The Beyond brings powerful specs at an entry-level price point!
Kult recently launched an entry-level smartphone, the Beyond, at starting price of 6,999 INR. The USP of its latest offering is the 5.2-inch HD on cell display, 32GB ROM and 3GB of RAM. The Kult Beyond has one of the best on specs in the budget range, but can it deliver? Let’s see how it performs in our review period.
Design and Build
The Kult Beyond is made up of a polycarbonate shell with a removable back cover of a metallic finish. The design seems different in comparison to most budget smartphones. The camera has a bulge, yet is cleverly placed at the top centre along with LED flash and mic. While the front has camera, flash and sensors on the top and has no buttons at the bottom.
The Beyond comes in the matte black finish which seems fairly attractive. The edges are curved and add a good strength to the body. The 3.5mm audio jack and USB charging port is on the top. Speakers and a fingerprint sensor are placed on the rear panel. The volume rocker keys are on right edge along with the power key. On opening the rear panel, there are two micro-SIM card slots and one SD card slot.
Overall, the design is minimal and sturdy. I really liked the design and ergonomics. Despite the bigger battery, it seems lightweight and can be perfectly used with a single hand.
Display
The Kult Beyond features a 5.2-inch IPS on-cell display with a resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels. The display is protected by a 2.5D curved glass. The display is not very bright but offers good colours. One can see the screen under the direct sunlight and under different viewing angles quite easily.
Specifications
Under the hood, the Kult Beyond houses a 64-bit quad-core MediaTek MT 6737 processor coupled with a 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. There’s 32GB of expandable microSD card slot which should be at least 64GB, in my opinion.
It runs Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box. The UI is minimal and has no bloatware. It offers decent customizations options, which is good. I really like smartphones with clean UI because they consume less RAM than those who have a heavy skin.
Performance
As per the given SoC and RAM, the Kult Beyond performs amazingly. There was not a single lag in my usage. The touch response was good and one can switch between the apps easily.
The gaming performance on the Beyond was good but when it comes to running high-end games like Asphalt 8 or Modern Combat, there are noticeable frame drops.
The fingerprint sensor’s response was quick and it unlocks the smartphone instantly. The audio and video quality of the smartphone is
good, but could’ve been better. The 4G and other connectivity options work fine.
The benchmark performance of the Kult Beyond was good too. It scores 28635 in AnTuTu and 16109 in Quadrant Standard. In Geekbench 2, the score was 560 in Single Core and 1422 in Multi-Core. The scores were better than most of the smartphone available in this budget range.
Battery
It houses a 3,000mAh battery which gives around 8 to 9 hours of runtime on moderate usage. The standby time is of almost 3 days which is impressive. Minimal users will surely get a battery life of more than a day.
Camera
The Kult Beyond features a 13MP camera with flash on both the front and rear. The camera performance is good and it shoots decent images in daylight. The low-light performance is poor but the equipped LED flash does pretty good job of providing the illumination. The focus also seems pretty slow but the captured image contains a good amount of detail. The camera functions are minimal and good although the quality isn’t that good when compared to the Redmi 4.
Verdict
The Kult Beyond seems a reasonable smartphone with good specifications at a price of 6999 INR. It covers almost every part of the basic user needs like battery, camera, performance and design. Maybe the new brand makes it bit tougher to choose, but you can surely go for it. Although, it faces a strong competition from the Xiaomi Redmi 4.
