Bucket Seat: Mahindra XUV300 - First Impressions

So last week I was handed a unique opportunity, I've been writing about cars for the past 7 years and for the first time I drove a car which had an embargo on it, which means I couldn't tell anyone I drove it or how it was since the official local launch only happened this week. Call me childish but it felt pretty cool in a way, driving around in something that is almost a secret to many. Also I was one of the first journalists to get behind the wheel of one. Anyway the embargo is over and the car has been officially launch, so let me tell you how my brief drive with the all new Mahindra XUV300 went. 

So first things first, the name of the car, its not three hundred, it's pronounced three double oh, yeah found that odd but I appreciate that they want to be unique or maybe that is how its pronounced in India. Also Mahindra has close ties with Durban as they have a small assembly plant at Dube Trade Port, where they put together various models, most notably their Pick-Up, so getting to drive the XUV300 on "home territory" was pretty cool. Moving on to the car, looks wise, Mahindra have done a great job, keeping the styling on point, and much different from their previous models. It has a more Euro styled front with elongated grille which tied into the sharp lights and the lines extend from the bottom of the headlamps to the fogs on the bumper below. 

Mahindra were sneaky in the design of this vehicle, as with tax laws in India, cars under the 4m length get taxed differently hence you'll find the XUV300 coming in just under that 4m mark. The wheel base is well spaced giving the car a greater feel of stability around bends. The XUV300 enters the local market in two engine options, the 1.2L turbo-petrol (81kw/ 200Nm) and a 1.5L turbo-diesel, both with manual gearboxes. For my drive I had the diesel engine, which is a complete brand new engine by Mahindra and from what I was told, torque vectoring was adjusted for our country, it produces 85.8kW and 300Nm of torque. That's a lot of torque for this little car. Taking the XUV300 on the open road gave me the opportunity to push the limits of the engine and with it being on the coast, the engine would perform better than up country. I was impressed with the smoothness of the ride, handling of the vehicle on the open road as well as how it kept composed in the high winds. Seeing that we had the car for a short time, we wanted to get some pictures of it. So I took it on some dirt road driving and it was pretty much the same as on tar road surfaces. The car didn't slide around, or get bothered at all. 

Having a look at the interior of the cabin, while it is almost a budget type of vehicle, the styling is brilliant. While the light colours might not be everyone's cup of tea, it does give the cabin that sense of luxury and comfort. The seats were comfortable and offered in various trims. The XUV300 comes with a full touch screen infotainment center which syncs to your phone via bluetooth and a cool feature is that you can link it to certain smart watches and even get an app for the car, giving you vitals of it, like your fuel level. The cars tech side is very on point with it being Apple Car Play and Android Auto compatible as well as giving you the option to share your stats via Twitter, Facebook or even on Whatsapp. 

Mahindra has been in our market for quite some time now and while many never really noticed them, people who do own them, swear by them. I've met many Mahindra owners who always had stories to tell me about their vehicles, only good ones at that. I feel that the XUV300 is the car to break the name into the market and get the attention of people who would never consider the brand. It's the perfect sort of vehicle for today's climate, decent size, packs all the latest gadgets and very economical. It slots into the market in the Ford Ecosport and Hyundai Creta sort of segment and with the two model variants being the W6 and W8 which are pretty feature packed, I can see it getting some good sales in the future. 

Pricing on the XUV

XUV300 W6 1.2L Petrol: R249 999 (incl VAT)

XUV300 W6 1.5L Diesel: R274 999 (incl VAT)

XUV300 W8 1.2L Petrol: R304 999 (incl VAT)

XUV300 W8 1.5L Petrol: R324 999 (incl VAT)

Bucket Tech: Huawei G8

When I attended the launch of the Huawei Mate 8 last month, they also revealed another range of devices that they were introducing to the market, the G Series. Huawei said that the G Series was aimed at the youth market with the phone offering more in terms of a playful creative nature compared to their other phones which are made more for the business individuals. It seemed to make sense seeing that kids mainly use their phones for taking pictures, listening to music, and being on the social media stream, so would they really need the hardcore processing power and the rest of the jazz that goes into the high end smart phones when they could really have their own which would cost significantly less? Well the answer is yes, although it did have me wondering, how much did Huawei compromise on their product to make the G series what it is? Well a couple weeks ago they sent me the G8, the "top of the range" if you may call it, from the lot, with the others being the G3, and G5 to test out and this was my experience with it.

Quality

Since the package arrived I tried to see where the manufacturer tried to make the device different form the others, the packaging still looking sleek and typical of their devices so no cost cutting there. Once opened, and removed the phone, I was surprised at the weight, as it was quite heavy compared to your normal phone but the reason behind this was the massive screen, unlike the P8 and P9, the G8 comes with a 5.5" screen instead of a 5.2" as found on the other 2 devices. The build quality seems great as well, just as all their other devices so definitely no cost cutting on that part of the phone. The finish is exquisite and high quality as well, really gives off that premium feel to it.

Design & Dimensions

When compared to the the P series, the G would be slightly bigger due to the screen size which see's the overall dimensions of the phone at 152 x 76.5 x 7.5mm which still is a comfortable size to fit into the palm of your hand. The beveled edges also help with this as it gives the phone a less edgy feel and therefore a better grip for the user. The 360 touch finger print recognition has improved in leaps and bounds since the P8. With it taking a full scan of your finger , thus improving scanning speeds to milliseconds upon touch.

Taken with the Huawei G8

Camera

The G8 comes with a 13 megapixel primary camera, with auto focus and dual LED flash. Huawei takes it's camera's very seriously and the quality on this one is just as great as the others. I love the features it comes with one of my favourite being the time-lapse. I even recorded my entire flight from Johannesburg to Durban which you can find below. I wish they could give you ways in which you can control the frames per second though, I mean the 50 odd minute flight only was a 1 minute video, most of it was boring but it would be nice to slow down certain aspects of the video and speed up the rest. The front facing camera is a 5 megapixel lens and has the smile detection feature which is perfect for selfies.  

       

Performance

Now many might be reading and thinking, if this phone is aimed at the youth and would be more affordable, how exactly did they do it if Huawei didn't compromise on build quality or features, well I'll tell you where they saved the cash, it was in the processing power. Whilst their top phones come with the powerful HiSilicon Kirin chipsets, the G Series opts for the Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets. While there is a significant difference between the two, the Qualcomm Snapdragon is still a quality chip with 1.5GHz Cortex - A53 & quad-core 1.2 Ghz Cortex-A53 CPU. It's more than sufficient to deal with the demands for what the phone was made for. 

Taken with the Huawei G8

Display

As mentioned before on the post, the G8 does come with a larger screen, a 5.5" ISP LCD capactivie touchscreen to be exact. It has 16 million colours to mesmerise your eyes with a resolution of 1080 x 1920 so, you have a full high definition experience. The touch screen is multi touch capable and has an Emotion UI 3.1 rating for protection, hence the added weight of the phone which is 167g in total. 

Taken with the Huawei G8

Verdict

While the manufacturer has compromised on performance for this device, it's acceptable when looking at the overall phone and what it's purpose is meant for. Certainly everything else is up to scratch with other devices in the market with some aspects being even better than their competitors flagship devices. The phone still offers the same great UI with a host of themes and settings to make yours unique and there are 3 colours for you to chose from. I quite enjoyed my time with the G8, more so because I used it for all my social media activities and capturing pictures and video with it and it did that perfectly, battery life was surprisingly great as I thought with the larger display it would drain it quite quickly. It's certainly a great phone if you're looking at getting one for those specific purposes or something you want to get for your kid.

Taken with the Huawei G8