Micromax has officially launched the third in its Canvas series of smartphones, the Canvas Doodle 3 Tuesday, April 22. The new handset debuts at a price of $140 or Rs4,800.
While there is nothing spectacular about Doodle 3's specs, the latest Canvas handset is an affordable option for budget-users who would like a taste of the big-screen experience. Doodle 3's predecessor, Doodle 2, sports more impressive features but commands a higher price of $500 or Rs30,300.
Doodle 3 has a 6-inch FWVGA display, which is slightly larger than the 5.7-inch IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen of Doodle 2. It runs on Jellybean, one of the older Android operating systems and is powered by a 1.3 GHz MedaTek MT6572 dual-core processor with 512MB RAM. Doodle 2 is more robust, running on a quad-core 1.2 GHz Cortex-A7 processor with a MediaTek MT65989 chipset.
Doodle 3 offers up to nine hours of uninterrupted talk time on a 2500 mAh battery, which is slightly less powerful than the 2600 mAh battery used to fuel Doodle 2.
Micromax also decided to cut costs on the camera, making Doodle 3's 5-megapixel auto-focus rear camera and 0.3-megapixel front camera fall short against Doodle 2's 12-megapixel auto-focus rear camera with dual-LED flash and 5-megapixel front camera.
The new handset, however, outshines its forerunner in the memory department. Doodle 2 came out with 16 GB of non-expandable internal memory, turning off users who had more images, videos, music files and games to store in their smartphones. Doodle 3 has an internal memory of 4 GB that can be expanded up to 32 GB via a microSD card slot.
An active sensor magnetic flip cover protects the display of Doodle 3 from dust and scratches.
It comes pre-loaded with M!Doodle, an application that allows users to doodle, write text, draw emoticons and animate images. It also includes a free six-month subscription to BigFlix, a streaming-video service for watching movies online.
Doodle 3 users will also find their phones pre-installed with Kingsoft Office for creating and editing documents, M!Live for unlimited downloading, an Opera mini-browser and a variety of games, such as Rope Cut, Marble and Jelly Jumper.
Micromax is a New Delhi-based smartphone maker looking to venture into the international market.
"With our foray into Russia and SAARC countries, we have charted a successful journey to become the first Indian hardware brand to go global," said Micromax chief marketing officer Shubhodip Pal.
"Our intentions are clearly to take Micromax to key international markets and further pursue our innovation story," he added.
Doodle 3 will be available in stores on Friday, April 25.
