QMobile Noir A900 Review

Qmobile has started to make a name for itself with its latest round of offerings in the Android domain. Also, the addition of distribution in more countries, as well as more and more people starting to adopt the device due to its easily accessible price range is giving the company much needed market coverage. With the new Noir A900, Qmobile has taken another major leap in the smartphone industry, coming out as a strong contender in the up-and-coming manufacturers’ race. The Noir A900, with its quite well performing quad core processor, well-designed body, and a well-balanced feature set is appealing to an increasing number of Android users.

The Noir A900, powered by a quad-core 1.2 GHz processor, a 4 GB ROM and 1 GB of RAM. The device can work in the dual SIM mode, with one regular and one micro SIM supported.

While unboxing the Qmobile Noir A900, you will get everything inside the retail box that you need to get started with this phone.

• Qmobile Noir A900 handset
• An A/C adapter (will use the USB cable for charging)
• MicroUSB cable connector for A/C adapter for charging
• Earphones
• 8 GB Micro SD Card
• 1800 mAh Battery

The Qmobile Noir A900 has a 4.7" IPS+ display of HD quality retina screen. The colors are very vibrant, and this shows that quite some effort has been put into the display, nice work Qmobile team. This combined with the slim and stylish layout, gives a nice feel. The absence of a notification light may be of some concern to some users though.

An addition is the way the phone has been designed, with the width of angles of view, which does not impact colors and there is a minimal contrast loss. The colors are just perfect, the contrast is flawless and overall, the display was pleasantly surprising to us.

The size and width of the device is a major attraction for the device, and coupled with the mat finish of the device back, the minimal plastic covering the curves on the sides, top and bottom, making the maximum space for screen size. The battery on the device is also removable, which is lesser of a priority in some new devices, but Qmobile has decided to stick to the basic successful formula.

The body has a Gorilla Glass front, with the front facer on the top right corner, the basic buttons at the front bottom, and the 8 MP main snapper in the top left corner at the back. The back camera, though has some ridges on it meaning it protrudes slightly, has the camera lens and glass a good space inside the ridge, meaning even if the device gets dragged on rough surfaces, the camera doesn’t get damaged – a good way to keep the camera safe.

The Noir A900 has Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, and with a quad core processor in place, this makes for a hassle-free device flow.

On the device front, the standard three buttons have been retained as touch, making the complete front touch sensitive. There is an absence of the status LED with only the earpiece at the top, and the front camera on the right of it. The microUSB slot and secondary mike (which also aids in active noise cancellation in calls) are present at the top, while the primary microphone is present at the bottom. Across at the back, the camera lens for the 8MP shooter is present at the top left, with the flash next to it, while the loudspeaker slot is at the bottom left side.

On the right side, the Power/Lock key, and the volume rocker are present, while the slots for microSD as well as both SIM’s are present under the back cover, at the top side of the back, just above the battery.

The Noir A900, with its cool quad core processor, and nice performance, gives an impressive performance on different Android games, ranging from racing related games to action games, both requiring good reflexes as well as being taxing on the phone resources.

The Noir A900, has a crisp and clear display, with pretty rich colors, and the quad core processor making the video play for videos of 1080p as seamlessly and without any jerks. The audio quality of the device is also pretty decent, with sound which is clearly audible, rather than that of the Sony Xperia Z Ultra among others.

By default, the device uses Chrome as its browser, and the Wi-Fi is also pretty strong for this device. The pinch-zoom function works, also the browsing is pretty smooth. The device switching between horizontal and vertical is also pretty cool.

Qmobile noir A900 comes with a 8 mega pixel backend camera and a 2 mega pixel front facing camera. Qmobile Noir A900 records video at an amazing fullHD 1920 x 1080 resolution at 29 FPS, which gives you a very good video quality. The video result is pretty sharp and brightness seems to be perfect as well. However we noticed that the result was a bit noisy in low light environments. Color balancing is also available.

The camera result is very good , images were very sharp but the colors were slightly cold , meaning the white balance was not perfect. We took the photos in default mode so we are sure if you change the modes you can get better results.

The 8MP main snapper on Noir A900 can capture maximum resolution images of 3264 x 2448 pixels this is also aided with a very decent flash. The camera interface is different from the normal Qmobile interfaces, with all options present under one section, which performs better than expectations and also will be lesser of a hassle for many users. The multiple features, like gesture shot. There is an option to put borders around images, which is not normally found in other phones. Also, continuous shot is an option, shooting multiple images while the shutter button is pressed, so that the best one can be selected later.

The Qmobile Noir A900 provides the regular options in connectivity as per any Android phone in the mid to top tier category of course, this means all of the prominent connection options are present and accounted for, including Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth connectivity however, NFC, DLNA and 4G are absent from the list. The device also enables users to make their devices a portable Wi-Fi hotspot.

The device can be hooked up to your computer via a microUSB slot on top of the phone. The connectivity with computer provides the option to connect as a Media Device or USB storage. Also, an app for file management provides an easy way to access any files you get to your phone without having to search.

The Qmobile Noir A900 has a 1,800 mAh battery which does not seem to be suitable for a quad-core smartphone with a bright HD display, but turns out to be quite reasonable. It is a surprise that Qmobile has the efficient battery work in place to power up a device like the A900 easily.

After almost a complete day of some web browsing, a little gaming, some calls and emails and messages, the phone still had a reasonable amount left to cover an additional two to four hours.

As is visible from the above review, below are some shortcomings that the device does possess:

• Device size is starting to appear smaller in the face of larger devices in competition
• There is no support provided for LTE or NFC
• Among the peers, the video recording is not up to expectations
• Company appeal is not too great at this time
• There is an absence of a custom software layer on top of Android, as compared to Samsung and others. This can easily enhance the usability.
• Over a longer period of time, the device seems to reduce quality much quicker than other competing devices.
• More and more devices are coming with better RAM / CPU power

The Noir A900 has seen Qmobile improve on some of the areas that were questioned in the previous devices by Qmobile, like the display, the camera and camcorder apps, the screen touch. Additionally, the usage of the basic Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean edition in the quad core scenario makes device usage much more seamless. The device also has a much improved LCD display and much improved sound quality, which is a big plus compared to some of the competition out there.

The cool 8 MP back and 2 MP front cameras, with their increased resolution, and wider angle of image capture are attractive. The 1.2 GHz quad-core processor, though on the lower side as compared to some of the emerging devices, is utilized very nicely, to deliver a great performer.

In short, the Noir A900 is an impressive device. The phone contains something of interest for every user and that definitely makes it worth your attention and respect. The Noir A900 is a definite winner, and this is bound to pressure the competitors. Qmobile is winning the respect of many from this device, and if they perform this way in the future, the big guns will have a tough time keeping up to the innovation of this current underdog.