Xolo A500S breaks cover: a stylish 4-incher with Android 4.

Seeing as the majority of today’s budget-friendly smartphones in India are, let’s face it, fugly and chunky, it’s a big breath of fresh air to be able to welcome the Lava Xolo A500S. This fellow is terribly uninspired in the hardware department, but it saves face with up to date software and most of all great looks.

Measuring less than 9 mm in thickness, the A500S is a good 3 mm slenderer than the A500, released at the beginning of this year. Not only that, but the new phone also considerably shrinks the whopping bezels of its predecessor, most likely increasing the usable screen real estate by a mile.

And the cherry on top of all the substantial aesthetic improvements might be the rich palette of colors the A500S will be made available in – black, white, blue and red. Snazzy!

To wrap up the cheerful aspects of the new Xolo phone, let’s mention it runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, which is still in no way a guarantee for such a dirt-cheap handheld, and it comes with dual SIM support. Oh, and it’s supposed to cost Rs. 6,999, which is roughly 115 US bucks.

Sadly, it’s all downhill from here for the 4-incher, starting with a sub-par 800 x 480 pixels resolution display. The dual-core 1.2 Ghz processor beneath the hood is very new, having been introduced to the world by MediaTek just a few months ago, but that doesn’t make it any faster. In fact, it’s probably one of the slowest dual-core CPUs around.

As for the 512 MB of RAM, 1,400 mAh battery, 5 MP rear camera and 4 GB of on-board storage, I’d rather not comment. Thank God there’s at least microSD support and all the usual connectivity options – 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS.

Bottom line, there’s no way in hell anyone will ever describe the Xolo A500S as a powerhouse, but it’s stylish and cheap enough to deserve 15 minutes of fame. Not a second more, but still.

Via [Fone Arena]