Swipe Elite Plus Review: The Game Changer of Budget Segment ?

So here we are again reviewing another product from SWIPE Technologies- the Swipe ELITE Plus. To the uninitiated, here’s a small introduction about the company – Swipe Technologies is an innovation-centric mobility solutions company, which having started its operations in July 2012. Within a short span of time, Swipe has become the leading tablet and Smartphone maker in India.  Swipe was started with an aim to bring exciting devices in the growing Indian market and today, it is the leading consumer brand with key innovations across products, pricing and customer support. Founded by technocrat Mr. Shripal Gandhi, Swipe raised $5 million in May 2014 from the Venture Capital firm Kalaari Capital. In the last three years, Swipe has won a number of accolades including the “Top 50 Inspiring Entrepreneurs of India” by The Economic Times, the “Most Innovation-driven Company in India” by World Brand Congress, the “Most Innovative Start-up” by Franchise India, the “Best Integrated Campaign” by the World Brand Congress & the “Best Youth Brand Tablet” by CNBC.

Swipe’s young founder Mr. Shripal Gandhi also has been recognised as the “CNBC Young Turks” for his breakthrough strategies and innovation in the field of mobile communication technologies. The company claims that Elite Plus, a combination of aesthetics and power that brings an unmatched experience of craftsmanship without putting a dent on pockets. The latest offering from

Swipe comes with an ergonomic arc design, premium build quality, powerful processor and a really long-lasting battery.

Elite Plus is the first “MADE IN INDIA” device by SWIPE technologies and has been manufactured in its factory in Pune.

SPECFICATIONS

•  5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) IPS display with Dragontrail glass protection
•  1.5GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 64-bit processor with Adreno 405 GPU
•  2GB RAM, 16GB internal memory, expandable memory up to 64GB with microSD
•  Freedom OS on top of Android 5.1 (Lollipop)
•  Dual SIM
•  13MP rear camera with LED flash, Samsung sensor, f/2.0 aperture
•  8MP front-facing camera
•  8.4mm thick and weighs 131 grams
•  4G LTE / 3G, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, USB OTG
•  3050mAh battery

HARDWARE and DISPLAY

Hardware specifications look solid for a 5 inch device. The Full HD display is the main highlight of this device; it’s an IPS LCD from SHARP with backlight, great viewing angles and amazing clarity. Watching 4K and Full HD videos was sheer bliss on this brilliant display. Touch sensor is also great on this device, it’s responsive and I faced no issues so far in my daily use.

Elite Plus offers new edition of speakers that offer superior acoustics, with a dedicated amplifier for each speaker to deliver audio quality unprecedented from a smartphone. The sound comes out crisp and clear. But mind it, these aren’t stereo-speakers.

It has 2GB RAM for fast performance and features a 16 GB ROM with an expandable memory option via SD card upto 64 GB’s. One thing that catches our eye is the 100 GB Cloud Storage that SWIPE is providing with the purchase of this device on its own SWIPE Box account and app. This is definitely a plus point in terms of storage capacity on this device.

DESIGN and In-Box:

Design is one thing that you will admire on this device, its sleek, fashionable with a super light body; it weighs just 131 gms and trust me that’s considered feather light in the smartphone industry.The back of the device has got this fingerprint styled groovy finish and its great to hold onto, it doesn’t slip, no fingerprint smudges (unlike on polycarbonate backs); the back is also removable but the battery isn’t. The device has a metal frame around it in grey kind of gunmetal colour. Another aspect of this phone that laudable is the ergonomic design that just feels perfect for any kind of hand size. The phone display is 5 inch in size but still one handed usage is extremely comfortable .

The only downside of the otherwise perfect design is the engraving on the back, it feels out of place and also lowers down the quality of the design to a lot of extent. If you ignore that engraved name, which says “Elite”, this phone feels chick in your hands.

The Packaging consists of the device itself, a micro-USB to USB charging cord, a charging adapter and the manual; there were no earphones in the box, maybe because it was a review device or maybe no. I am hoping you guys do get one when you order the phone from Flipkart. Do let us in the comments below if you get one.

SOFTWARE

The Swipe Elite Plus runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop behind the company’s own Freedom OS. The company’s software development team has put in a lot of features in its Freedom OS and that can be seen with the amount of customisation options given in. The O.S comes with a lot of bloat ware fresh out of the box, I personally don’t like these pre-loaded apps given by any phone manufacturer, as they mostly cause performance lags but in this case it actually works in favour of the user experience.

Talking about the freedom OS, tons of gestures have been added; works well on the lock screen and is really helpful too. I liked the Freedom OS due to its customisation options; background colours, text colours, app drawer background, you can do mostly anything with those personalisation options. You can even put in your picture on the app drawer icon, it looked funny but it surely does counts as a customisation for the OS. Tons of such features are loaded in the Freedom OS and most of them work well, but still the software needs a lot of improvements in the near future as it does have some performance glitches which force the user to restart the device regularly.

The phone came pre-loaded with Android 5.1 and the latest update to 6.0 should come soon.

There is an addition to the Freedom OS on the Elite Plus and its called the – Swipe Finder, it’s an unified search engine for content within and beyond the phone. It searches everything on your device and also on the web, akin to the spotlight feature on OS X .

CAMERA

Oh this one’s a beauty. I am quite impressed with SWIPE this time. Tremendous effort has gone in to improve the camera app. Elite Plus features a 13MP f/2.0 rear shooter with an 8MP front shooter; both perform really well. The rear camera is fast to auto-focus, does its job well and gets you clear and crisp images in bright daylight, but it does take a hit in low light condition. The pics start to phase out if u shake the camera while shooting or if you shoot moving objects; that’s something I feel is because of the absence of OIS, but that’s something all smart phone cameras in this segment are plagued with. The Front camera is a ‘selfie king’; Oh god, this one’s made for the selfie enthusiasts. With a 88 degree wide angle, it captures great pics with immense clarity. You’ll love clicking selfies from this one all day. Swipe has done tremendous improvement in the front camera and this might just make it the best in the market right now.

The camera on this device was so good that we at Indian Nerve are going to do a  dedicated review just for the two shooters on this device. Stay tuned for that.

PERFORMANCE

 Powered with Qualcomm Snapdragon™ 64-Bit 615 Octa-Core processor, Elite Plus is equipped to handle all demanding tasks while giving the best 3D gaming experience on a Smartphone. A 2GB RAM powers Elite Plus to handle multi-tasking without breaking a sweat. Elite Plus is a Dual-Sim device, which supports 2G/3G/4G LTE/ EVDO/CDMA standards. Snapdragon 615 does well in terms of performance; the phone is fast though there are minor lags sometimes while switching between apps. Browsing is much better this time in comparison to the ELITE note.

This processor proves its performance on the gaming front too; games like subway surfer, temple run were good to play with minor frame drops sometimes. The 2GB RAM does well to handle the processes and is sufficient enough for this device to work fluidly.

BATTERY

This device is powered by a massive 3050 mAh battery; for a 5 inch smartphone such a massive battery is a surprise for everyone. With so many apps running in the background and draining power all throughout the day, a big battery as the one on this device helps. The phone lasted a good 15 hours with moderate to extreme usage that includes a full day use of 3G data, few hours of gaming and browsing. The downside of the battery is again the 1A output charging adapter, the phone takes more than 2 hours to charge.

VERDICT

This device is simply a game changer for the budget segment and it also gives tough competition to the mid segment range. Just when you though the budget segment of the smartphone industry was getting plateaued, Swipe decided to push limits and make the segment more exhilarating while keeping the costs low, somehow .

PROS

• Amazing 5 inch 1920 x 1080p Display.
• Elegant design.
• One Hand use.
• Superb camera-Selfie King.
• Battery Life rocks.
• FM radio- I am a personal admirer of this piece of hardware in smartphones.
• Free 100 GB cloud storage.

CONS

• No Fast Charging.
• No Stereo speakers.
• No OIS in camera.
• No fingerprint sensor.

You can buy Swipe Elite Plus here – .

UPDATE: Swipe is offering its flagship smartphone, Elite Plus at just Rs 5499, on Flipkart’s Big Billion Day shopping extravaganza this October.