Design As the name suggests, the XOLO Black is available in black colour only. This smartphone’s design is really modern and stylish. Its body is supported by a grey coloured (metal finish) frame on the sides. The sides are nicely curved giving it a very up-to-date look. The device front and back is completely flat, even the dual camera module is in line with the back panel. The two lenses are placed symmetrically on either side of the rear flash. The back panel is also black in colour and has got a glass layer on it. Both the front as well as the back panels glass comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for protection. The mobile phone is scratch resistant too. Users will also fine the XOLO and HIVE branding on the back panel. The XOLO Black features a 5.5-inch full HD display. There are off-screen soft keys below the display, which we feel are too small and too widely placed. These stay dark or unseen by default until pressed. The mobile phone is slightly heavy but it is very comfortable to use, even with just one hand. The battery is non-removable, so the users cannot replace it by themselves. The smartphone can accommodate two SIM cards, one is micro and second one is nano. The SIM slot is on the left side of the mobile phone. The second SIM slot is for the nano SIM, but can also be used for a microSD card. Yes, it is a hybrid card slot. The power button is located on the right side of the phone along with the volume keys. The breathing effect driven LED notification is around the power button, which we found to be quite amusing. The USB port is located at the bottom of the phone and the 3.5mm headset jack is located at the top of the mobile phone. Performance XOLO Black has a 1.5GHz Octa-Core processor along with 2GB of RAM to run applications and services at their best. The users also get 16GB of internal memory to store files. Over that, there is an option to add up to a 32GB microSD card where users can store additional files. All this runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 (2nd Gen) chipset. For graphics an Adreno 405 is also on board. The main USP of this mobile is its dual camera setup at the rear. The smartphone has a 13-megapixel primary camera along with a 2-megapixel secondary sensor. For selfies, there is a 5-megapixel secondary camera. Both the front and back cameras have their own LED flashes. There are two camera apps, first the general one and second the dual camera app. One needs to use the dual camera app if they want to utilise the dual cameras. The dual camera app supports UBIFocus wherein users can shoot first and focus later. The camera also features OptiZoom for better zoom and ChromaFlash for better output using flash. The camera captures really detailed pictures. Even in low light and dark areas, the picture quality was quite decent. Music apps and video galleries ran beautifully. Talking about which, the audio quality is very fine. Screen, image and video quality is above average. The place where the phone stresses a bit is gaming. You can’t play games for too long on this mobile because the phone gets slightly warm after prolonged use. Also, the mobile phone hangs a lot while playing high end games and one can’t enjoy them at all. On the brighter side, the in game sound was quite loud and clear. Moving on to its battery life, the XOLO Black has 3,200 mAh battery inside. It worked for over 23 hours after a full charge (under nominal use). We tested the phone out with AnTuTu Benchmark and it managed a score of 31,593 points, which is a pretty good score for this mobile phone. Verdict XOLO Black is definitely built for the youngsters as well as people who love photography. The voice quality is very good and a user can easily hear stuff without any problem. We did like the looks and the beautiful design of the phone. It has some great features too, which are appreciable. It also supports 4G. XOLO Black runs customized HIVE UI based on 64 bit Android 5.0.2 Lollipop. The experience was quite smooth throughout and the number of apps supplied on it are decent. The XOLO Black can be picked up for Rs 12,999, a price well suited for this marvel. Pros
Stunning looks Decent performance Good dual primary and front cameras
Cons
Non-removable battery Heated up while playing games
Tech Specs of XOLO Black
Network supported: 4G and 3G Display size: Full HD5-inch display Operating system: HIVE UI based on 64 bit Android 5.0.2 Lollipop Chipset: Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 (2nd Gen) CPU: Octa-Core 1.5GHz processor GPU: Adreno 405 RAM: 2GB Memory: 16GB (memory can be expanded up to 32GB via micro SD card) Camera: Rear camera 13MP + 2MP and 5MP secondary camera Battery: 3,200 mAh (non-removable) Weight: 165g
