Micromax's Yu Yureka With 64-Bit Octa-Core SoC, Cyanogen OS Launched at Rs. 8,999

Micromax's new Yu brand of Cyanogen OS-based smartphones were unveiled on Thursday with the launch of Yu Yureka. The smartphone, priced at Rs. 8,999, will go up for registrations via Amazon on Friday (2pm IST), and it will start shipping in the second week of January. Early adopters will get a leather back cover worth Rs. 999 free. Notably, the company is also touting "free replacement or repair" at the user's doorstep. The Yu Yureka (AO5510) smartphone runs on a custom-build of Cyanogen OS, Cyanogen OS 11, what Rahul Sharma, co-founder of Micromax, calls the "temple of customisation" and "Android on steroids", boasting of the "thousands of features over and above stock Android." Micromax's Yu Yureka smartphone features dual-SIM support, with slots for Micro-SIM cards (4G+3G). It bears a 5.5-inch HD (720x1280 pixels) IPS display with a pixel density of 267ppi and Gorilla Glass 3 protection. The smartphone notably also features Cat. 4 4G LTE connectivity with up to 150Mbps download speeds and 50Mbps upload speeds, apart from Band 40 and Band 3 support. It runs on a 64-bit 1.5GHz octa-core Snapdragon 615 SoC (MSM8939), coupled with Adreno 405 GPU and 2GB of RAM. The Yu Yureka bears a 13-megapixel Sony Exmor CMOS sensor rear autofocus camera with an f/2.2 aperture and flash. A front-facing 5-megapixel fixed-focus camera is also onboard. The Yureka comes with 16GB of inbuilt storage expandable via microSD card (up to 32GB), and sports a 2500mAh Li-Po battery claiming talk time up to 8 hours, standby time up to 310 hours, video playback time of up to six hours, and gaming up to 4 hours. The Yu Yureka measures 154.8x78x8.8mm. Connectivity options include Bluetooth 4.0, Micro-USB, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Onboard sensors include an accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and gyroscope. The Cyanogen OS 11 build is based on Android 4.4.4 KitKat, and an Android 5.0 Lollipop-based build is promised. Co-founders of Cyanogen Inc, Kurt McMaster and Steve Kondik, appeared at the event via webcast, and spoke about their early motivation for creating CyanogenMod, wanting to "modify and change Android" to create a mobile platform with the features "they wanted to see" on the open source operating system. McMaster said there was a "level of stagnation in the smartphone market ever since Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, where the predominant mobile paradigm was to swipe, tap, and open an app." He explained how Cyanogen set out to defeat that paradigm. He added that the partnership will see the company bring a number of global and local services to Cyanogen in India, which he described as the the fastest growing smartphone market in the world, "There's a battle being fought in India, and Cyanogen+Yu, we intend to win that battle."   NDTV