Wammy Titan 5 review: Premium build, pocket-friendly price tag

We are in an age where young startups are standing shoulder-to-shoulder, looking straight into the eye of the seasoned rivals. We are talking about tech startups and especially the ones in the smartphone industry. The recent and best examples are the likes of Xiaomi and OnePlus. These Chinese tech startups are heavily funded by investors, and they now have the capability to take them far. However, the impact of Chinese smartphone companies selling their goodies at cheaper prices around the world has impacted the business of many home-grown smartphone manufacturers back here in India. But these Indian brands seem to be getting smarter and won’t allow their sales being hampered. Such is the case of Wickedleak, a Mumbai-based smartphone manufacturer behind Wammy series of smartphones. The company seems to be pulling up their socks and is ending up catering better premium smartphones with cheaper price tags to its consumers.

Full HD display with Gorilla glass 3 protection

Wickedleak recently announced their feature-rich flagship smartphone—the Wammy Titan 5. The Titan 5 offers a premium look along with a rugged metal build, for a price at just Rs 13,490. The Android smartphone sports a 5.5-incher IPS full HD display with an OGS glass technology to help keep the profile as slim as possible because it incorporates a huge 4165mAh battery for a longer run time of up to 4 days. The Titan 5 measures 8mm in thickness, stands 155.2mm tall and weighs a bit on the heavier side at 203g—thanks to the tough metal frame and huge battery within.

The smartphone is available in Gold/White, Silver/Dark and Gray/Silver combinations

The Titan 5 is built around the MediaTek MT6753M 64-bit chipset which features a 1.3GHz octa-core processor coupled with 3GB of RAM and a MALI T760 graphics processor. The built-in storage provided is 16GB and can be expanded up to 128GB using a microSD card. The Titan sports a Samsung K3L2-based 13MP camera on the rear and the front has a regular 5MP sensor. With support for 4G and a dual micro SIM cards, the Wammy Titan 5 has a SAR value rated below 1.6W/Kg. The smartphone is available in Gold/White, Silver/Dark and Gray/Silver combinations.

 

With support for 4G and a dual micro SIM cards, the Wammy Titan 5 has a SAR value rated below 1.6W/Kg

As mentioned earlier, the Wammy Titan 5 has a premium look and feel to it. The front panel is all Gorilla Glass 3 with touch sensors for Home, Menu and Back. However, only the Home button has a backlight, but looks good with a round halo-styled blue light. The other two buttons have reflective dots which shine when in daylight, on their own. The rear panel highlights the camera, which is oddly placed extremely towards the top edge of the chassis. Below the camera lies an LED flash, and below the flash is a square fingerprint sensor, which can recognize the finger from any position. The rear panel has a matte-finish exterior and features a holographic design all over it. As usual, the right side features the power and volume, while the top and bottom sport the headphone jack and the USB slot. The entire frame of the Titan 5 is made of a metal with a sand-blasted finish and a chamfered edge for a premium look. Thanks to the metal frame, the device seems tougher and pretty sturdy. Below the rear panel lays two slots for the micro SIM cards and a one for a micro SD card. The battery is housed permanently and is non removable.

 

Camera is oddly placed towards the top-center, and below it is a fingerprint scanner

On the ergonomic front, the Titan 5 is pretty large for anyone with small hands. Using the Titan 5 is a little tedious as the screen is large and the extreme top corners are hard to reach. However, this is completely a choice of the user if he or she wants to opt for a smartphone with a larger display. The volume and power buttons are placed well in reach.

 

Thanks to the metal frame, the device seems tougher and pretty sturdy

As for the performance, the smartphone comes installed with Android Lollipop out-of-the-box and Wickedleak has confirmed that the Titan 5 will be upgraded to Android Marshmallow V6.0. The operating system is a third-party ROM, is based completely on stock Android and features OTA updates. The operating system has absolutely no extra apps or bloatware, helping keep the important resources at the lowest. The 3GB RAM, octa-core chip and the graphics processor help keep the OS running smooth and clean. We witnessed no stutter or lags in the performance, be it videos, mid-range to high-end games or alike.

From casual photos to selfies and when you are outdoors, the smartphone camera is the only eye-witness to your world. The camera, which is one of the most soughed feature on all smartphones today. Smartphones on a budget offer low-end cameras ranging from 5MP to 8MP, but regular mid-range smartphones offer higher numbers on their sensors (13MP, 21MP, etc) but the results are no better than a 5MP camera. But there are some out there who make sure their cameras offer the best in class with a lower price tag. Wickedleak was one of the former ones where the camera comes into count, but now has managed to upscale the quality on their camera’s sensors. The Titan 5 has seen a big step up over the prior Wammy-series smartphones, though they have a lot of room for improvement.

The Titan 5’s 13MP camera performs well. Photos taken in broad daylight are good, and improve with HDR modes switched on. However, the camera lacks speed when in HDR mode and tends to slow down your photo-capturing skills. Photos taken in regular mode in broad daylight show the brighter areas, such as the sky, overexposed, underexposing the low-light areas in the frame. Photos in HDR clean it out well and also sharpen the image to a good level. Colours are also a bit ‘off‘ with most outdoor photos in sunlight having a slightly greenish yellow tinge. But the case is the other way when clicking photos in the shade. We would like to highlight that the camera is oddly placed towards the top edge, making it a tad difficult to avoid your fingers from covering the lens when clicking photos in landscape mode. But it all depends on how you hold the smartphone when using the camera. Overall the photo quality is much, much better as compared to the brand’s earlier models. We leave you with a few photos as sample shots from the 13MP rear camera.

 

 

 

Shown above are images in broad daylight, HDR comparison, in the shade and indoors

Click on the image for original photos 

The Wickedleak Wammy Titan 5 is a great choice for those looking at investing on a high-end phone in a smaller budget. The device holds a premium look with a rugged metal body and longer lasting battery. The only issue with the Titan 5 is the heavy weight and the oddly placed camera which could be a minor hindrance for a few. But on the other hand, the Titan offers a pretty good set of features and add-ons as compared to other smartphones in the similar price bracket. The fingerprint scanner for device security which is quick and can be used from any angle, a one-time display replacement promise, a 7-day money-back guarantee (if you don’t like the product) and a lifetime free pickup and drop service should the device need a trip to the service centre. The device seems to offer a good value for money along with a decent price of Rs 13,490. The Titan 5 is available on the company’s own online shopping portal Wickedleak.org.