Samsung and Micromax have had a lot of success in the Indian smartphone market. Today we have Micromax’s latest flagship device – Canvas 4 and Samsung’s very famous smartphone in India – Galaxy Grand (GT-I9082). The Canvas 4 was launched in early July while Galaxy Grand was released way back in January earlier this year. Despite having a familiar 5inch display and similar price points, both the devices are different in their own terms. Lets check out how they differ and which is better.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJVO64mv2VA
Design and Build
Both the devices have different design language and different build qualities. Canvas 4 has a premium build quality with a plastic body and an brushed aluminum rim across the device while the Galaxy Grand has an all plastic build and it looks like any of the other Samsung Galaxy devices.
In terms of dimensions, the Canvas 4 is tall, but the Grand is wider and thicker. Despite looking very bulky, the Galaxy Grand weighs just 4g more than the Canvas 4 which weighs around 158g.
On the front, we have the 5inch displays and above it, we have the earpiece on both the phones. On the Canvas 4, we have the front camera on the right of the earpiece and the ambient, proximity sensor pair is located to the left of the earpiece. On the Galaxy Grand, we have the ambient sensor, proximity sensor and the front camera to the right of the ear piece.
On the Canvas 4, we have the hidden backlit capacitive keys for home, back and menu below the display. On the Galaxy Grand, we have a physical home button with the back and menu capacitive keys on either side of the home button.
The positioning of keys is quite similar with the power lock key on the right side.
The microUSB port and mic at the bottom.
The volume rocker on the left side and the 3.5mm audio jack at the top.
The keys are made of aluminum in the Canvas 4 and it feels quite premium and offers better feedback while the Galaxy Grand has plastic keys.
On the back, we have the 13MP camera along with LED flash and secondary microphone on the Canvas 4 while we have a 8MP camera along with LED flash on the Galaxy Grand. Both the devices have a glossy plastic and are prone to finger prints easily.
Removing the battery cover on the Canvas 4 reveals a 2000 mAh Li-ion battery while the Galaxy Grand has a 2100mAh battery. The microSD card slots are not hot-swappable in both the devices and the dual SIM slots are not hot-swappable. Any change in the SIM section requires a restart. Both the devices have two mini SIM slots.
Overall, the Canvas 4 looks better and has a premium and solid build quality while the Galaxy Grand has a familiar Samsung design and build. The Canvas 4 feels slippery because of the plastic back and the aluminum rim that runs across the device while the Canvas 4 is easier to hold.
Display
The Canvas 4 has a 5inch HD LCD display with a pixel density of 294ppi while the Galaxy Grand has a WVGA LCD display of very low 190ppi pixel density. The Canvas 4 is very sharp considering the high pixel density. The Canvas 4 produces slightly better colors, but has a blue tint while the Galaxy Grand has deeper blacks and no blue tint. The blue tint kind of ruins the colors on the Canvas 4, while the Galaxy Grand has more truer colors. The viewing angles are better on the Canvas 4 than the Galaxy Grand.
Overall, the display on the Canvas 4 is better because of its higher pixel density, higher brightness and better viewing angles.
Hardware and Performance
The Canvas 4 is powered by the 1.2GHz Quad Core processor MT6589 MediaTek processor, has 1GB of RAM and the graphics are taken care by the PowerVR SGX544 GPU. The Galaxy Grand on the other hand is powered by a 1.2GHz Broadcom processor, has 1GB RAM and graphics is handled by Broadcom’s Videocore IV GPU.
Canvas 4 has 16GB of internal storage while the Galaxy Grand has just 8GB internal storage. The user accessible memory in the Canvas 4 is 10GB while that in the Galaxy Grand is 3.94GB. The Canvas 4 has about 2.5GB storage for apps while the Galaxy Grand has 4GB for apps.
Out of the 1GB RAM, the Canvas 4 has 970MB usable RAM while the Galaxy Grand has just 804MB usable RAM. When both the devices are idle, we have 560MB RAM free in the Canvas 4, while the Galaxy Grand has only 480MB free.
In terms of performance, the Canvas 4 is relatively faster and the UI is smoother. The Canvas 4 is also faster in opening apps and switching between them. In benchmarks, the Canvas 4 beats the Galaxy Grand in most of the CPU benchmarks like AnTuTu, Quadrant while Grand beats the Canvas 4 in GPU intensive benchmarks like NeNamark2.
Camera
Micromax Canvas has a 13MP camera with a Sony sensor at the back and it is capable of recording 1080p videos at 30fps while there is a 5MP camera at the front for video calls and it can record 720p videos. The Galaxy Grand has a 8MP camera at the back that can record 1080p videos and a 1.9MP camera at the front.
The Camera UI on the both the devices is different. Canvas 4 has the same screen for taking photos and shooting videos. On the left side of the Canvas’s UI, we have the various shooting modes like HDR, Panorama and so on. On the right side, we have the settings icon. On the Galaxy Grand, we have the various settings options on the right side where you also pick shooting modes like face detection, panorama, and so on. Both the devices lets you shoot photos while recording videos.
The image quality was slightly better on the Galaxy Grand despite having a smaller 8MP sensor with true colors and accurate details. However, the videos were better in terms of color in the Canvas 4. The front facing camera on the Canvas 4 was better in both images and videos.
You can check the camera sample comparison video below to get more insight into the camera quality of both the phones.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCqD4VO1Ic4
Software Features
Canvas 4 runs on the more recent version of Android, 4.2.1 Jellybean while the Galaxy Grand runs on Android 4.1 Jellybean. Canvas 4 has a near stock UI, but there are some features like Blow/Shake to unlock, Pop-up videos and Pop-up browser and few gesture features. The Galaxy Grand has Samsung’s TouchWiz UI with lots of customizations and has features like Pop-up videos and multi-window.
Battery and Connectivity
Canvas 4 has a 2000mAh Li-ion battery while the the Galaxy Grand has a 2100mAh battery. We found that the battery life for daily use was slightly better on the Galaxy Grand.
In terms of connectivity, both the smartphones have dual SIM support, WiFi, Bluetooth, 3G and microUSB ports. The Canvas 4 has a HSDPA+ modem that is capable of download speeds upto 42MBPS and microUSB v3.0 while the Galaxy Grand has the regular HSDPA modem which is capable of just 21MBPS, microUSB v2.0. The Galaxy Grand has DLNA and WiFi Direct which the Canvas 4 does not have. Canvas 4 has support for USB OTG and supports PS3 controller which the Galaxy Grand fails to do.
Conclusion
The Canvas 4 and Galaxy Grand are priced in the high mid-range category. You get a better display, premium build quality and more recent version of Android in the Canvas 4 while the Galaxy Grand gets you a better battery life, marginally better camera and Samsung’s software features like multi-window.
Contributed by Monish Kumar