New Article: BQ Magic Smartphone Review: Affordable Beauty
Creating a high-quality budget smartphone is a noble and at the same time difficult task. There is no place to sabre-rattling innovations here, you can’t play with OLED screens and tetra-cameras, and the competition in this segment is huge, and the user wants to get a gadget of a normal level for little money. BQ plays exclusively on this field and has become quite skilled in his role. Usually we are talking about the "cheap and cheerful" option, which is trying to take its toll, for example, by combining a capacious battery and a slightly more powerful platform than its competitors.
The new Magic is trying to earn additional reputation points for the company. For a smartphone with a starting price 7 rubles there are a lot of unusual things here: if a dual rear camera, as well as a tiny cutout in a 19,5: 9 format screen, now will not surprise even connoisseurs of ultra-budgetary employees, then the declared active participation in shooting artificial intelligence and the built-in NFC module are rare moments for such devices .
BQ-6040L Magic (hereinafter referred to as simply BQ Magic) is designed extremely up-to-date, with a discount on the price and status of the device. The bezels around the display are kept to a minimum (90% screen coverage of the front panel), the front camera is hidden in a miniature custom cutout at the top of the screen, and the back panel sparkles and shines in two of the three colors. True, the coating is not glass, but plastic, but at first glance this cannot be determined.
The three finishes mentioned are black (in this case the Magic will have a matte back), red and blue. Both of the latter received a gradient color, the basis for which in any case was the same black color. The smartphone looks neat and relevant, the performance is also at a good level. Only a mini-jack looks a little scary, a little "creeping" on the back of the gadget. But this moment does not affect the use of the device in any way.
The back is slightly rounded at the edges, as well as the edges are rounded - due to this, the smartphone is comfortable to hold in your hand. In any case, it’s impossible to use it with one hand - I can’t even reach the corners of a six-inch screen, all modern smartphones require two hands in most scenarios.
Dimensions BQ Magic - 156 × 73,3 × 8,7 mm. The manufacturer confronts his creation head-on with Honor 8A and Huawei Y6, seeing it as his direct and main competitors in them. The “Chinese” who received exactly the same display are a little thinner, but taller and wider. In any case, the difference is insignificant, these are really three gadgets that are very similar in design.
The control logic is quite common for an Android smartphone: the navigation keys are virtual here, only the hardware volume control / shutter release and the power key are displayed on the body. The latter received a corrugation - and due to this, it is instantly determined by touch.
Even the latest “state employees” have not yet grown up to the USB Type-C port, so the BQ Magic received a traditional microUSB connector.
On the rear panel, in addition to the minimally protruding camera body, we see a fingerprint scanner. This is a good old capacitive sensor, it works quickly and with a minimum percentage of rejects. In an era of screen sensors that very often fail or are almost unusable (as in Nokia 9 PureView), but which are increasingly found in mid-range and high-end smartphones, such a “dinosaur” evokes warm, friendly feelings.
If you wish, you can unlock the smartphone and just by looking at it - face identification is also among the options, and the coveted abbreviation AI is present in its description. How exactly neural networks are involved in this process is not known for certain, but the system is standard, using a single front camera, without any other assistant sensors. The smartphone honestly warns about the unreliability of this method before photographing your face.