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YU Yunicorn

YU Yunicorn First Impressions – Flagship or not, look at what’s on offer!

How do you redefine a flagship? Let’s not get into it. For me, personally, flagship or no-flagship, it doesn’t matter until what the brand offers is well worth the price tag it holds. While teasing the latest YU Yunicorn smartphone, YU’s founder Rahul Sharma kept talking about “redefining flagships”, which doesn’t seem to be a case if you talk about specific flagships that were introduced by the majority of brands. Even Coolpad if we are opening the book here, with the Coolpad Max!

The Yunicorn was launched for Rs. 19999, err.. Rs. 17999, oops.. no.. Rs. 12999, at the event and only when the price came down to that number, it seemed like YU has finally got it bulls-eye this time. But, as is the case with every almost smartphone these days, a few let-downs makes the buyers to look out for alternatives.

YU Yunicorn Front

YU Yunicorn Back

YU Yunicorn

YU Yunicorn is a good looking phone, to start with. Good looking, but not unique with the looks. This design has been used, repeated, modified and then again repeated, and so on. It’s a never-ending process, and one cannot always bring out a completely new design. So, accept it as is and look at whether the device feels and looks good, which the Yunicorn does.

A metal body, chamfered edges and the gold color finish makes it a good looking phone. The size isn’t too small but for a 5.5-inch screen, it isn’t oddly big at all. You’ve to give it to YU for the attempt, as this phone can give a neck-to-neck to some of the best devices in the market currently.

YU Yunicorn Front Bottom

YU Yunicorn Front Top

YU Yunicorn Top

YU Yunicorn Left Slots

YU Yunicorn Right Buttons

MediaTek’s Helio P10, i.e. MTK6755 octa-core chipset is what powers the phone along with a good 4GB of RAM. The chipset has been picking up with the number of devices it is coming packed with and there is little known about how good it is with the performance, and this can be found only after some good usage. Though, to be precise about the little gaming I did with two commonly chosen games – Modern Combat 5 and Asphalt 8, the phone isn’t the swiftest and does tend to show some lags while gaming, unless the quality is reduced.

For multitaskers, though, the phone can handle several apps running in the background.

The device runs Android 5.1 Lollipop with what is called as “Android on Steroids (AOS)” custom ROM having the Around YU series with shortcuts to order food, recharge the phone, book cabs, travel, etc. without having to install most of the apps separately. A big plus here with AOS is that you don’t see any bloatware, and only the important system apps along with the Google Play kit is seen.

YU Yunicorn About

YU Yunicorn Quick Settings

YU Yunicorn Shortcuts

For a mid-range phone, what AOS offers in the camera app is too basic. The should’ve had arranged the options in a better way, but the quality doesn’t disappoint when judging with a few captures taken during the first day of use.

YU Yunicorn Camera

YU Yunicorn Back Bottom

YU had Cyanogen OS but ran into issues with it, and then was forced to change to ROM. Nothing really worked well, until this time, where the UI seems refined and neat on the Yu Yunicorn. It’ll be a matter of time to see how well does it keep up with the regular usage, and if the company has been able to offer a phone that can compete against the likes of Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, Moto G4 Plus, ZUK Z1, and the Meizu M3 Note (which seems very similar to the Yunicorn, not just with the specs but with the design too).

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Comments 2
  1. Hey Chetan!
    Great post. I recently bought, actually yesterday only, Xiaomi redmi note 3 and I’m happy with it as of now. Before this, I was using Yu Yureka plus and experienced lags, and screen blackouts and a lot other stuff.
    Well, if you were to choose between 32GB Variant of Xiaomi redmi note 3 and this Yu Yunicorn, then which one would have you taken? Because, I am planning to gift Redmi note 3 to my sister, if this is better then let’s go with this 🙂
    Looking forward for your reply.

    1. Will have to give the Yunicorn some more time before concluding, but for now, I would still say that the Redmi Note 3 is better with display quality and camera, to be fair.

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