QMobile has somewhat turned its attention to entry level smartphones to a large extent as we’re lately seeing a number of devices that target this particular category. Apart from the Jazz-QMobile hybrids, a number of other entry level smartphones have been brought to existence by the local manufacturer and the Noir i1 is one of these. It is related to the QMobile Noir i2.

Build quality and display

The QMobile Noir i1 contains nothing out of the ordinary for an entry level smartphone. This applies to all of its categories and its build plus design is also what we’ve regularly seen from the smartphone manufacturer. A typical old-school design with three capacitive buttons at the front bottom bezel and some unfashionable dimensions (and weight) make the Noir i1 just like any other entry level smartphone.

The smartphone’s front panel features the customary light, G and proximity sensors and its display shelters a 4.0 inches IPS LCD capacitive touchscreen with a lowly resolution. These specs are likely to produce pixelated and smudged graphics which won’t be that pleasing to the eye.

Cameras

The Noir i2’s cameras do have some good news in them; the first is that you get to have two cameras, a primary and a secondary which means that fortunately the company hasn’t ditched the selfie sensor in the smartphone. Statistically, the primary camera features a 5 megapixel sensor with an LED flash while the secondary camera features a VGA sensor. Remember these? Yes they still exist!

Hardware and software

The Noir i1 is powered by a 1.3 GHz Quad-Core Cortex processor with an additional 1GB of RAM. To be fair, smartphones within these price brackets generally tend to keep lesser RAMs than this so we’ll give credit where it’s due. However, this amount of power isn’t enough to smoothly run the built-in Android Lollipop so don’t get your hopes up this quickly.

The smartphone’s internal storage banks at 8GB of which around 4 gigs are available for everyday usage while an external memory card slot is also present. But beware! Use it wisely as expanding it up to its very limit will badly affect your smartphone’s performance while optional Dual-SIM support, a removable battery and a price of just below 6,000 rupees are its other notable mentions.