Transsion Group has an interesting strategy when it comes to selling smartphones in the highly aggressive smartphone market. They’ve created multiple sub-brands that compete with each other for market share but cater to different set of audiences. Take itel, for instance. itel focuses on delivering “value plus mobile devices” and it holds true when you look at the recently launched S42.
The phone is priced at Rs. 8,499 and brings in a lot of features that you’d generally expect from a phone that goes over the Rs. 10,000 price bracket. This year is all about 18:9 displays and it comes as a no surprise that itel has decided to go with a 5.65-inch 18:9 HD+ display. We would have preferred if itel had gone all in with a Full HD+ display to compete aggressively. At the back is the iPhone X-esque dual cameras as well as a fingerprint sensor at the back. Overall, it does look like the design has been inspired but looks good for a phone at this price.
The phone is powered by Snapdragon 425 with 3GB RAM and runs Android Oreo out of the box and given our limited time with the device, the phone fared decently. There’s a fingerprint sensor at the back along with face unlock support. Do note, face unlock is more of a convenience feature than a secure one.
As far as other features are concerned, there are two 13MP cameras at the back as well as a 13MP on the front with 120-degree wide selfie angle and dual LED flash. There’s 3000mAh battery and 16GB internal storage.