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iNO 3 Review: No Frills Experience

Background

For those who do not know who iNO is, let me do an introduction of the company.

iNO Mobile is a rather new company (at least compared to companies such as LG and Samsung). Unlike mainstream phone distributors, iNO mainly targets niche markets, such as senior phones and non-camera smartphone. In fact, they were one of the pioneers in terms of non-camera smartphone. I personally owned an iNO One, which unfortunately met its demise in a toilet bowl.

Fast forward about 18 months later and after I was discharged from National Service, I contacted iNO to see if I could get my hands on their latest and greatest iNO 3 for a follow-up coverage after my Phicomm i600. I would like to express my gratitude to iNO for this review device.

After 4 non-camera devices, how would their 5^th non-camera smartphone turn out? Read on more to find out.

Hardware

To be honest, I am pleasantly surprised by the build quality of the iNO 3. The hardware is really really nice. The phone feels really compact and comfortable when held. In particular, I love the back plate a lot. The textures gives it a very unique feel in hand, and provides enough grip such that it will not fall off your hand like a bar of soap.

At the right side are all the buttons, namely the volume rocker and the power button. The tactility is pleasant enough. I would prefer the power button to be higher so that I don’t need to do hand-yoga sometimes, but that is personal preference.

The top is a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the left contains a micro-USB port, right dead at the centre, which is quite awkward in my opinion when I hold the device during charging.

The back has absolutely nothing, which was another surprise to me. I was expecting a back-speaker like its predecessor. To my delight, the speaker is a front-firing one, and is also used as the earpiece for the phone; very nice indeed. What is not as nice is the speaker itself, as it lacks bass and volume to it. Oh well.

Speaking of sound, I also went for a test drive to listening to my music. The sound from the earpiece contains much more bass than expected. I am no audiophile so I am not really disturbed by it, but for those who are more sensitive to these, it might be something worth noting.

Other than the earpiece/speaker, 3 capacitive buttons (Menu, Home, Back) are at the bottom. To be honest, I would prefer for a multi-task menu rather than a menu button, but that would be nit-picking.

Overall, I have not much to complain about the hardware. It might not be flashy, however it feels extremely comfortable to use.

Specification

The screen is probably one of the biggest jumps from the predecessor. A 1280×768 4.2 inch display is used for the iNO 3. It is no full-HD screen, however at 4.2 inches diagonal, this resolution is plenty sharp. In fact it is sharp enough that one would find difficult to discern the pixels. iNO claims that it rivals the “Retina” display on the iPhone, and it indeed is.

I would say though, the colour accuracy seems to leave something to be desired. After comparing with some devices, the iNO 3 screen felt noticeably warmer than other displays. The white have a looks more yellowish compared to other display. Unless you are a screen junkie, most people would be satisfied with the display of the device.

iNO 3 sports a MediaTek MTK6735 processor with 2GB of RAM. In general use, this phone zips through daily task nicely. Heat dissipation is also within acceptable range. However, unlike many other 2GB RAM devices, the iNO 3 is perfectly fine with it, as it have a whopping 1.2GB worth of free RAM. This is more than enough to multi-task for most people.

Performance

The iNO 3 runs Android 5.1, which is perfectly acceptable since Marshmallow is only recently launched anyway. iNO is rather pro-active in terms of the software updates for this device, as I received an update during my duration of the review.

Daily usage wise, I have little to pick on. Lag is very minor in daily use, and it zips through most tasks. To quantify the performance though, I ran AnTuTu benchmark to see where this device stands. It achieved a score of around 26,000, which is around the score of a Nexus 5 and a Galaxy S4. Not too shabby.

For real-world use, I tried a few games on the iNO 3 as well. Asphalt 8 looks almost perfect on medium setting, and started to strain on the high setting.  PPSSPP works really well on the default 2x PSP rendering setting, and lastly for casual gamers things should be fine and dandy.

Gaming Test: PPSSPP

To conclude the performance section, it is definitely no powerhouse, however for daily use and occasional games this phone definitely is more than adequate to handle the tasks.

Software

The software of this device is extremely close to stock android. In fact, the launcher is a lighter version of the stock Google Launcher, with exclusion of the Google Now screen on the left.

The iNO 3 do have some small trickery up its sleeves though. The iNO 3 comes with the power schedule function, as it is capable of turning itself on-and-off. This feature is present in its predecessor, and I could see people using this feature especially for the army boys.

Field Camps? No problem

MiraVision is another additional feature of the iNO 3. This grants the users the ability to customise their display. Be it contrast, colour temperature, sharpness, and more. This is a very nice feature, as I prefer the screen to be colourful and was able to crank the contrast to its maximum. It still does not change the fact that the screen is excessively warm though.

The last thing is really nice for those with secrets to hide. There is modular permission control, which allow you to disable a particular permission for an app. So Facebook will not be able to get your phone contacts for those who mind. This is originally an Android Marshmallow feature, so seeing it here is absolutely great.

Generally though, there are no bells and whistles here. However, this is also the reason why the RAM consumption is considerably low compared to mainstream devices. Don’t expect any parlour tricks from the phone, however do expect daily tasks to be done very nicely.

Battery

With only 1850mAh battery, and past bad experiences with my Phicomm i600, I was not having high expectations for the device. However, it again went against the odds and surprised me in a good way.

Maybe it is the lower resolution and smaller screen, or it is the low-powered MediatTeK processor. Regardless what is the case, the battery seems to be decent on our unit. We manage to get around 3-3.5 hours of Screen-On Time, which is really not bad at all. Lasting through the day without charging should be no issues with light to moderate use.

For heavy users, there is always the option to swap the battery, which is an option that is slowly getting phased out in the market (and it shouldn’t!). The shape of the battery however is kind-of awkward to put in the wallet, but it would still fit nonetheless.

Is the battery on this device world class? It’s definitely not. However it does keep up with even the mainstream devices very well.

Price

What’s in the box.

iNO 3 is currently on sale for SGD 378 on iNO’s official website and it comes with a free tempered glass screen protector, which is pre-installed on my unit. For those who likes protecting their phones with cases, there is also a silicon case inside the box, and a blue back-cover. I personally used the default black cover though.

Conclusion

In the past, having a non-camera smartphone needs to be a compromise. It is not just the camera, but also the overall experience. This is not only true for my Phicomm i600, but also most other non-camera devices as well. In particular, it is increasingly more difficult to find phones under the 4.3inch diagonal mark, which is one of the restrictions for the Singapore Armed Forces’ Red Zones.

However with the launch of the iNO 3, I believe that will not be the case anymore. At least to me, iNO 3 had provided me with a good experience from day to day use over the course of 7 days.

The iNO 3 although is not the absolute champion as a smartphone, as a non-camera smartphone though, it is actually quite tough to beat. It does not come with a lot of additional features; however in terms of the fundamentals it is pretty well-done. Daily performance is solid, battery life is decent, the display is plenty sharp; you get the idea.

Compared to the predecessors, it is definitely quite a bit more expensive (about 30% more expensive). However, for a price increase, iNO really used it very well and provided a better product at the end, and that’s all that matters.

“The iNO 3 is not aiming to be the top of the smartphone foodchain. However in the rather barren space of non-camera smartphone, it is rather tough to beat. With all the basics done right, the iNO 3 provides a no-frill experience that most people would enjoy.”

Remarks

All photos are taken using an LG G Flex 2. A really special thanks to iNO for providing us with our very first review device. Plus they are a Singapore-based start-up, so let’s support our local distributors shall we? ^^

Any question feel free to drop it in the comments section, or email us at nus.tech.friends@gmail.com.