YU, a joint venture between Indian smartphone manufacturer Micromax and Cyanogen, took to amazon on May 10 to tease its upcoming device the YU Yuphoria. The new Amazon page confirms the previously hinted release date of May 12 and prompts users to subscribe for updates regarding the devices availability, as the Yuphoria will be sold exclusively via Amazon. Since YU’s founding last December the company has been very busy. The release of the Yuphoria comes on the heels of their first device, the YU Yureka, a well-received but decidedly mid-range handset rocking a 5.5 inch 720p display, the 64 bit Snapdragon 615, and Cyanogen OS. The most astonishing aspect of the Yureka is its price. Despite having midrange specs the phone rocks a budget friendly price tag of approximately $140, which beats the snot out most affordable smartphones in the West. It has been rumored the YU Yuphoria will adopt a similar strategy with respect to pricing, which would be quite astonishing given the teasers we have seen thus far regarding the devices specs and build.
YU began teasing the soon to be released Yuphoria back on March 14 while it was still known as Project Caesar. An image posted on their official Facebook page (see below) suggested the upcoming device will come with Lollipop out of the box, and simultaneously poked fun at Xiaomi, who recently announced the Kit Kat donning Redmi 2 and MiPad. The next glimpse of Project Caesar came on March 24 via an image posted to Twitter (see below) that indicated the handset will sport a 64 bit chipset, 2 GB of RAM, and 16 GB of storage. YU contrasted these specs with those of the cheapest variant of Xiaomi’s Redmi 2; though they did not directly call out the Redmi 2 their clever play on words did not leave much to the imagination. Following these teasers YU decided to launch a social media campaign asking fans to suggest potential names for Project Caesar, which resulted in the adoption of YU Yuphoria; a pretty brilliant marketing ploy with the side benefit of producing a very unique and alluring name. After the naming contest ended it seemed YU had finally gotten all the teasing out of their system as the continuous stream of hints and suggestions abruptly ceased.
Apparently they couldn’t keep quiet for long. Mere days before the YU Yuphoria’s release YU has started its promotional blitzkrieg once again with the release of two YouTube videos (below) that hint at a couple of the devices key features. The first video is admittedly quite strange, based on the way it is filmed you cannot tell if it was staged or something that happened organically. Nonetheless it suggests the Yuphoria will be a rock solid device; literally so solid it is able to crack tiles while remaining unscathed. In the video you get a glimpse of the device, particularly its sides, which appear to be fashioned out of metal. The next video is a bit more obvious about its intent and highlights the handsets audio capabilities, more specifically its speaker’s volume and deep bass. However, based on the way the device is held in the video the speaker appears to be rear-facing, which is quite disappointing, and we wonder why YU would emphasize a feature that could never outcompete front-facing stereo sound. Maybe YU has some tricks up their sleeves? Maybe it’s just a mistake they made in the video? Maybe the device really has a rear-firing speaker? Who knows? Luckily we only have to wait until May 12th to find out.
