Review: Philips i966 Aurora, A power-smartphone with Fingerprint Sensor

Introduction

We all are familiar with famous mobile brands in South Asia especially India. Earlier #Nokia had supreme monopoly in India and with launch of #Android, the Samsung became the new leader till recently when home grown players like #Micromax with its budget phones segment up-rooted the Korean phone-maker.  Mostly all major brands like LG, Asus, Lenovo, Blackberry, Apple and list goes on left no stones unturned to make a  niche for themselves in ever expanding mobile industry, one brand that was surely missing from the scene was Philips.
Though a late entrant in high end phone segment, it has finally launched its new flagship smartphone, christened as i966 Aurora, but in Chinese market only priced at CNY 3699 (Rs. 37,000). We do not have details as to when it shall be launched outside the dragon land.

Getting to know about i966 Aurora

As stated above this is going to be a high end phone and hence it comes with loaded features such as QHD display (similar to its rivals like Samsung Galaxy Note 4  & LG G3), but one of the major USP of this phone is a Fingerprint scanner at the back similar to one that you shall find in Samsung's high end Galaxy S5. The i966 Aurora is powered by the new YunOS 3.0 operating system (a modified version of Android)

Philips i966 Aurora

Build & Quality

Since the phone is high end, the plastic used is pretty glossy and fine. The phone looks niche and “Philips” logo at the back will trigger curiosity to viewers.

Processor: I996 Aurora is a single SIM functionality based phone which is fuelled by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon (MSM8974AC) 801 processor that gives 2.5GHz speed with 3GB of RAM which makes it a killer phone at this configuration

Display: Philips has done a great job in display department as well - 5.5-inch Quad HD (1440x2560 pixels) display gives an impressive pixel density of 534ppi. The cherry on the pie is that this phone comes with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection

Storage: On the storage front, an inbuilt 32GB of internal space should match most of your need however whether it can be expanded further is something nobody knows at this point of time.
Camera: This phone comes with a 20.7-megapixel rear camera with Sony IMX220 Exmor RS BSI sensor, f/1.8 aperture, and LED flash. Story does not end here, for selfie/ video chat users, this phone has 8-megapixel front-facing camera out of the box

Battery: Philips i966 Aurora boxes a 3000mAh battery which should easily last for more than a day with average use. Another insight is Qualcomm's Quick Charge 2.0 technology which can charge this device up to 75 percent faster. Brilliant move by Philips

Connectivity: This phone comes with a Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, Micro-USB, 3G, and 4G LTE

High Resolution QHD Display of Philips i966 Aurora

Cheat-sheet

Read the entire specs here

General Observation & Verdict

Philips i966 Aurora is a bold move from European Electronic giant to counter the South Asian Players in the Mobile space.

Rear looks of Philips i966 Aurora

We are yet to get hand on its new OS and at the price mentioned, it will be interesting to see when it shall be launched in India

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