CREO Mark 1 Review

CREO Mark 1 Review

CREO Mark 1 was launched back in March with a promise to make your phone new every month with their software updates. Not just they promised, they are delivering monthly updates with new software features. This debut phone not only comes with good software experience, but hardware is also fine. 

I personally believe that the company could get the better start in the entry-level segment, CREO wanted to offer a device with flagship like experience. This phone is beautiful and powerful both. Read the review to know more about this phone in detail and decide if this phone is worth its price.

CREO Mark 1 Review

CREO Mark 1 Review

Design

CREO Mark 1 impresses with its design. While the company didn’t adopt metal build trend, it used glass panels to make it premium. A metal frame is also there to hold both panels tightly. This phone is large and heavy but looks very beautiful. Sometimes, you may also feel it bit slippery.

When you wake the device, you notice the tree capacitive touch buttons which also looks decent,

At the right side, it has three similar-looking buttons. Initially, it is confusing and you will end up pressing the wrong button. But the power button has the red line on it to make it identifiable. 

Back side is also beautiful. At top side, it has rear camera and dual LED flash at right corner. The brand’s logo looks beautiful at its placing. But this glossy back captures fingerprints.

At top side, it has 3.5 mm audio port. At below side, it has micro USB and speaker.

Overall, it is a beautiful looking phone. The only drawback was its weight which could be lesser. It weighs around 190 grams and is heavier than most of the phones of this range.

Display

The Display is another nice thing you will surely like in CREO Mark 1. It has the 5.5-inch Quad-HD display with massive 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution. It is one of the most vivid displays in this price segment. Color reproduction is also brilliant. You have no issues in using this phone even in bright daylight.

This display also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection

Watching videos on this display feels very good. It also does not offer any option to tweak the display. It supports tap to wake up.

CREO Mark 1

Software

CREO Mark 1 runs on its in-house developed Fuel OS. They added many new features but didn’t change the interface. So, you still get stock Android like experience with extra features like Retriever, Echo and more. Fuel OS is still based on Android Lollipop and we can expect it to offer Marshmallow in coming months.

They promised update every month and they are offering regular updates as per promise. They talk too much about software and they should do. Software experience of this phone is impressive. I did an article of FuelOS. You must read that to know more about software features of this phone.

Performance (Processor, RAM, and Storage)

CREO has packed this phone with Helio X10 Soc from MediaTek which packs eight cores at the clock speed of 1.95 GHz. It also includes a PowerVR G6200 GPU to ensure good graphics performance. This is the only thing what disappointed me. The company could use snapdragon for the better experience because Helio X10 is now popular in mid-range phones which are priced less than Rs. 15000. But there is still no complaints in performance. Gaming experience is not optimal and there is somewhere heating in this phone while performing heavy gaming. I still see this phone as a good performer.

Gaming experience is not optimal and there is somewhere heating in this phone while performing heavy gaming. I still see this phone as a good performer. Benchmark scores are also not pretty high. While phones like Redmi Note 3 are touching the mark of 80k on Antutu, this phone is still getting less than 40k mark. These are just numbers, phone’s performance is still decent.

With 3GB RAM, it offers good multi-tasking. You should say thanks to it is easy and light UI for offering the smooth experience.

It has 32 GB internal storage which can be expanded up to 128 GB via microSD card slot.

CREO Mark 1

Camera

It has 21-megapixels camera sensor from Sony IMX230 at the rear side. With f.2/0 aperture, this camera sensor offers good performance. There also many modes to play with. You can choose from Live Photo, 3D Photo, and Panorama, HDR, and normal captures. At the front, it has 8-megapixels camera with  f/2.0 aperture and 86-degree wide viewing angles.

Both rear and front camera do a good job. I found great photo experience with HDR more. I also felt few issues in camera which can be fixed with software updates. Not sure why these issues still exist even after pushing 3 updates to Fuel OS. 

Rear camera works excellent in outdoors but struggles in low-light. It was not surprising as I saw many good phones struggling in giving the average low-light performance. Sometimes in good light conditions, I found under control noise and overexposure. So, it almost burnt the color sharpness.Many times I found photos with lost details in light areas when sun light is too much around. I hope to see the update in camera app to fix these issues.

Front camera performance is better. It offers the good amount of detail. You also have beauty mode and selfie flash option.

Check these camera samples.

Video recording capabilities are also fine. It also offers Timelapse and Slow-motion videos recording at surprisingly 1080p resolution. The front camera can also record full HD videos.

Connectivity and Battery

It packs all the connectivity options you would like to have on your phone. It comes with 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, A-GPS, GOLNASS, BeiDou, and microUSB 2.0 port support. It is a dual SIM phone but you cannot use two sims if you have plans to add a microSD card.

Data Manager feature is also there to prevent apps from using mobile data while running in the background.

At this price, I also expect Fingerprint sensor in a phone. Now, the fingerprint sensor is available in phones priced less than 10000. Missing this key feature in the phone is the notable drawback.

It is packed with 3100 mAh battery which could be larger. For a phone with this kind of hardware specifications and a Quad-HD display, this battery is smaller. But the chipset is also low-power consuming and software is also optimized properly to give fine battery life. I am not saying it good, as you have to charge is daily and sometimes twice a day. Power users may find it bit disappointing. 

The battery also takes time in charging even if it comes with fast charging.

Final Words

This is a good phone but paying Rs. 20000 for a new company is not pretty acceptable for Indian consumers. However, it is not impossible and OnePlus attracted consumers even with its first phone. CREO’s Mark 1 raises one important question. This is “Are we ready to pay for software features in the phone?” I am asking this because the phone could become cheaper to attract more buyers but the company already spent a lot in its FuelOS. And It expected an outcome of it. After using this phone for around half month, I am loving it for most of the things.

CREO could not have better debut phone than this. And in this ultra-competitive market, CREO should start targeting entry level market. Many people are afraid of trying a costly phone. With a low-budget phone, CREO can show the usefulness of FuelOS to lot more consumers.

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