can easily play both HD and Full HD videos but it will struggle to run 4K footage as it has a relatively weak processor. For the best video watching experience, just download a third-party app like MX Player. Overall, the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus offers a very decent audio and video experience.

The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus is made up of metal and glass. It looks very premium and the design is ergonomic. It is a compact smartphone with great build quality. We usually see plastic bodies in this price segment, so it is very good to see Intex stepping up the game. The phone can easily be used with one hand and for long period of time without any pain in your hands. It is quite slim (7.4mm) and does not weigh (140.2 grams) too much. The edges are slightly curved and it helps in a good grip but overall the phone is a bit slippery. It has a glass back cover finish and thus it is a fingerprint magnet as well.

The Intex Aqua Crystal Plus smartphone runs on Android 7.0 Nougat OS out of the box. It is one of the latest Android OS in the market but we do not think it will get updated to Android 8.0 Oreo OS in the future as budget smartphones do not generally receive any OS update but we would wish to be proven wrong. The interface is smooth and we did not notice any lag or frame drops in normal day-to-day usage. Most popular apps and games started quickly as well. We nearly get a stock Android experience as Intex has not added an extra layer of custom UI on top of Android Nougat OS. Most important Nougat features such as Doze are also available. We get a couple of pre-installed apps (bloatware) but you can easily delete them if you do not wish to use them. In case you do not like the stock Android look, then just download any third-party theme of your preference to change the look of the interface.

Overall, the UI of the Intex Aqua Crystal Plus is really fluid and getting Android Nougat as base feels good.