QMobile Noir Quatro Z3 Review

Qmobile Company recently is busy in introducing new and reasonably priced quad core smart mobile phones. Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3 is the latest release from the company and it is one of the best release that we have seen recently from the company along with Qmobile Noir Quatro Z4 and Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3 Mini.

The company, after the success of the Qmobile Noir A900, unleashed its ultra slim device – Noir Quatro Z3, although it is the not the world’s slimmest handset yet it is something that one would wish for. The phone, when launched, was overpriced at PKR 29,500 but now after the decrease of three thousands rupees in its retail price makes it an affordable option for many people.

At this time, we can say that the company has announced its pretty darn awesome phone in a budget price. The phone comes with new specs updates such as HD camera cable of recording 1080p HD videos and a full HD Super AMOLED Display with ppi of 306. Though, you have some better options available in the market like Xperia L, Nexus 4 but Noir Quatro Z3 still holds its position pretty well in smartphone race. We are going to have a look at the device, whether its internals are capable to perform or not.

When you unbox the Z3 or Gionee Elife E5, you will find that the package contains these following things:

• Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3
• Micro USB Cable
• Power Adaptor
• Ear phone
• A flip cover which is of good quality, you just need to flip in handset
• Screen Protective Film
• User Guide

The new Qmobile Noir Z3 is loaded with 1.5 GHz Quad Core Processor Cortex A7 and also powered up with PowerVR Series5XT. The phone comes with a 4.8 inch Super AMOLED HD 720*1280p. Since the phone features a nice Super AMOLED HD display, its viewing angles are pretty good but you might not be able to see the true colors if you go beyond 170 degree, which in my opinion is a good thing. Furthermore, the brightness and the quality of the display is excellent. However, like many HTC devices the display of the Noir Z3 is more towards the warmth.

The resolution is HD 720p which is again pretty good for a display like this. It also has a very good sun visibility as well but since the display is shiny it is very much prone to finger prints. On the other hand, it has a hardened glass that prevents the screen form getting scratched. On the whole, we are pretty much impressed with the display.

The pixel density is 306p which is again very good for a display like this. There are three capacitive touchscreen buttons.

The phone weighs around 135g with the dimension of 138 × 70 × 6.85 mm which makes it pretty slim. The phone is available in three different colors that is, yellow, black and white. The front of the Noir Quatro Z3 has a glass with dragon trial coating to resist the scratches and the back rear side has a very good plastic with matte finish. This gives the handset a very classy look. In addition, due to this matte finish, you can comfortably hold the handset in your hand as it does not slip from your hand.

Being a unibody design, the Noir Z33 feels really solid as well as quite nice in terms of build quality. Talking about the size that we have previously mentioned, the phone has almost the right size of display that gives you a firm grip with curved edges and makes the handset easy to hold with one hand. The form factor of the Noir Z3 is also good enough and it is pretty light in terms of weight therefore, it does not feel heavy. You can easily carry it in your jeans pocket. The volume rocker and the power button are present on the left side. Both these buttons have a steel finish. On the right side there is a micro SIM card slot under the flap and a micro USB slot.

The new Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3 is a sleek looking and thin handset with very fine build quality and nice colors. With only 6.85mm thickness, the device successfully qualifies as the Pakistan first slimmest device with some very exceptional features and of course an affordable price tag. The power and volume buttons are placed on the left side instead of right side. A Micro SIM card slot and a MicroUSB port is what that you will find on its right side. The device is a single SIM device and there is no option to use a second SIM with Noir Z3. Furthermore, since the battery is built-in, there is no option to open the handset. It is completely sealed. The only way to insert a SIM card is through Micro SIM card slot.

Moving on, you will get an AMOLED display with HD resolution that gives pretty sharp and vibrant colors. Plus, an upgraded MT6589T (Turbo) processor is powering the Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3 for fast performance and smoother multitasking operations. However, its RAM is only of 1GB which is bit low, we expect it to be at least 2GB. The operating system of the device is Android 4.2.1 which is a nice addition, though updating it to the latest Android 4.4 Kit Kat can be a great plus. But, nevertheless it still is a very good option for many people with such up to date specifications and nice features – all at a very affordable price.

The new Qmobile Noir Z3 is powered up with many impressive specs and equally good price as well that is relatively fair considering its specs. So let us take a brief look at the specs. The device comes up with a Quad Core 4.5GHz MT6589 Turbo Processor with 16 GB of built in ROM and 1 GB RAM. With this we can say that built in memory of the Z3 is big enough and user available space is 11.39 GB which is pretty good the only drawback here in terms of its memory is the unavailability of SD card support. Then again, going over the main point the device offers a massive storage for all your pictures, songs, videos and more. thus you may hardly need the SD card to expand the storage of the device.

The battery backup is good. The Noir Z3 comes with a standard Li-Ion 2000 mAH battery that gives you good time considering that the device has an AMOLED display. The battery if not too good is also not too bad either, we can rate it as an average battery that works like any android with Quad core processor and super AMOLED display phone does. Though, we are not pretty much impressed with the battery but the fact is that it can get you through 1.5 days from a full charge with normal usage that includes internet browsing, watching YouTube videos and playing heavy games and Wi-Fi turned on all the time. This is not extraordinary although, but yet quite satisfactory.

The user interface is quite user friendly. The device runs on Android 4.2.1 jelly Bean) which is almost similar to many of the smartphones in the same range. The operating system brings lock screen widgets, quick settings and lots more features. You will have 9 home screens to choose from. You can simply pinch the home screen in order to add or remove the number of home screens. Alternatively, you can also add or remove the home screen from the home screen menu.

There are pretty much customizations options are available that include change the wallpaper and desktop settings. To change the wallpaper, simply press and hold on the home screen. You can also change the desktop settings such as desktop effects, option to enable scroll up and scroll down settings. By enabling these settings, you let yourself to just scroll down anywhere in the home screen to bring the notification shade and scroll up to bring the home screen menu.

Apart from that, there are also themes other than the Android themes that you can choose to customize your handset. Preview of the theme is available to let you know how the theme will look like. All these options like to add desktop effects, change wallpaper and theme is part of built in color app.

The interface allows you to launch the camera directly even from the locked screen by simply swiping to the left. There are also quick settings in the drop-down notification as a part of Android 4.2. On top of loads of quick toggles, the device also has power saving toggle.

The lock screen allows you to add widgets as well. A range of different widgets can be added.

The device comes with an 8 megapixel auto focus camera present on the back of the handset with LED flash. The Noir Z3 also has a steel rim around the camera, plus it also has got a secondary microphone as well just above the camera. In addition, the device is also blessed with a BSI sensor.

The user interface of the camera is not very complicated, though it is quite different than many other mobile phones that come with a Mediatek chip. On the left side, you will find a camera switch button and on the right side a toggle to switch to video mode, on-screen shutter button and an image preview as well.

There are too many options in the camera user interface. That sometimes makes the UI somewhat laggy. The options include Capture Modes which are Multi Angle View (MAV), EV bracket shot, Panorama, Face beauty and Best shot Capture Action which are Gesture shot, Touch shot and Smile shot and Color Effect which are Blackboard and Whiteboard, Mono, Negative, Aqua and Sepia. You can also add frames to your photos and make them even more interesting and memorable.

Some other options that you will find in camera UI include zero shutter delay, continuous shot (40 or 99), and options to adjust the exposure, saturation, brightness, contrast and ISO.

Since the camera is an 8 megapixel shooter, we can expect some decent shoot. Image quality is satisfactory. The macro images are quite decent with the only lacking in its white balance which is not proper. In the areas of low light, you will not get good photos, but alternatively you can always use its LED flash in low light environment. Images captured with Noir Z3 are lacking color details and have pincushion distortion that make images to be appeared pinched at their center.

The Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3 also boosts a front facing 5 mega pixel camera that does its job pretty well. It can be used for video chats. The front facing camera can record videos at 720p HD resolution.

Now, the recording mode of the device. The phone is capable of recording videos at 1080p full HD resolution at 30fps. The quality of videos recorded is good with clear audio which not to mention is because of its secondary microphone that can be found with the camera. Over all the video quality is satisfactory but videos do lack details.

Heading towards the apps section, the device comes with a lot of pre-loaded apps and games. There is a usual set of Google Apps and apart from that the device also has many utility apps such as File Explorer, Weather app, Compass, Sound Recorder, Calculator, Calendar, Notes, Torch, Kingsoft Office for viewing and editing office files, Hao123 news app and Xender.

Other than that there are some more apps that will be helpful for you. These include NQ Mobile Security, WhatsApp, Yahoo!, Cricket and du battery Saver. Some pre-loaded games are also there to welcome you such as Little Big City, Asphalt 6, Wonder Zoo, Fishing Joy and Texas Poker. Furthermore, you can download free and paid games from the Game Zone.

The Noir Z3 comes with a great audio player and FM radio. The phone is capable of playing different formats. In addition, there is DTS effects that you can enable from the music player settings. Though, there are no standard equalizer settings. Furthermore, you can also control the Bass boost and 3D effect manually.

The FM Radio is also of good quality that comes with auto search and recording options. Although there is no RDS support in Noir Quatro Z3. Lastly, the loudspeaker delivers quite decent audio and the bundled in-earphones also offers good bass. The video player is nothing much extraordinary it can play videos at full HD 1080p resolution.

You will find almost the similar dialer and messaging features as that on many smartphones from the local brands, but the fact is that colors are completely different that create a totally new feel when using the device. Speed dialer is also supported and also the quick search. So, for those who are in the habit of using these two features they will not be disappointed.

Then again since the device is only one SIM phone, you have no options to switch SIM cards and choose which SIM card to use for call by default. The call quality is pretty much fine and we are able to hear the other party loud and clear. There is minimal noise at the areas of low coverage.

When you get the Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3, you will notice that its setting menu is separated into two categories. One is common settings and the other is All settings. Connectivity options can be found under the common setting sub-division that are used most often. The phone offers different connectivity options that include 3G (HSDPA), Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, WiFi Direct, Bluetooth v 4.0 with A2DP and GPS. You can also share content from the phone to a HDTV by connecting a wireless display adapter to a HDMI-enabled TV.

The phone definitely has some very good points in its side that usually consumers consider before buying a phone, these include a good camera with an excellent display, powerful hardware that support heavy gaming which is a plus point for the heavy gamers. The Noir Z3 is a high end gaming device with a powerful quad core processor and of course Android 4.2 software running on it. Design wise, the device is very sleek and looks extremely stylish. Further, it can easily be handled with one hand with a very good grip. If you are a type of mobile phone users who prefer such specifications then this handset is definitely a good choice for you.

Considering its price tag and then looking at its specification, the Qmobile Noir Quatro Z3 can be a good choice for anyone in general who is looking to buy a smartphone under PKR 30,000 range. Its sleek design, amazing screen, brilliant call quality, better looking unibody design, great multitasking features, Active Matrix Organic LED Screen, feather touch keys, powerful and fast CPU and awesome graphics with latest GPU, along with huge internal storage and HD cameras on both side with better battery timing are what that makes Noir Quatro Z3 an ultimate choice for you.

However, you should keep in mind that there is no expandable storage available via memory card slot. Plus, it is slightly on a costly side of the market but once you look at its internal and functions, it definitely worth it.