Spice Stellar Virtuoso MI-495 Review

Display and media

The display is a 4.5-inch qHD TFT screen and is pretty expressive. The picture quality is sharp and crisp. Watching a movie or viewing photos or pictures are enjoyable. However, as usual, the display’s viewing angle can spoil your mood while watching a movie if you tilt the phone slightly to the right. This means you can enjoy the movie from the right, top and bottom angles, but the colors darken and invert when viewing from the left. Ignoring this issue (which is common in all budget phones and tablets), the videos are crisp, bright and smooth. Full HD 1080p videos were almost flawless with a very mild jitter during fast motion scenes. 

Android ICS with a custom home launcher

The speaker on the rear panel is loud enough for enjoying short videos and casual music. The bundled earphones are glossy white in colour and have a decent build quality. The audio performance of the earphones are above average. You can enjoy some movies and music using the stock earphones.

Indoor shots are very poor even with a flash

Camera

The Spice Virtuoso features an 8.1 MP camera as the main shooter supported with an LED flash. However, the camera performance is very poor and we could easily make out the grainy picture due to the over sharpening of the images. Viewing the photos as a whole, they are still below average. Printing the photos are out of the question. 

Outdoor shoots are grainy and seem over sharpened

Battery life

We were equally disappointed with the battery life of the phone as we were with the performance. On a full battery, we could run only three hours of video, which is almost half the time any other budget phone usually gives us. We did expect the battery life to be better, but were let down.

Verdict and Price in India

To sum up the whole experience with the Spice Stellar Virtuoso, the product could have been better. The poor performance of the camera, the sluggish user interface and the below average battery life are the major concerns. The Virtuoso is available for an MRP of Rs 12,499 and can be obtained in the grey market for around Rs 2,000 less. If you are in a similar budget and are looking for a dual-core Android phone, we suggest you focus on another model or brand.