Innjoo 2

You all probably must have heard about the name Innjoo when it comes to affordable Smartphone makers especially in Nigeria & the Middle East. They probably are next to Infinix Mobility, Tecno, Gionee and Itel all of which are regarded as Affordable Smartphones maker. With so many phone makers unveiling their latest in the recent past, Innjoo also did announced a trio of Smartphones and a a Smart TV ,but the innjoo 2 got the most of attention. Recently I bought and have unboxed this beautiful device and here is its performance report after some hours of usage and overall Hands-on review.



Innjoo 2 Box Appearance

The Innjoo 2 (the white type) Comes in a white box with Innjoo branding on the top. 

Box contents include:

• Innjoo 2 phoneCharging / Travel adapter
• Pair of custom earphones
• Micro USB charging Cable
• User guide and warranty notes
• SIM tray key

Design and Display:

Like the Innjoo One, the new Innjoo 2 copied some design elements from the Iphone 6s with its overall built based on aluminum and a silver/golden curved edges which contributes to the overall aesthetics of the device.

One thing I love about the Innjoo 2 is the silver/golden rounded edge which differentiates the Innjoo 2 design from that of the innjoo one while also offering a good grip & saving the device from looking like another basic phone.

Talking about the controls, the Innjoo 2 houses a power button and a volume rocker on the right side and SIM/Micro USB slot on the other. Both work well but  would have been really nice if one of them doubles as camera shutter .

The front of the Innjoo 2 is predominantly occupied by a 5.0 inch display with some very obvious thick padding both up & down, but with little or no bezel left & right.To the top of the innjoo 2 a centrally placed 13MP camera flanked by a flash light and what was suppose to be a LED notification light  while the bottom portion has 3 On screen buttons :the option/multi windows button,the home button and the back button.

The Innjoo 2 display is the same 5.0-inch with with 720 x 1280 pixels HD resolution. There isnt any significant improvement over the innjoo one but there is a dragon trail glass protection. Text ,images and sunlight eligibility is just ok.

Hardware Under The Hood

The Innjoo 2  makes use of a 32 bit MediaTek MT6753 Octa-core processor with   a speed of 1.3 GHz and Mali-T720 GPU. The phone comes with 2 GB of RAM along with 16 GB of internal memory which is expandable using micro SD card.This can be expanded upto as much as 64GB using a micro SD slot at the left hand corner of the phone. There is a dual micro SIM slots with the micro SD slot which only support 3G SIMs.Under the hood  is a massive 3200 mAh non removable battery with fast charge facility.



OS & Software

The Innjoo 2 runs on Android 5.1 with Fly launcher on top. With the fly launcher,innjoo has added also while also removing some and presented below are some tweaked/alteration made to it

There is no dedicated app drawer. There are lots of pre-loaded apps ranging from media  apps to security app,but most are surely not needed. The notifications and options menu with not much to report Flip Mute , Double click to awake
So many Gestures: M for music, C for phone keypad, O for Facebook and W for WhatsApp and many of these can be customized for your needs. Though these gestures to me are as good as useless because they refused working on locked screen .
Fly Themes– The pre-installed  personalize  app in the phone features just 3 elegant themes by default from where you can chose a very suitable option thereby giving your innjoo 2 a complete & refreshing new look .Shortly before publishing this review,a fly launcher  update poped up and brings with it a couple of other Themes and wall paper you surely will love.
One major gripe that I have with innjoo 2 is the lack of dedicated App drawer. Like the Innjoo one, all apps and new installations are all scattered over the screen. I hate it and in my own judgment believe many also dislikes it simply because many would love to have their home screen clean and Simple.

Thankfully though, the innjoo 2 comes with a shuffle app which upon taping it triggers a reset of scattered Apps on the Home screen, this is in contrast to what we saw with the Innjoo One whose home screen only gets a reset only when you long press the home screen. There’s also the option to hide unwanted icon into a created folder/widgets.

Unarguably the Fly launcher isn’t the best there is and  though not everyone will appreciate lack of app drawer,the Overall UI  ,OS and in app switching  resulted to a satisfactory result with the 2GB RAM playing a major role .



Innjoo 2 Review : Performance

For simplicity and sake of convenience, i have split the performance review of the Innjoo 2 into  sub topics :



Finger Print Scanner:

I singled this out first because this is about the major talking point of the Innjoo 2. Innjoo in their teaser and launch event specifically pointed out how fast the Innjoo 2 fingerprint sensor works and the Device since we got it has done marvelously well in that regard.

Registering the finger print could sometimes be time consuming as you may have to press your finger onto the surface over again before it succeed,but that is about the only difficulty I encountered.

The scanner can take a Maximum of 5 fingerprints and unlocks the device with a twinkle of an eye only if your Finger isn’t stained or wet, otherwise you may get error continuously.

Worthy of mention is the use of the Fingerprint scanner as a camera button. With this in place talking selfies is now more lot easier. Lastly I noticed smart gestures doesn’t work  with any of the security lock including Fingerprint lock in place.Overall,both functions of the fingerprint scanner worked flawlessly as touted.

Battery :

This isn’t a major breakthrough of the Innjoo 2 ,but then Innjoo tried to impress its users With average 3200mAh battery. If you are an average user you like me the battery can see you through for as much as two days. For heavy users and gamer  alike ,you can be sure of a full day.Innjoo 2 spec sheet says it comes with Fast charging feature,while i wont be quick to say its a gimmick,mine didn’t actually didn’t charge as advertised,it took about  1 hour 30 minutes to get the innjoo 2 from 15% to 100%, (for comparison ,the innjoo Halo and innjoo One took that long to charge).The Innjoo 2 like every other innjoo phones before it also comes with power management solutions to help you further extend the battery life.

Gaming

One thing i  hardly do with my phone is playing games, and that accounts for why i don’t go into details when it comes to gaming n some of my previous reviews. I use my phone mainly for communication and utility purposes and  with the sort of usage my phones are subjected to, two and half days of battery life is the best i can get  without any Iota of overheating .That aside, i was able to subject the Innjoo to about 30 of gaming with some other apps opened,the innjoo 2 handled gaming marvelously well,but unexpectedly  the Innjoo 2 heats up,but not so uncontrollable.



Camera

The rear camera shined  in its work especially during daylight,but managed to produce a clearly visible image in a No/low light environment.At times day light Pictures were slightly shaky, but you would have no need to complain in 9 out of 10 shoots. In terms of basic camera settings,i never notice any difference in HDR ,panorama and auto mode.  The 13MP front camera with flash is  suppose to be a plus for the Innjoo 2 and while it is good enough for taking good selfies n daylight and sharing on your social media,it performed terribly bad in low ligh condition as it could barely produced a visible image even with flash enabled.Below are some camera samples to give you an idea.

Multitasking /General Performance:

This is actually one of the things i like most about the Innjoo 2.With 1.3Ghz Octacore processor  plus 2GB RAM ,the Innjoo 2 respond and  runs everyday tasks without issue. Multi-tasking  on the Innjoo 2 is fantatic, it run so well without lagging even with a couple of performance draining apps running.Minimize a couple of apps,open another ,and you do not have any problem with them crashing.The only slight issue here is that of slight increase in Temperature ,which i think its a problem associated with most Mediatek powered devices Check out innjoo 2 Antuntu Benchmark scores.

Miscellaneous:

The Innjoo 2 like the innjoo one is Hybrid dual SIM device -meaning you can use the provided  slot 2 either as a SIM 2 slot or as MicroSD Slot,but not both at once.The specs sheet say the Innjoo 2 supports USB OTG, we shall put that to test later.Notification light seems not functioning on my device and lastly  you don’t have to reboot anytime you remove and reinsert a SIM or a Micro SD  card.

My Verdict

The Innjoo 2 proves that fingerprint enabled devices need not necessarily be costly. Though there is always room for improvement, with its Iphone 6s-like design ,an overwhelming performance, decent battery life, the innjoo 2 is a great pocket friendly phone.

N. B:
For a video review and fingerprint registration tutorial of the innjoo 2, visit the links below:

Innjoo 2 unboxing

Innjoo 2 fingerprint registration

Innjoo 2 fingerprint unlocking

Innjoo 2 hands-on review