Swipe Elite Max Review: Packs A Good Punch

ELITE Max Front and Back

Swipe Technologies, has stepped into the big league and announced the launch of Elite Max, its premium flagship smartphone that sports 4GB RAM and is powered by Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 processor. This is the most ambitious and serious phone that Swipe has launched yet. Let us look at the device today.

ELITE Max

Swipe has given power-packed features in an aesthetically-designed stylish and sleek glass body. Featuring a 5.5” Full HD IPS Display, the Swipe Elite Max is available in Onyx Black. The build is predominantly glass with a metal frame. The phone has 4GB RAM and is powered by an Octa-Core Snapdragon Processor. Let us see the key specifications first.

Specs

The look and feel is pretty good. The build quality is sturdy. The one issue that we had with the phone is the fact that the glass back is a fingerprint and smudge magnet. You will need a back cover for this one. The glass back also tends to make the phone a tad bit slippery to hold. That being said, Swipe has gone all out with the design and totally broken into the big league. The phone feels nice, not the the thinnest or the lightest but just right. If you look at the incremental improvement that has been evident in every successive Swipe release, this one is by far the best.

ELITE Max Rear

The display is 5.5 inch and supports Full HD. The sunlight viewing experience was pretty good. Videos looked good and there was no visible strain on the eyes when viewing them. The surface is a little bit glossy and hence reflective in a few angles. Overall a pleasant display that suffices for prolonged game play, videos and consumption of content from the internet on your browser.

The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 Octa Core processor, this Swipe Elite phone lets you multitask with greater speed and enjoy gaming experiences. With 4G LTE, you can now browse the Internet at good speeds. To be frank, we were apprehensive if the processor would take the load of the FHD display without choking or stuttering and to our surprise, we found that there was absolutely no reason to complain. We threw all sorts of multi-tasking scenarios at the phone and really had no reason to complain. There weren’t any noticeable frame drops or lag when playing graphic intensive games. So those boxes were ticked off pretty neatly without reason to complain.

ELITE Max side view

The fingerprint scanner was up to the mark and is capable of waking the device up from a locked screen directly without needing to activate the screen first. The bottom of the device has two vents that look like the speaker grills but are not, the real speaker grill is on the rear side of the phone. The sound quality during calls was good. The music output from the speaker was also neat. There was no jarring or squeaking on low or high notes. There wasn’t any heating issue even on prolonged gaming and such activities.

The performance was satisfactory and there were no hiccups. While the phone did not set any new trailblazing records on benchmarks, it was no slouch. The corners are a bit sharp and need a little getting used to. The metal buttons are sturdy and give good feedback.

The phone has a 13 MP rear camera that takes good pictures with colors that pop out well. There are a lot of modes that the camera supports. The camera UI is heavily customized and has tons of options. Low light photos were okay. The front camera has an 8 MP sensor and serves well to snap selfies. The beautification mode is not overdone and produces natural looking photos. All in all, the camera department does not disappoint at all.

ELITE Max Front and Back

4G LTE support is good and our Jio SIM had no issues with the phone. The phone supports the usual connectivity options like BlueTooth, WiFi etc. It comes equipped with all the common sensors that are now default in smartphones. The phone comes with Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box. Freedom OS is the UI that Swipe has put on top of Android. Freedom OS is extremely customizable and light. There are a mind boggling number of customization options that one can effect with the OS. It is an OS that grows on you and once you are used to it, you will like it a lot. The company has said that a Nougat update is coming in March 2017.

ELITE Max bottom

The phone comes with a battery capacity of 3000mAh and can last up to two days with regular usage. And if you realize that the battery is low on charge just before you step out of the house, you can charge your phone for ten minutes to enjoy up to 5.5 hours of charge. This proprietary charging mechanism has been called Zip charging by Swipe and during our review, it managed to consistently charge the phone to more than 60% in about 1o minutes time of charging. Given the price, this is a plus. This will help folks on the move to juice up really fast.

Verdict

Swipe has thrown it’s hat into the big league with this phone. The Swipe Elite Max at ₹10,999/- is worth every rupee that you pay for it. There is enough memory, it has a good processor, the cameras are good. Overall a very good value for money phone with impressive specs at an affordable price. It will definitely buzz the competition in the budget segment! Definitely packs a punch and punches above it’s weight!

About Shakthi

I am a Tech Blogger, Disability Activist, Keynote Speaker, Startup Mentor and Digital Branding Consultant. Also a McKinsey Executive Panel Member. Also known as @v_shakthi on twitter. Been around Tech for two decades now.

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