Innelo 1 First Impressions: Notched display on a budget, is it worth it?

iVOOMi's sub-brand Innelo recently launched their first smartphone, Innelo 1 in India. It is also the company's first smartphone, which sports a notched display and runs Google's Android 8.1 Oreo. Innelo 1 is priced at Rs. 7,499.

It comes with a few nifty features like face unlock and augmented reality (AR) emojis. So is the Innelo 1 a sartphone that you must consider or not?

Innelo 1: Specifications

Innelo 1 sports a 5.86-inch full view notched display with a resolution of 720 x 1520 pixels. It is powered by the MediaTek MT6735 processor clocked at 1.3GHz and is aided by 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. As far as the optics are concerned, the device sports a 13-megapixel rear camera paired with an LED flash. On the front, there is a 5-megapixel shooter for selfies and video calling. The front camera also serves the purpose of facial recognition and can also be used to unlock the device. All of this is backed by a 3,000mAh battery.

Innelo 1: Design

Innelo 1 sports a 5.86-inch full view display with an aspect ratio of 19:9. The display is not too great, considering the price. Colours are a bit off and the viewing angles are not that good. The notch cut-out on top of the display is quite massive and the chin on the smartphone is also very big, making the notch quite useless and just an added gimmick. Also, the software at the time of writing this article was not at all optimised for the notch. The touch did not feel up to the mark and was extremely unresponsive near the notch. The notch cut in the display and hindered user experience when then the smartphone is in landscape mode. That's quite a poor implementation of notched display and is plain annoying.

[Update]: The touch responsiveness around the Notch was fixed by a software update from the company. However, the Notch cutting into the display in landscape mode bug still remains.

The back is made out of glossy plastic, which makes it look good, but feel not so premium. However, considering the price of the smartphone, this seems quite normal. Also, the biggest design decision taken by the company is to get rid of the 3.5mm headphone jack, which according to me is one of the biggest drawbacks of this phone after its notched display and software. However, to combat this Innelo does provide a pair of micro-USB complaint headphones in the box, but they are pretty average. Also once they stop working or you want a better experience, there are not many micro-USB to 3.5mm converters available in the market.

Innelo 1: Camera

On the optics front, Innelo 1 sports a 13-megapixel rear sensor coupled with a 5-megapixel front sensor for taking selfies.

The rear camera sensor on the Innelo 1 is above average. The colours aren't vibrant, but the image details aren't so bad. The camera has issues in focusing, probably because the sensor lacks auto-focus, but overall the rear sensor is not that bad.

The front sensor applies a beautification mode by default, which enhances the colours. However, it depends upon the person if they like a beautification layer applied to their face or not. Similar to the back camera, images that were taken with the front camera module also has decent detailing but the focusing problem still exists.

Overall, cameras on the Innelo 1 are nothing special, neither are they very bad nor are they extremely commendable.

Innelo 1: Conclusion

The smartphone costs Rs 7,499 and comes with average looks, a notched display and a 19:9 aspect ratio. It runs Android 8.1 Oreo operating system with the company's own SmartMe OS 3.0 skin on top. The smartphone UI experience is not that good, a stock UI would have been much appreciated. The SmartMe OS 3.0 skin needs tons of bug fixes, before we can say it is good enough for the smartphone to actually use. The company is working on sending out regular updates, but it is very slow in doing so.

Overall, if a few software annoyances don't harm you, it is a decent smartphone. However, we would advise you to wait a while so that the company fixes all the software bugs before buying the Innelo 1. It is also recommended that you check out competitors like the Relame C1, which has much better software and hardware to offer at the same price.