Review: Intex Cloud Tread Aims for the Sky, But Crashes Often

Intex Cloud Tread is a phone for those tight on budget. Does the phone provide a good value for its money?

The Intex Cloud Tread is a light-weight device with a few niggling issues. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/TheQuint)

Intex is quite bullish about the Indian mobile phone market and its almost confusing line-up proves that. You’d find an Intex smartphone at almost every price point — from budget to mid-segment.

And the new Intex Cloud Tread, retailing at Rs 4,999, is another step to consolidate its position with the budget-conscious buyer. But how does it fare on the performance front? We tread the uncharted path to find out.

Pros:

• HD display
• Lightweight
• Decent camera

Cons:

• Disappointing battery life
• No 4G
• Lags / crashes often

What’s Good?

The Cloud Tread looks as generic as a smartphone could get. It’s a very safe design in fact: a Dragontrail glass on the front which has a 5-inch HD display. The back has a circular camera lens with the LED flash placed right underneath.

A speaker grille dots the bottom of the matte-finish back-panel. The battery is housed under this panel; both of them are removable.

The Cloud Tread is a generic-looking phone, and doesn’t stand out on the design front. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/TheQuint)

In terms of specifications, the handset puts up a good showing for its segment. There’s a 64-bit hexa-core processor paired with 2GB RAM. There’s 16GB storage on-board, which can be upgraded to 32GB via a microSD card. That would be pretty decent for an average user.

The device has something which Apple iPhone 7 doesn’t – a headphone jack! (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/TheQuint)

The camera performance is quite average at best. The 5-megapixel front and back cameras need good light and a stable hand to capture decent images. As it gets dark, the smartphone camera starts to feel quite incompetent.

The 5 megapixel rear snapper captures details well. (Photo: Aaqib Raza Khan/The Quint)

The camera department falters in low light, and you need a very stable hand even for a shot like this (Photo: Aaqib Raza Khan/The Quint)

What’s Bad?

The phone has a 2,200 mAh battery which performs terribly. You cannot bet on this phone to simply last a day, even if you use it quite moderately. While connected to WiFi and watching a two and a half minute video on YouTube, we noticed that the battery dropped by almost 11 percent.

This is a 3G device launched in the time of the next-generation onslaught. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/TheQuint)

Also, this phone relieves you from the mad rush for Reliance Jio SIM cards. How? By not supporting 4G! Yes, this is a 3G device launched in the time of the next-generation onslaught.

The curved edges on the phone helps make the phone quite handy. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/TheQuint)

The phone often performed contradictory to its specifications. It showed visible lags while switching between apps. YouTube and Facebook also crashed sometimes. Yes, the phone has 2GB RAM.

The Intex Cloud Tread falters during active usage and needs to be charged twice a day. (Photo: Shiv Kumar Maurya/TheQuint)

Why Buy It?

Buy this one if you’re tight on a budget and really need a phone under Rs 5,000. This can work out for your basic usage (albeit with a power-bank to go with it). Tread this way, but also know that it’s a leap of faith.