Indian smartphone maker Micromax has launched a new brand called Yu which aims to deliver high quality smartphones and entry-level prices thanks in part to a partnership with software maker Cyanogen.

The first member of the Yu family is now available in India. The Yureka is a phone with a 5.5 inch screen, a quad-core processor, and Cyanogen OS 11 (Which is based on Android 4.4 KitKat.

The Yureka is available from Amazon for 8,999 rupees, which is about $143 US.

yureka

The phone has a 1280 x 720 pixel IPS display with Gorilla Glass 3, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 ARMv8, 64-bit processor, a 13MP rear camera with a Sony IMX135 CMOS sensor, and a 5MP front-facing camera.

It has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, a microSD card slot for up to 32GB of removable storage, and a 2500mAh battery which is reportedly good for up to 8 hours of talk time or 7 hours of web browsing.

The Yureka features 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, and support for GSM, HSPA, and LTE networks in India. It has dual SIM card slots.

Micromax has an exclusive deal with Cyanogen which means that if you want to buy a phone that comes with Cyanogen OS pre-installed in India, you’ll have to buy a Yu phone for the foreseeable future.

In fact, just this week an Indian court ruled that Chinese phone maker OnePlus couldn’t sell the Cyanogen-powered OnePlus One smartphone in India. OnePlus is currently working on new firmware for that phone.

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7 replies on “Yureka smartphone packs 64-bit CPU, Cyanogen OS for under $150”

  1. nice. user replaceable battery as well. If this gets firm cyanogenmod support and it has 4G lte, at&t support, etc I may buy this and let my wife have the locked down samsung galaxy s4.

  2. Question to anyone: Why do most (BlackBerry has support past 32GB I know for sure but there are likely more) cellphone makers limit their microSD card slots “class” to just HC and not XC? The 32GB limit is so irritating. Does anyone know how much (ballpark) it would cost manufacturers to use XC slots instead? I hope 2015 is the year they kill microSDHC altogether and embrace microSDXC.

    1. might have to do with licensing costs. I know that held back the SDHC format for quite a while.

      1. I just wonder how much that really is. A few cents/device or maybe a few dollars/device? It can’t be that much really from a technological point of view (if any at all really) but it has to do with a restraint the industry imposes “seemingly” arbitrarily on users. I’d sure love to know why this is the case. The SDHC standard should be left to legacy devices. When I see this implemented in any device now I sigh, shrug and think, legacy device and thus don’t buy it. I really want to part with my money but I’m holding out for a device that’s not THAT cheap. Inexpensive is good, but cheap is not…This strikes me as an easy WIN for a manufacturer if they chose.

    2. None of the tablet or samsung phone I had have this limit. Even the army of ChinaTabs I have support my Samsung 64 gb Evo microsd.

      1. Well then this is positive. I mean this is one of my “MUST HAVE” bullet points when I’m shopping for a device these days. But for example, ^this phone states a 32GB limit. Kudos to them for including a card at all, but…It would be a real plus for them to “officially” support 64 or 128 GB cards. Just put a > sign in front of that 32GB and I’ll be all over it like a fat kid on a Smartie.

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