itel S42 First Impressions – FullScreen Selfie Smartphone


In a competitive Indian mobile market, itel has launched a new smartphone billed as S42 under its flagship segment, that comes with a slew of latest features including 18:9 aspect ratio display, 13MP selfie camera with Soft Flash, Face Unlock feature, Fingerprint Sensor, Android Oreo and much more that put the itel S42 in line with the current trends. The phone is designed specifically for the Indian consumers to offer a fuller smartphone experience.

The itel S42 has a brushed metal finish on the back. The device is sleek, weightless and fits perfectly in our hands. At this price point, we find no problem in the build quality as it feels solid in hand, offers good grip, and goes easy on the wrist too.

Moving on to the front, we have 5.65-inch HD+ 18:9 aspect ratio 2.5D curved display. The display is quite bright with good color reproduction, text looks sharp and the viewing angles are good too. The screen visibility under the sunlight is decent enough to operate as well. In fact, the multimedia experience in this device is surprisingly immersive with the combination of good audio and visual.

On the Front-Top we have the dual Soft LED flash Earpiece, usual set of sensors and 13MP Front-Facing Camera.

Moving left, we have SIM Tray which is a dedicated SIM and microSD slots, which you rarely find in devices these days.

On the right, we have the Volume Rockers along with Power Button. On the bottom, we have a Micro USB Port for Charging, Noise Cancellation Microphone & the Speaker Grill. Up top, we have a 3.5mm audio jack.

Flipping it backside we have the 13MP camera with Dual LED Flash & a Fingerprint sensor right below. The process of enrolling our fingerprint is simple and the fingerprint scanner is quick to unlock the phone as well. It’s worth mentioning here that, the placement of fingerprint scanner is comfortable and more ergonomic as well.

Talking about the specifications, the itel S42 is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 425 chipset along with 3GB RAM and 16GB on-board storage under the hood. Moreover, users can also expand the memory up to 128GB through MicroSD card slot. In our experience, we didn’t face any issues, as the device was butter smooth throughout our usage. With the help of 3GB RAM, multitasking got a lot better as well.

Moving on to the optics, the itel S42 comes with a 13MP camera with LED flash on both rear and front. With this mobile, the low light selfie is not a problem at all. During daylight conditions, the picture came out very well with natural colors and fine details. The AF is fast to lock the subject as well.

The itel S42 make sure your data is encrypted and more secured round the clock. It is one of the few smartphones under budget segment that has Face unlock feature along with fingerprint scanner as well. The Face Unlock is quick to unlock the phone as well. The itel S42 runs on Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box and it offers almost all the Oreo experience. The itel S42 is powered by 3000mAh Polymer battery under the hood.

Overall, the itel S42 is a serious contender considering its price point. Some features like 18:9 aspect ratio display, Face Unlock, reliable Snapdragon processor makes it one of the few bang for the buck smartphones available in the market right now. It is priced at Rs. 8,499 and is available through offline retailers across India.