First Impressions: Creo Mark 1 & Fuel OS Have Much to Offer
The company is looking to refresh its first phone with monthly updates.
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Creo Mark 1 wants to give consumers a new-look Android every month. There’s nothing wrong with what the company hopes to achieve, but how long can they offer new features? After all, Android is heavily reliant on features that are easy to be integrated and Creo wants to change that model with its crowd-sourced ideas.
Android offers in pure vanilla form are the best skin and flavour that has been revered by many over the years. And it’s good to see that Creo has stuck to Android’s truest form with the Mark 1 smartphone.
Priced at Rs 19,999, Creo manages to pack in a host of features that haven’t been seen at this price point, but was it really needed for a virgin operating system?
Phone That Matches the Rest
The Creo Mark 1 offers Quad-HD display, an octa-core processor with 3GB RAM, 21-megapixel rear camera, and a 3100mAh battery unit. However, we feel that Creo could have given its custom Android interface Fuel OS some breathing space with low hardware config.
Mediatek Helio X10 with a 2K display might do injustice to what Creo is hoping to offer and the monthly updates might just lead to its fall.
Creo Mark 1 does look a shade like the OnePlus X smartphone but with a .5-inch bigger body frame. The front of the display is covered by 2.5D Corning Glass 3 and at the back, you have to bear the glass body which is slippery as well as attracts fingerprints in no time.
However, the size and weight ratio is uneven which is why the Creo Mark 1 is not only big in size, but also heavy to carry at 190 grams. When most mobile brands have found the trick to making thinner phones, Creo takes us all the way back to 2013.
The phones offer ample storage space with 32GB onboard, expandable up to 128GB. You can use two SIMs at the same time that also support 4G bands in India. Interestingly, both the volume rockers and power button have been placed alongside each other, and you might have to get used to that with the Creo Mark 1.
Fuel OS Promises Much But...
In our brief tryst with the Fuel OS running on the Creo Mark 1, we like what we’ve seen so far. The software doesn’t seem to carry a lot of features for now but Creo promises that the monthly updates will ensure the phone never loses its sight.
The Echo, Sense, Retriever features are some of those highlighted previously, but are also the ones worth making use of on a daily basis. Sense can offer users ease of access without exploring the phone’s deeper corners.
Even though these are early days, the Fuel OS is already eating up a lot of space on the phone. Out of 32GB available, users are left with 24GB for usage – which basically means that over 8GB of space is occupied by the software. We really hope that further additions to the OS don’t make it heavier.
Let’s Be Honest
The Creo Mark 1 only just reached our hands, and with whatever has been said and shown to us, there is much to like. However, we’ll be honest enough to suggest that Creo might miss its marks with the mark 1 – and we are more than willing to accept that reality. However, for Rs 19,999 there’s just too much at stake for a brand that wants to change the meaning of software in your phone for good.
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