XOLO Q2500 Review: Perfect Crossover Between a Smartphone and Tablet

9.1 out of 10

XOLO Q2500 launched rather quietly, but with its specs and price made an instant splash in the market. The Q2500 comes with a 6-inch HD display, quad-core processor, 1 GB RAM running Android 4.2 Jelly Bean but with a promise of KitKat update. It can be considered a cross between a tablet and a smartphone. Given its thin profile and over-all excellent build quality it surely should be under consideration if you are looking for a media-centric device. Here's our review of the XOLO Q2500 to answer all your questions.

Pros

• Excellent Build Quality
• Vibrant Display
• Good Camera
• Brilliant Performance, Gaming
• Upgradable to Android KitKat
• Several Free Accessories

Cons

• Earpiece could've been louder
• Static noise from Speakerphone
• Notification LED not open to all apps

Hardware Overview

The hero feature of the XOLO Q2500 is its 6-inch HD IPS display, its sharp with great color reproduction and wide viewing angles. You can share a movie with your friends by propping on the flip-cover stand and both would be able to see the display clearly without any distortion.

MediaTek's MT6582 powers the internals here with Mali-400MP2 dual-core GPU with 1 GB RAM. It performs superbly. There's a 8 MP auto-focus camera with BSI Sensor and LED flash at the back alongwith a 2 MP front-facing unit. You also have a notification LED just below the display but it is not open to all apps, we will talk about that in a short while. You have on-screen buttons which is great given that you do have some space to spare on that large display. Moreover you can even hide the navigation buttons by tapping on the notification LED.

If we come to benchmarks, the XOLO Q2500 performed brilliantly with excellent scores:

• Antutu: 17449
• Quadrant: 6952
• Vellamo HTML5: 1930
• Vellamo Metal: 585
• NenaMark 2: 54.9

You can see our comparison with similarly priced smartphones in our Benchmark review.

There's 4 GB internal storage out of which about 2.7 GB is available to the user. You can expand storage using the microSD card slot with upto 32 GB cards. But apps and app-data are movable to the SD card, so that's plenty space. USB OTG is also supported.

Connectivity options include 3G, WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, FM Radio and GPS with aGPS support. GPS is able to triangulate location quickly but a data connection certainly helps. The XOLO Q2500 is a dual-SIM phone and uses 2 regular SIM card slots. Just below the SIM card slots you have a large non-removable 3000 mAh battery.

Proximity and Light sensors alongwith Accelerometer also find a way on the Q2500.

Build Quality

You have the 6-inch HD display in front which blends into the front glass and looks quite elegant. You also have the earpiece up top with the XOLO logo just below it and proximity, light sensors on its right. The 2 MP front-camera finds a place next to the sensors. There's a round multi-colored notification LED just below the display and the navigation buttons are on-screen.

On the left, you have the volume rocker which would've been better off on the right side with the power button. But both are sturdy and offer good travel and feedback.

There's some design flair added on the Q2500 with the silver trim which runs on the sides. The backcover cuts in a bit giving it an angular design which is much appreciated. It makes the phone look even thinner and at about 8.5 mm its really quite a thin phone. The back has a matte finish which gives the device a premium look.

Moving to the back you have the 8 MP camera at the top, the dual-LED flash just below it. Another XOLO logo finds its way below the flash and then there's the speakerphone at the bottom.

The speakerphone is flush with the backcover, so sound gets muffled when the phone is put on its back. The camera hump is considerably less when compared to other phones in the segment. The back is fairly flat giving a very streamlined look to the phone. Overall the entire construction of the phone is solid all the while keeping a consistent design. It looks elegant and doesn't feel so large or heavy for a 6-inch device.

Accessories

You get a free leather flip-cover within the box alongwith a second screen-protector, one is already pre-applied on the display.

The leather flip-cover is of good quality and doubles up as a stand. You can read more about the accessories and our first impressions in the unboxing of the XOLO Q2500.

Display

The 6-inch HD IPS display on the Q2500 is brilliant in every way. It has excellent color reproduction and wide viewing angles.

Text, videos and images look sharp on the 720p display, there is no pixelation to speak off. You do have auto-brightness as well as Daydream available on the phone.

Network & Call Quality

Network retention as well as call quality are good, but both the earpiece and speakerphone are a bit low in volume. Although the other person on the line can hear you well, its a bit straining to hear them in a noisy environment. But calls are clear without any additional distortion.

WiFi reception is good and Bluetooth works fine as well. WiFi Hotspots, USB and Bluetooth tethering are also standard on the Q2500.

Camera

There's a 8 MP auto-focus primary camera with BSI sensor on the Q2500 which takes images with good color reproduction but do lack a bit in sharpness.

Auto-focusing works fast, you also have touch to focus available. The Q2500 uses the default MediaTek camera app with an additional voice capture option which takes an image when you say "Capture" or "Cheese". Its worthwhile if you are taking a group shot.

The front 2 MP camera also takes decent shots and the flash is bright enough for close photography at night. But in general low-light performance is a bit poor.

Camera Review

Image Samples

Video Samples

Speakerphone

The speakerphone is a somewhat of a letdown on an otherwise faultless device. There is a continuous electrical static noise in the background, which although not audible until you place the speakerphone next to your ear, does exist.

Then its low in volume as well. Its audible, but you won't be sharing your favorite song with your friends on this.

Music Playback & Bundled Headset

Music playback is flawless, there is no issue with high-bitrate content. The headset is nothing to write home about, but the headphone jack provides full sound, so a good headset would work great.

FM Radio reception is good, it is able to find channels quickly and you can also record FM in stereo quality.

Video Playback

You can play 1080p videos smoothly on the Q2500 without any additional apps. By default 3GP, MP4, MKV and AVI video files are supported, you can play the rest of the formats using VLC for Android or MXPlayer.

YouTube playback using the default app is a bit laggy, now this is just a compatibility issue. We tried another app called Viral YouTube Popup and it worked great without issues. Google will probably update the YouTube app to fix this issue. 

Notification LED

There's a multi-colored circular LED just below the display, which is way cooler than just a plain dot. But that's just it, its not exactly that functional. The notification LED only lights up when your phone is charging or you have a missed call, unread message or a pending system update.

Other apps like Facebook, GMail etc don't have access to it. So its restricted in that manner. But it allows you to do another cool thing, make the on-screen navigation buttons disappear. On tapping it once, the on-screen navigation buttons disappear letting you use the entire 6-inch display for playing games which would otherwise show the on-screen button on the side and you can enable them by just tapping on it again.

Software & Apps

The XOLO Q2500 runs an almost stock build of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and its upgradable to Android 4.4 KitKat. You have a stock launcher with 5 homescreens and very few apps come pre-installed. There is no bloatware on the device.

We have already discussed the notification LED which allows you to hide the on-screen buttons giving you the entire display to play with. You also have Net Firewall option which allows you to block data usage by any app without your prior permission, a very handy option to keep data access in check.

Additionally you get two great value-adds, XOLO Power and XOLO Secure apps. Apart from that, you just have the basic Google apps pre-installed.

All apps we tried on the phone including various social networking apps like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp all worked fine. Skype also works fine on the device, video quality is clear.

Web-browsing through Chrome works great, there are no issues with rendering on the sites we tried. Pinch-to-zoom also works well, all in all there are no issues with performance on this device.

Security

In security you do have additional options of Face Unlock and Voice Unlock apart from Pattern, Pin and Password.

Android Device Manager is also supported which allows you to find, erase and ring your lost device. You can also sideload apps, as any other Android smartphone.

Battery

There's a 3000 mAh non-removable battery on the XOLO Q2500 which takes about 4.5-5 hours to charge from 0-100%.

You can easily get 2 days worth of usage with some gaming, music, web-browsing and video playback. With average use you can even get more than 2 days quite easily. This is with two SIM cards and data connectivity on Edge always on.

Performance & Gaming

XOLO Q2500 performs great, be it gaming, general use or web-browsing. There is no hiccup in the UI, its fluid and so is the touch response.

We played several high-end games on the Q2500 including Asphalt 8, FIFA 14, Need For Speed, Modern Combat 4, NOVA 3 among others and all games played superbly. There was no lag, consistent framerates and the display performed brilliantly as well. There's something about that 6-inch display which really brings games and multimedia content to life. Maybe its just the size.

Wrap-Up

The XOLO Q2500 is one of the better phones we have seen from the company. It comes with excellent build quality, a large vibrant display and brilliant performance.

There are a few things that could have been better like the speakerphone, earpiece volume during calls and access to the notification LED to other apps. But these can be forgiven.

If you are looking for a 7-inch tablet or even a large phablet, the Q2500 should definitely be on your list. Its the perfect cross-over device between a smartphone and a tablet with the promise of getting better with KitKat update.

Score Breakdown

• Build and Design
  9.4
• Display
  9.2
• Network Reception & Call Quality
  7.4
• Camera(s)
  8.7
• Music & Video Playback
  8.9
• Gaming
  9.4
• Performance
  9.5
• Battery-life
  9.5
• Software
  9.4
• Total Score
  9.1 10.0