YU is an Indian smartphone maker founded last December as a joint-venture between Micromax Mobile, India’s largest domestic mobile manufacturer, and Cyanogen Inc, focusing on affordable devices. After releasing two handsets this year, the company has been teasing the launch of a third model for a while. Earlier today, the YU Yunique was spotted briefly on Indian online marketplace Snapdeal before an official announcement. As expected, the Yunique was officially released on YU’s website, although we already knew almost everything about the phone. It’s a fairly decent handset for its price, offering a basic hardware enough for getting things done.
The device is powered by a 64-bit Snapdragon 410 quad-core SoC running at 1.2 GHz with an Adreno 306 GPU, 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of onboard storage, although it can be further expanded to 32 GB with a Micro-SD card. It features a 4.7 inches IPS display with HD resolution (1280 x 720) protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The rear camera has 8 megapixels with autofocus and the front-facing shooter has 2 MP for selfies and video calls. Differently from its predecessors, the Yunique comes with stock Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box instead of the Cyanogen OS 12.1, but user will be able to have it swapped by CM OS 12.1 for free at YU service centers. The phone features standard Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS and Dual-SIM functionality with 4G LTE and 3G HSPA+ connectivity. To power the handset, there is a 2000 mAh battery. With this small screen and a huge battery, expect the phone to last for a long time with a single charge.
Consumers will be able to purchase the YO Yunique for only 4,999 Indian Rupees (around 75 USD) on a Snapdeal flash sale on September 15th and registrations are already open. Although available only in Black, for the equivalent of 7.50 USD users can get two more colored back covers. This is an entry-level smartphone with considerably inferior specs when compared to other models launched by YU. The Yureka Plus offers a Snapdragon 615 SoC, 2 GB of RAM, 5.5-inch screen with 1080p resolution and 13 megapixels camera for only 9000 INR or 135 USD, and the Yuphoria also comes with the same Snapdragon 410 but offers 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, a bigger battery and metallic body for around 105 USD.