A new mid-range Android smartphone from an Indian brand Micromax has appeared on Geekbench revealing its basic specifications. Named Micromax YU5, the device uses an octa-core Snapdragon MSM8953 chipset, which is essentially the Snapdragon 625 found in a number of mid-range devices. The phone runs the latest Android 8.1 Oreo OS and has 2GB of RAM. With these internals, the benchmark scores hit 771 points for the single-core test and 3,823 points for the multi-core test. Having the device tested on a benchmarking website suggest it to be in the final testing phase and could be made official sooner than later. Apart from the aforementioned details, no other specification could be made available by the benchmark listing at the moment.
Notably, Micromax also marketed its smartphones under the YU sub-brand for targeting the younger customer base. YU was considered defunct for not launching a new device in a long time. With the YU5 moniker of the leaked device, there are chances of Micromax resurrecting its sub-brand to gain the market share it has lost to the Chinese players in India. In a recent report by a market analyst, Micromax, one of India’s largest smartphone brands, couldn’t find a place in the top five positions among the largest smartphone makers in India, a list dominated by Chinese makers, especially Xiaomi. Certain reports have suggested the Indian smartphone maker to be working on an Android Go smartphone, which should be announced soon. Micromax was also one of the first smartphone makers to partner with Google at Android One program’s introduction.
Micromax is said to launch its entry-level smartphone under the Android Go program as a budget offering for the first-time smartphone buyers in the South Asian country. As per the rumored details, the phone will be called Bharat Go and will include a 4.5-inch display with a resolution of 854 x 480 pixels. The handsets launched under the said program will run a version of Android 8.1 Oreo optimized to work on basic hardware while also offering Go versions of most Google apps including Maps Go, YouTube Go, and Files Go. The Bharat Go will feature 1GB of RAM and have a quad-core processor, possibly from MediaTek. It is expected to have 8GB of flash memory and a 5-megapixel rear camera along with a battery of 2,900mAh (capacity).