New middle class: review of the Lenovo Vibe Z2 smartphone. The SAR level refers to the amount of electromagnetic radiation absorbed by the human body while using a mobile device. SIM card is used in mobile devices to store data

: angular body, high-quality metal, emphasis on the camera in the design of the rear panel. And of course, high performance and a decent display. But there is a small nuance: the display of the Vibe Z2 has HD resolution, and its processor is positioned as a mid-level solution. Although in real life the model makes a more pleasant impression than the typical average one priced at $400.

What is this?

Dualsim- Lenovo smartphone from the flagship Vibe Z line in a metal case with a high-capacity battery (3000 mAh), high performance, a 13-megapixel camera and a high-quality 5.5-inch IPS display, albeit with an unimpressive resolution of 720x1280 pixels (267 ppi).

What else is he interested in?

Its 64-bit Snapdragon 410 processor is the first processor with such an architecture in the Qualcomm line.

And how is its performance and application performance?

Partly thanks to the power of the processor, partly thanks to the low screen resolution and generous 2 GB of RAM Lenovo Vibe Z2 easily coped with any tasks that I assigned to it without delays, freezes, or even more so glitches. The list of games on duty - Temple Run 2, Real Racing 3, Dead Trigger 2, Asphalt 8 - was overcome effortlessly (sorry for the tautology). A couple of dozen installed applications swallowed as if he had unlimited productivity resources. Although Lenovo is guilty of installing mountains of unnecessary software on its smartphones (games, Yandex services, applications of dubious usefulness), and after removing these applications a lot of resources are freed up, still, neither out of the box nor after installing even a bed of your favorite software, the user does not will receive a brooding metal block instead of a nimble gadget. The model had no problems with the smoothness of the interface. The smartphone software (the gadget runs out of the box on Android 4.4.4, with Lenovo’s proprietary launcher used on top of the OS) is perfectly adapted to new processor. The only thing the model lacks to become a full-fledged new flagship is screen resolution. But even FullHD would reduce its performance.

I also had no problems installing and launching applications.

How long does he work?

Usually, when I take a smartphone for review, I disable all energy-saving functions on it - both the corresponding modes and any restrictions. I usually don’t use Bluetooth, mobile Internet - from time to time, but to track physical activity I turn on GPS and maximum accuracy in determining the location, often turn the screen brightness to maximum manually (not all manufacturers can boast correct operation automatic illumination in the sun in your gadgets. I usually take little photographs, listen to music for several hours a day, and play mostly non- demanding games for an hour or two, I spend a couple of hours communicating in instant messengers and reading the Internet. In such Lenovo mode Vibe Z2 worked for me for a day and a half, which for its 5.5-inch display and 3000 mAh battery is not a record, but not a weak indicator either. Samsung flagship Galaxy Note 4 and its two predecessors would have worked in such conditions a little longer, but I practically did not let them out of my hands, and so their batteries lasted a working day, a maximum of one and a half. But there were devices that held a charge weaker. If you enable it in your smartphone settings energy saving mode and use it with the same intensity, you will get two days of battery life.

What about the screen?

The Lenovo Vibe Z2's display deserves both compliments and criticism. His strengths is high brightness, comfortable for viewing the screen on a sunny day (425.67 cd/m2), responsiveness, high-quality oleophobic coating, the ability to change the color temperature in the settings. Weaknesses - not outstanding (although not bad, to be honest) calibration, low brightness in bright sunlight when automatic backlight adjustment is turned on (auto-adjustment is not brilliant, you have to turn it off and turn the brightness to maximum), lack of support for working with gloves, low resolution. Although one can argue and argue regarding the resolution. In fact, HD is enough for such a diagonal (after all, it turns out to be 267 ppi), but since other smartphones from inexpensive brands already have FullHD for the same money, at this point we can safely complain that HD is now officially not enough for us.

He looks good?

If you liked the design of the Lenovo K900, then you will also like the design of this model. I'm not a big fan of metallic shine and clean lines, the Lenovo Vibe X2 is more to my taste. But I admit that the smartphone looks nice and noble, and not at all cheap. The rear of the Vibe Z2 is covered with an all-metal plate, which also protects the long ends. And the short ones are covered with black plastic, it hides connectors and communication modules.

It feels good in the hand, but the back cover is a little slippery.

The camera sticks out a little, which, however, does not affect anything.

However, if you read our review of the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro, you won’t find anything new in this model. The design is the same, the dimensions are slightly smaller. The impressions from the case are similar.

What's new in the interface?

Everything you need to know about the interface of Lenovo smartphones can be learned from our reviews previous models manufacturer of the same generation:

Does he take good pictures?

Lenovo Vibe Z2 is equipped with a 13-megapixel camera with FullHD video recording, flash, autofocus and optical stabilization. Lenovo Vibe Z2 can also be classified as a selfie device - it has an 8-megapixel front camera. She takes great photos in low light, albeit slowly. By the light of a desk lamp, you can comfortably have a video call and do some decent self-talk. But I have complaints about the main camera. It shoots at an average level, inferior in quality to flagship smartphones, but still allowing you to take normal photos in normal lighting. But the problem is that, by the standards of today’s times, she shoots indecently slowly. Because of this, images often turn out blurry - either the hand will tremble, or a passerby will turn up at the wrong time. In general, see for yourself (and here - in original resolution).

What are the alternatives?

If you sympathize Lenovo brand, then you can also pay attention to Vibe X2. The smartphone has a chic body design, more high quality display(with FullHD resolution and glove support). But it works a little less stable than Z2, so it’s more suitable for beautiful FIFA users than for picky geeks. Like the Z2, the X2 lacks support for memory cards and sports only a built-in 32 GB drive. Both smartphones are in the price category up to 8,000 hryvnia ($400).

With the current leapfrog with the exchange rate of the domestic currency, the price plays more against the new product than for it. Because for an additional thousand to one and a half hryvnia today you can already buy last year’s flagships: and those will have a more serious camera, a clearer screen, and even most likely with support for gloves, and a Snapdragon 800 series processor, the most powerful. Thus, LG G3 and HTC One (M8) are sold on the Internet for 9,000 hryvnia. Okay, HTC, its screen diagonal is half an inch smaller and the camera is not great. But the LG G3 is a very tempting candidate. Samsung fans will be able to afford Galaxy Alpha for 9,000 hryvnia, and pragmatic HTC fans will be able to afford the hit of 2013, HTC One. But if your limit is 7.5-8 thousand hryvnia and Lenovo is among your favorite brands, you can safely take the Vibe Z2; in real life the smartphone is pleasant, even though the camera let it down.

Bottom line

Lenovo Vibe Z2 is an interesting and pleasant smartphone with a smart interface, balanced hardware and a noble body. It has one critical drawback - it is a slow camera. For some users, the lack of a microSD slot may also be a stumbling block, although the built-in memory allows you to not limit yourself in anything for a long time. If you prefer gadgets in a metal case, and would rather value a large diagonal and smooth interface in a smartphone than fast camera, then this model is for you. If photography is more valuable to you, and you have an extra 1-1.5 thousand hryvnia in your pocket, then it would be better to buy something from last year’s flagships.

4 reasons to buy Lenovo Vibe Z2:

• high performance and smooth interface;
• high capacity battery;
• metal body;
• bright screen with pleasant color rendering.

2 reasons not to buy Lenovo Vibe Z2:

• the camera is slow, very slow;
• no support for memory cards.

Lenovo K920 Vibe Z2 Pro has a 6-inch Quad HD display. In terms of its size, it belongs to the category of “phablets”. The manufacturer tried to compensate for the dimensions with a thin body and narrow frames, beveled side edges, but with such a diagonal it’s hard to “deceive” - it seems huge. Dimensions of the smartphone are 156x81x7.7 mm. By the way, of the new products of the year we tested, only the elongated iPhone 6 Plus is longer. The smartphone is quite heavy - 184 grams, the same weight as Huawei Mate 8. The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro is not designed for one-handed use; even just holding it in your hand is not that comfortable. We also note the location of the buttons, for example, the volume rocker is very high, it will be difficult for you to adjust the volume with one hand. While playing games, holding it with both hands, we occasionally pressed the touch buttons, which interfered with the gameplay.

The Lenovo K920 Vibe Z2 Pro smartphone has a thin metal textured body with thin side frames. On the back you can see an oblong plastic insert-strip, which is held on by screws. There is also a plastic insert at the bottom, fastened with screws. These plastic inserts (a feature of all-metal housings) are necessary for the antennas. In our opinion, they look awkward, especially with these screws, however, this is purely an amateur matter. However, we note that in the iPhone 6 they were “hidden” behind a pattern of lines. In this case, they simply stuck in a rectangular black strip of plastic, which contrasts in color with the brushed textured metal of the back. We should also say something about the camera lens: it sticks out significantly - you will have to be careful. It is protected by a red frame into which the surface of the lens is slightly recessed.

Overall build quality is good high level, worthy of a flagship model made of metal.

Screen - 4.4

One of the advantages of the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro is, of course, its six-inch display. The display resolution is 2560x1440 pixels, the matrix type is IPS, there is an oleophobic coating and protection in the form of Gorilla Glass 3. The pixel density per inch with such a “crazy” resolution is 490 pixels per inch. Of the ones we tested, only the displays of the LG G3 and Samsung Galaxy Note 4 were clearer, however, only due to the fact that the diagonals of these devices are slightly smaller.

You can argue for a long time whether such a huge resolution is necessary or is it overkill, but Lenovo posted a very successful demo video on the smartphone in 4K resolution, which looks amazing, the image detail is incredible - you can clearly see every small detail! Vibe Z 2 Pro has one of best screens what we saw. It has a high level of maximum brightness (up to 566 cd/m2), but at the same time the minimum is 70 cd/m2, which will be too bright for reading in the dark. We also note the natural color rendition and good behavior in the sun, which allows you to use the device without any problems even on a sunny day. The viewing angles of the display are wide, colors are not distorted at right angles and at deviations. Among the pluses, we note adequate auto brightness and smooth color balance adjustment.

Camera

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro smartphone has a 16 MP camera that allows you to take very clear pictures. The camera is equipped with dual LED flash, optical stabilization and features such as autofocus, HDR mode, smiley face detection, panorama shooting and much more. If the camera in the past Lenovo Vibe Z seemed unfinished to us, here it can be called excellent, comparable to one of best cameras Samsung Galaxy Note 4. The only thing is that some frames turn out, in our opinion, a little dark.

The maximum photo resolution is 3456×4608 pixels. The camera has the ability to shoot 4K video, as well as slow motion. Audio is recorded in stereo mode. The camera interface is simple and clear, especially convenient for operation with one finger - you can press the button with your finger and turn the settings wheel in the desired direction.

Front-camera 5 MP phone is even more than is needed for video communication. You will be able to shoot high-quality selfies and Full HD videos at 30 frames per second. By the way, one front camera here takes better pictures than the 5 MP cameras of many budget phones we tested.

Photo from camera Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro - 4.9

Working with text - 3.0

It is not clear why, but Lenovo did not “draw” a proprietary keyboard for its flagship - the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro uses a standard keyboard from Google. It has a continuous text input function, separate button to switch languages. True, you will not find a separate key for the comma, and there is also no marking of additional characters, but top row keys allows you to dial numbers by holding down a key. Note that it would be nice to have a function for convenient “one-handed” text input, like some competitors, but for such cases there is only a “microscreen” mode, with the image on the display reduced. Also notable is the “live keyboard”, when the buttons on the keys are shifted towards the tilt of the smartphone.

Internet - 3.0

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro smartphone comes pre-installed as a browser. Google Chrome with support for synchronizing tabs with the desktop version of the browser and Yandex.Browser with “Turbo” mode for fast loading pages, the ability to close tabs automatically when exiting the browser, etc. Both browsers do not support multiple page scaling and a separate reading mode, but you can manually, by double-clicking on the page, scale the text once - in this case the text will be scaled to fit in advance the size you choose.

Interfaces

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro smartphone supports all popular wireless interfaces. Separately, we will note the presence of dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth with support for the A2DP profile for audio transmission, work in Russian LTE frequencies (Cat 4 up to 150 Mbit/s), A-GPS with the ability to work with GLONASS. Among other things, Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro has NFC chip. In general, a complete flagship set. The phone is equipped with a Micro-USB connector, however, we found it inconvenient to plug the corresponding plugs into it - sometimes they hardly fit into the connector.

The Micro-USB connector supports USB-OTG and MHL for connecting peripherals and transmitting high-definition video, respectively. In addition, the smartphone has two slots for Micro-SIM cards, but there is only one radio module, which means that when talking on one of the SIM cards, you will not be available when incoming call to the second.

Multimedia - 4.2

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro video player supports many common formats and codecs and plays video in high quality, up to 4K video. However, in our tests it was unable to run, for example, video MOV format and MKV. There is no choice of subtitles or audio tracks in the built-in video player, as well as other functions. Audio player loses popular formats MP3 and AAC, as well as WAV, FLAC (the latter will have to be launched through the file manager).

Battery - 3.8

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro smartphone was equipped with big battery with a capacity of as much as 4000 mAh! The Lenovo P780 we tested had the same capacity, and the Philips Xenium W6610 had 5300 mAh. We checked how quickly the device sat down in our tests. The phone played HD video at maximum brightness for about 8 hours 45 minutes, and lasted 97 hours while listening to music! If we compare it with the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, the latter is a winner, despite the less capacious battery - it lasted much longer in the video test, but died a little faster in audio player mode. However, charging your smartphone may last you a couple of days of fairly intensive use. Comes with it Charger at 1 A, which fully charged the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro in just under two and a half hours.

Performance - 4.4

The device uses the Qualcomm MSM8974AC Snapdragon 801 platform with a quad-core processor operating at 2.5 GHz, a graphics subsystem - Adreno 330, RAM - 3 GB. The hardware is one of the most productive today and can handle any load, from watching Full HD video to heavy games. We tested the performance of the chipset in everyday use. Thanks to shell optimization and powerful hardware, Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro worked quickly, and this applies to both built-in applications and any third party programs. The smartphone can be considered as a gaming smartphone; in tests, the games NOVA 3 or Asphalt 8 loaded and ran easily. However, when actively browsing, the phone sometimes slowed down a little and froze, which, of course, is not good for a flagship model.

Memory - 2.5

The amount of internal memory in the Lenovo Vibe Z 2 Pro is 32 GB, approximately 25.6 GB is available to the user. Like the previous Vibe Z, there is no slot for a memory card and this is a significant disadvantage of the phone.

Peculiarities

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro smartphone runs on Android 4.4.2 OS and Lenovo's proprietary shell. The company has completely changed appearance Android, redrawn dialer, browser, replaced launcher and status bar. At the same time, it’s unusual that there is no separate menu with a list of all applications, and in order to unlock the display, you will need to pull the lock screen up, and not just move your finger. The smartphone also has separate “special” settings, where a lot of interesting things are hidden, for example, 3D gestures for control, a microscreen for comfortable work with one hand and much more. Among the features, we note the metal body of the smartphone, which gives the device a premium look.

At one time (10 years ago) camera phones constituted a special category mobile phones. They compared favorably with others in the quality of their shooting and were carried out in unusual design, which makes them look like a compact camera. But with the advent of sensor dominance, differences in appearance different models decreased significantly, smartphones became more of the same type. However, some companies still create camera phones that are inspired by the traditions of the past. One of these devices is the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90, which is the subject of this review.

The smartphone was released in March 2015. Now you can purchase the device for $360-400, depending on the region and store. For this money, the user gets a middle-class device, close to flagships. A special feature of the smartphone is that it clearly belongs to a camera phone, which consists of a somewhat unusual design.

The technical characteristics of the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 correspond to the price category. It is equipped with powerful and modern hardware, which is not up to par with flagships, but is capable of coping with all tasks.

Design, case materials, dimensions and weight

The smartphone has a stylish, but not very practical design. The developers at Lenovo tried to make it as similar as possible to a compact point-and-shoot camera, but without sacrificing functionality and convenience.

The glass front panel looks strict and laconic. It shows the speaker grille and the front camera lens, as well as three touch buttons. The design is rectangular, with almost no rounded elements. Overall, the front panel looks nice.

The back of the smartphone is also covered with glass. This gives it a premium look, but only do not use the device yet, as the panel collects fingerprints well. There is also a strip of textured aluminum on the back of the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 that houses the logo and camera lens with flash.

The smartphone frame is metal, painted in grey, white or red to choose from. On the right side are the volume and lock buttons, the camera switch and the shutter key.
On the left are trays for SIM cards and MicroSD storage.
At the bottom there is a MicroUSB port and a music speaker grille.

On top is a 3.5mm jack and a noise-canceling microphone. There is a hole in the corner for a hand lanyard.

The dimensions of the smartphone are 14.2x7 cm, thickness – 7.3 mm. The weight of the devices is 145 grams.

CPU

The Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 is powered by the eight-core Qualcomm MSM8939 Snapdragon 615 chipset. It consists of a pair of quad-core Cortex A53 clusters, differing in frequencies: 1 and 1.65 GHz, for light and heavy tasks, respectively.

Graphics processing is handled by the Adreno 405 GPU, which cannot be called advanced. But this video core is not listed among outsiders either: 36 thousand in AnTuTu is the average for a smartphone a year ago. All demanding games will run at medium settings.

Memory

The smartphone has 3 GB of low-voltage memory of the DDR3 generation. This volume is typical for flagships of those times; here the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 did not lag behind its competitors. About one and a half gigabytes were occupied at the start, free place It goes into RAM quickly, but this does not have a negative effect on multitasking.

Internal storage is 32 GB, about 25 of which are available to the user. If it seems small, the memory is expanded using a flash drive. Fortunately, there is a dedicated slot for it, and there are no practical restrictions on volume.

Battery

The capacity of the non-removable lithium polymer battery in the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 is 3000 mAh. This is a good indicator for a five-inch smartphone, but the battery life is no more than average. In reading mode with dim lighting, the operating time reaches 12 hours, online video playback lasts just over 8 hours, and the game WoT Blitz drains the battery in 3.5-4 hours. In standby mode, the average result is 2 days of operation.

The included charger is capable of delivering a current of up to 1.5 A. It replenishes the capacity Lenovo batteries Vibe Shot Z90 takes about 2 hours, the computer takes about 5 hours.

Cameras

Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 is positioned as a camera phone. His extraordinary appearance screams about this. The smartphone camera is equipped with a 16 MP matrix, supports laser focusing and is equipped with a flash of 3 bright diodes of different colors that provide warmer lighting. It's nice to have an optical image stabilizer.

On the side there is a separate button that switches the camera mode to professional. Works very well automatic setting camera that detects environmental conditions. IN professional mode there is the ability to focus the camera on the foreground or background, the possibility of long exposure (you can photograph the starry sky) and much more. However, you should not expect great capabilities from these settings; they are not up to par with conventional cameras.

Two characteristics, the aperture of the optics and the dimensions of the matrix, are quite ordinary. A traditional five-element lens is used, the aperture of which opens to F/2.2. The sensor is standard with 1.12 micrometer pixels.

The camera turned out to be good, but not at all ideal. As for a smartphone for $300, it’s quite enough, but in the case of a camera phone for almost $400, you want more. Of course, unlike the 13 MP in Chinese phablets for $150, the camera in the Vibe Shot Z90 is certainly better.

Below are examples of photos taken on Lenovo Z90, Samsung A5 2016 and Sony C4. All smartphones are approximately in the same price category, Sony is $40 more affordable.

In the picture above you can see that the Samsung camera has the worst color rendering, the picture is “blue”. The Sony C4 produced warmer tones, almost too much so. Lenovo got the most optimal shot. his original is below:

Below is an example of camera shots in poor lighting (on a well-lit street):

The front camera has an 8 MP matrix with the same aperture (F/2.2), but without autofocus.

Shot with the front camera

Both of them record video in 1080p resolution at 30 FPS. In the example video below you can see how the frame jerks due to poor software implementation.

There are many settings and modes, which you can familiarize yourself with in the video review at the end of this text.

Screen

Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 uses IPS screen 5" with a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. The pixel density is more than 400 ppi, which is very good. The display is covered with third-generation tempered Gorilla Glass and recognizes up to 10 simultaneous touches. The screen is excellent, the brightness is good, viewing angles are close to ideal. Color rendition is quite natural.

Communications

The smartphone is equipped with two slots for SIM cards in MicroSIM format, and one radio module. Support for all common networks is declared, including GSM, UMTS, LTE. 4G operates on channels 1, 3, 7, 8, 20 (FDD) and 40 (TDD). Dual-frequency Wi-Fi is used to access the Internet. Bluetooth complies with version 4.1. Dual-system navigator, with support for GPS and GLONASS. It works well, finds satellites (on a cold start) in about a minute, and maintains contact with them.

Sound

The sound of the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 is loud on both the main and earpiece speakers. It is clean, reveals frequencies moderately (although, of course, there is traditionally not enough bass). The sound in the headphones is pleasant and spacious. There is also an FM receiver on board the smartphone.

operating system

The operating system of Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 is Android 5.1 with VibeUI graphical shell. Traditionally for Chinese manufacturers, there is no separate menu for program shortcuts; everything is located on the desktop. The idea is not for everyone, but in general there are no complaints about the OS. The system operates smoothly and without obvious bugs or crashes.

Pros and cons of Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90

• high-quality screen;
• acceptable camera;
• stylish and unusual design;
• Lots of RAM and permanent memory.

Flaws:

• easily soiled body;
• mediocre battery life in games;
• The aperture of the optics is only F/2.2.

Who is a smartphone suitable for?

The main consumer audience for smartphones are people who are used to taking a lot of photographs. The attractive appearance of the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 makes it interesting for both men and women. The device is stylish, but quite strict and seasoned, so it will organically fit into any image. In terms of characteristics, everything is also not bad: there is enough functionality for all tasks, so it is also suitable for those who value capabilities more than beauty. Gamers may not appreciate the mediocre battery life in games.

Our review of the Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90

As the review showed, Lenovo Vibe Shot Z90 is balanced smartphone middle class, with quite modern capabilities. Despite the fact that a year has already passed since its release, the device is not at all outdated. Him cool screen, normal hardware, enough memory and good looks.

As for the camera, it’s really good, but buggy due to poor implementation of the firmware (everything went away after the update). All the criticism against it is not due to Bad quality photo, but simply because I wanted something more advanced from a pronounced camera phone.

Detailed testing of the new flagship of the Chinese company

After the impressive success achieved last year by the Lenovo K900 smartphone, which until recently was flagship model the whole family mobile devices Chinese company, the successor of his business, the new K910 smartphone, does not need any special introduction. The success of its progenitor was ensured by several nuances: the fact that Intel itself took an active part in promoting the smartphone, because the Lenovo smartphone was built on its platform, and the fact that the price of the new product right from the start of sales turned out to be very attractive, even in such a specific market, like Russian.

In the photo: left - K910 (Vibe Z), right - K900

The new flagship differs in many ways from its ancestor, and primarily in that this time they did not choose the hardware platform for it. Intel platform, and the proven solution with ARM architecture market leader, Qualcomm. At the same time, the smartphone did not lose in performance - on the contrary, it became even more powerful in hardware terms, but the price remained at the same level, which adds even more points to it.

The new flagship has, as is customary among the Chinese, several different modifications at the same time, and in order not to immediately get confused in them, we will present here in order their most noticeable distinctive features. Firstly, there is no need to argue about the correct name for the new flagship smartphone Lenovo - it has two names, and both have the right to life. The device received the name “K910” according to the “old” classification, following its predecessor K900, and it became “Vibe Z” later, when the scale of a whole series of smartphones was already outlined, many of which were included or will still be included in the new line under the general name “ Vibe." So what we ourselves will call in the future this model Vibe Z because it's a newer name. Further, there are simultaneously three different modifications of the smartphone called Vibe Z on the market: one model supports work with two SIM cards operating in WCDMA+GSM networks, the other also supports two SIM cards, but in TD-CDMA+GSM networks , and the third is a model with only one SIM card, but capable of working in networks fourth generation(LTE). The latter, among other things, also has the ability to expand the memory capacity using microSD cards. Now most often you can find on sale the first of the modifications - with two SIM cards operating in WCDMA + GSM networks, and this is the device we are testing today. Accordingly, our model does not support LTE networks, and there is no slot for additional memory cards.

Key Features of Lenovo Vibe Z (Model K910 Dual SIM)

• SoC Qualcomm Snapdragon 800, 2.2 GHz, 4 Krait 400 cores
• GPU Adreno 330
• Operating system Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• Touchscreen IPS, 5.5″, 1920×1080, 400 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 2 GB, internal memory 16 GB
• Data transmission 2G, 3G (HSPA+)
• Bluetooth 4.0
• Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac (2.4 + 5 GHz), point Wi-Fi access, Wi-Fi Direct
• GPS, Glonass
• Camera 13 MP, autofocus, LED flash, f/1.8
• Camera 5 MP (front), viewing angle 84°
• Proximity sensor, lighting sensor, accelerometer, electronic compass
• Lithium polymer battery 3050 mAh
• Dimensions 149×77×7.9 mm
• Weight 147 g

Equipment

What the new flagship really has in common with its predecessor is the packaging. New smartphone goes on sale in exactly the same black cardboard box with an additional casing, in which, however, now completely different letters are cut out - “Vibe Z”.

Inside, everything also remained the same: there were several compartments containing a charger, connection cable USB—Micro-USB, wired stereo headphones with vacuum-type gel ear pads, a key clip for removing the SIM card and several pieces of paper.

Appearance and ease of use

But externally new flagship has absolutely nothing in common with its ancestor: a flat, elongated, somewhat brutal metal block with chopped features, straight edges and sharp corners was replaced by an unremarkable plastic “remnant” streamlined on all sides, which can easily get lost among other modern ones of the same kind. inexpressive decisions. And don't be fooled by the shiny chrome inserts - there's no real metal here anymore. The back of the case is made of plastic textured with small pimples with a metal coating - the surface is not easily soiled or too slippery. The side rim connecting all four edges has a smoother, slipperier finish, but also feels like metal. The entire front panel is completely covered protective glass, scratch resistant.

As for the dimensions, in general the smartphone remained approximately the same narrow, although this time the body height has become slightly smaller. Due to the small width of the case for such a large device, the smartphone fits well in the hand, and this is also facilitated by the small thickness and not too much weight of the device.

The Lenovo Vibe Z case is a candy bar with a non-removable back cover, hence the side slot method for installing SIM cards.

Both cards Micro-SIM format are inserted into metal slides that can be pulled out using a key-clip, one after another, like a clip, so that there is only one cover on the body. There are no other slots provided here because this modification The model does not support memory expansion.

The landscape of the rear surface is made up of familiar elements: a slightly raised rectangular rear camera window, as well as a dual LED flash that shines quite brightly, and also has the ability to act as a flashlight with SOS mode - the corresponding software is already installed in the smartphone.

A long row of small holes are made in the lower chrome insert, forming a grille for the ringing speaker. Since the holes are located on the beveled part of the back surface, the sound is practically not blocked when the smartphone is lying on the table.

The front panel is completely covered with flat protective glass without edges, in which a slot is cut out on top for the speaker grille. Nearby you can see the eyes of the front camera and touch sensors. Below the screen there is a traditional row of touch-sensitive hardware control buttons, which have a dim and uneven whitish backlight.

The remaining hardware buttons are traditionally located on the sides of the device: on top there is a power and lock key, on the side there is a paired volume rocker. The buttons are small, barely protrude beyond the body, it is difficult to feel them blindly, and besides, the lock key here, in the worst traditions, is placed at the top end, where no finger can reach with such large dimensions of the case - you have to use a second hand.

In addition to the buttons, there are also universal connectors on the side edges of the device: an audio output with a diameter of 3.5 mm for headphones or a headset is embedded in the upper end, and a standard Micro-USB connector is embedded in the lower end.

Now about some useful little things that the developers did not forget to provide for: the Micro-USB connector here supports not only the mode of connecting external OTG devices(mouse, keyboard, flash drive), but also the USB 2.0 data transfer standard. And one more thing: obviously, realizing how difficult it is to reach the top power key every time, the developers have provided the ability to activate the device by also pressing the side paired volume key, which significantly straightens the situation. In addition, an event indicator light was placed at the top of the front panel - a bright dot shines in different colors directly from under the speaker grille, which is a huge plus regarding the ergonomics of the K900.

Finally, let's mention the color differences: the Lenovo Vibe Z is available in two color options, black and silver - we tested the latter. True, the developers themselves call their signature colors Titanium and Silver, trying to emphasize how similar the body of the new product is to real metal. Below are a few photos of what the Titanium version looks like in real life.

Screen

The Lenovo Vibe Z smartphone is equipped with a huge IPS touchscreen matrix with a wide aspect ratio. Its dimensions are 68x121 mm, diagonal - 5.5 inches, resolution - 1920x1080 pixels. The pixel density per inch here is 400 ppi, which is very good for a screen of such a huge physical size.

The thickness of the side frames from the edge of the screen to the edge of the body is approximately 4.5 mm - they definitely cannot be called too thin. The display brightness can be adjusted manually, or you can enable automatic adjustment - the corresponding checkbox is in place. Multi-touch technology here allows you to process up to 10 simultaneous touches. The smartphone also has a proximity sensor that blocks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections, Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, there is an effective anti-glare filter, which in terms of reducing the brightness of the reflection is no worse than that of the Google Nexus 7 (2013) (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected in the switched off screens (on the left - Nexus 7, on the right - Lenovo K910, then they can be distinguished by size and characteristic button icons):

At first glance, the darkness of the screens is the same, which is confirmed by statistics from the graphics editor - the differences are negligible, that is, both screens reduce the brightness of the reflection approximately equally. The ghosting of reflected objects on the K910's screen is very weak, indicating that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen. The outer surface of the screen has a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (effective, but slightly worse than that of the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed much more easily and appear at a slower rate than with regular glass.

When manually controlling the brightness and displaying the white field in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 430 cd/m², the minimum was 16 cd/m². The maximum brightness is high, which means, taking into account the effective anti-glare filter, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (it is located to the right of the front camera eye). In automatic mode when changing external conditions The brightness of the screen both increases and decreases. In complete darkness in automatic mode, the brightness is reduced to 16 cd/m² (you can still read), in an office illuminated by artificial light (approximately 400 lux) the brightness is set to 170 cd/m² (normal), in a brightly lit environment (corresponding to lighting on a clear day outdoors, but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) - increases to 400 cd/m² (unfortunately, not to the maximum, and in conditions of maximum illumination the sensor may malfunction, which leads to an inadequate change in the brightness of the backlight). As a result, the auto-brightness function works more or less adequately, except in the case of very high external brightness. At any level of backlight brightness, its modulation is practically absent, which eliminates screen flickering.

IN this smartphone An IPS type matrix is ​​used. Microphotographs demonstrate a typical IPS subpixel structure (of this and other types of screens):

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which Lenovo screens The K910 and Nexus 7 output identical images, with screen brightness initially set to approximately 200 cd/m². There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:

In the case of the Lenovo K910, the brightness of the backlight (even with automatic adjustment disabled) changes depending on the nature of the image and, for some reason, over time, so it is better not to evaluate the lightness of the screens from this photograph, but the uniformity of brightness and the color tone of the white field can. The uniformity is good, the color tone is exactly different from the Nexus 7 screen tone (when photographing, the color balance is forced to 6500K). And a test picture:

Color reproduction is good and colors are rich on both screens, but the differences in color balance are more noticeable. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors did not “float” on all screens and the contrast at an angle remained at a high level. And a white field (on a black and white template, on which we managed to achieve stable backlight brightness):

The brightness of the Lenovo K910 at an angle decreased a little more than in the case of the Nexus 7. When deviated diagonally, the black field is lightened weakly and acquires a red-violet tint or remains almost neutral gray. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same for the screens!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is good, but not ideal:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is high - about 1030:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 20 ms (11 ms on + 9 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 31 ms. A gamma curve constructed using 32 points did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.09, which is lower than the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve deviates from the power law:

Due to the presence of an aggressive and seemingly chaotic dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the displayed image (in light images the brightness tends to increase, in dark images it tends to decrease) and over time, the resulting dependence of brightness on hue (gamma curve) does not correspond to the gamma -curve of a static image, since the measurements were carried out with sequential display of shades of gray on the entire screen. For this reason, we carried out a number of tests - determining contrast and response time, comparing black illumination and white brightness at angles - when displaying special templates, and not monochromatic fields in the entire screen.

The color gamut is generally equal to sRGB:

The spectra show that the matrix filters moderately mix the components with each other:

As a result, visually the colors have a natural saturation. The balance of shades on the gray scale is average, since the color temperature is noticeably higher than the standard 6500 K and the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is above 10, which is even for consumer device is considered not a very good indicator. However, the color temperature and ΔE change little from hue to hue, which has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance - the main thing is not to compare directly with a screen whose balance is closer to the standard one. (Dark areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since there the color balance does not have of great importance, and the measurement error color characteristics at low brightness it is large.)

However, if you delve into the settings, you can find a tab where the user is asked to select the level of saturation correction and color tone, and also enable sharpening.

The latter does not cause a visible effect, saturation correction is performed simply by increasing or decreasing the color contrast without changing the gamut, so it is not of interest, but adjusting the color tone allows you to adjust colors in the direction of lowering the color temperature, which in this case somewhat evens out the color balance, and even ΔE decreases by two units and becomes on average less than 10 (option HUE=Warm in the graphs above).

Let's summarize: the screen has a high maximum brightness and an effective anti-glare filter, so you can use the smartphone without much difficulty even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. It is also possible to use a mode with automatic brightness adjustment, which works more or less adequately, but in a very bright environment you may have to resort to additional actions so that the backlight is still guaranteed to increase to the maximum. The advantages of the screen include a good oleophobic coating, no flickering and no air gap in the layers of the screen, high contrast, sRGB coverage and high black stability to gaze deviation from perpendicular to the screen plane. The color balance, if you pick on it, gives rise to complaints, but without a standard for comparison, the color rendition of of this screen visually still good (even more so after correction). As a result, in most respects we have a very high-level screen.

Sound

In terms of sound, the smartphone is average; to be honest, there is nothing to praise here. AND low frequencies the range is not enough, and wheezing can be seen at maximum volume. The speaker also somehow does not clearly and accurately convey all the intonations and timbre of the familiar voices of the interlocutors - there are distortions, the voice is at least muffled. On the other side of the wire, subscribers did not notice any distortion.

The smartphone comes standard with an FM radio, and there is also a voice recorder. By the way, the recorder can regular means record a conversation from the line. True, tests have shown that only one side is clearly audible in the recording - the called party, and your own voice is practically not recognized. The radio will not work without headphones connected as an external antenna.

Camera

Lenovo Vibe Z comes standard with two modules digital cameras. The front camera here has a 5 megapixel sensor, shoots video with a maximum resolution of 1920x1080 and takes photos - 2592x1944; while shooting video, you can simultaneously take photos.

Main, rear camera(with an f/1.8 lens) is equipped with a 13-megapixel module with autofocus, a two-section LED flash and the ability to shoot video in 1080p resolution. By default, the camera shoots in normal mode, in which the resolution is set to 10 megapixels; pictures are taken with a resolution of 4160x2340 (16:9). You can achieve the maximum resolution by manually setting the settings for shooting at a resolution of 13 megapixels, then the pictures will be taken with a resolution of 4160 × 3120 (4: 3).

Examples of photographs with our comments are presented below.

	The sharpness is not bad. The choice of exposure is quite a compromise.
	Good sharpness and work with light.
	The choice of exposure is quite strange. The background is out of focus.
	In the cold, the camera shows “the world through the eyes of a myopic person.” Either the lens fogged up, or the autofocus froze.
	Again there are problems with sharpness, as if the camera cannot focus at infinity.
	The macro is quite decent.
	The text is slightly damaged by software processing, but mostly the situation is spoiled by a drop in sharpness towards the edges.

	Lighting ≈3200 lux. The camera does a good job.
	Lighting ≈1300 lux. The situation gets worse largely due to autofocus errors.
	Lighting ≈130 lux. Autofocus has improved a little. The resolution gradually decreases.
	Lighting ≈130 lux, flash. The flash, oddly enough, only worsens the situation and overexposes the image. The camera doesn't control the flash well.
	Lighting<1 люкс. В темноте камера не справляется.
	Lighting<1 люкс, вспышка. Вспышка достаточно слабая, но все же помогает в темноте.

The manufacturer did a good job when writing the camera application, cramming many modes and scenarios into it. The camera can even shoot animated GIFs, not to mention a variety of other fun effects for regular photos. But the quality of the module let us down. Of course, the conditions of the Russian winter are harsh for any camera, which to some extent justifies the quality of street shots, but bench shooting confirms the non-flagship quality of the module.

In addition to the blurry upper right corner of the frame, the camera can be criticized for many things. Sometimes she chooses the exposure strangely, although this could also be due to the type of metering. Areas of blur often appear, it is unclear what caused them. Too obvious sharpening is often noticeable. But the camera can be praised for its good work with noise - they are practically invisible. But still this is not the main thing. The camera produces completely successful photographs every once in a while: from the street photographs, only one good one can be distinguished, and it was taken from the window of a house. The main problem with the camera is poor autofocus performance. The photo of the text clearly shows that the camera sometimes makes mistakes with white balance. But she seems to be good at macro.

It's hard to recommend a camera like this for anything. Nevertheless, it is suitable for not too demanding documentary shooting in “comfortable” conditions, and sometimes for artistic shooting, but it is worth considering that the camera has a rather high probability of error.

The camera can shoot video; there are several resolutions to choose from, up to a maximum of 1920x1080. An example of a test video is presented below (video: MPEG4 Video (H.264) 1920×1080 30 fps 19.6 Mbps; audio: AAC 48 kHz stereo 153 Kbps).

• Video #1 (60.8 MB, 1920×1080)

Shooting a video can be done either by touching a special icon on the display or by pressing the volume key, which, when the video recording mode is activated, begins to be responsible for starting recording. But in photography mode, this key is responsible for digital zooming, so the shutter can only be released by pressing the icon on the screen. While recording video, you can simultaneously take photos.

Telephone and communications

The smartphone works as standard in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks. In general, support for wireless networks is at a good level, the 5 GHz Wi-Fi range is supported, you can organize a wireless point via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels, there is a Wi-Fi Direct mode, but there is no NFC support. The navigation module works with both GPS (with A-GPS) and the domestic Glonass system.

There were no freezes or spontaneous reboots/shutdowns observed during testing. When you bring it to your ear, the screen is blocked by the proximity sensor. The light sensor controls the screen brightness level automatically. An LED sensor at the top of the front panel alerts you to incoming events and charging status.

The screen is large, so drawing letters and numbers on virtual keyboards is quite comfortable to control. The layout and location of the keys is standard: switching languages ​​here is done by pressing a special button with a globe image; there is no dedicated top row with numbers - you will have to switch the layout each time. The keyboard for dialing a telephone number (DialPad) here has a fun additional feature called the Mercury keyboard: if you tilt the device to the side, the keys will “roll” to the “bottom” edge, and it will be more convenient to press them with the finger of the hand holding the smartphone. This function only works with the dialer.

The smartphone supports working with two SIM cards, and in general, working with them in the menu is organized according to a familiar principle: you can assign each SIM card as the main one for organizing voice calls, transferring data or sending SMS messages; When dialing a number, you are also prompted to select any of the cards. In terms of data transfer, the first card supports 3G (WCDMA) mode, the second - only 2G (GSM). It is curious that both SIM cards always remain active, that is, you can receive calls on both at the same time or, by putting the conversation on hold, call somewhere from the other SIM card. Most likely, Dual SIM Dual Active (DSDA) technology is fully implemented here, when two separate radio modules are installed in the device - the same implementation has already been seen in the device HTC One Dual SIM.

OS and software

Lenovo Vibe Z currently runs on the Google Android software platform version 4.2.2. The main feature of the proprietary user interface installed on top of the standard OS is the absence of an application menu. All icons of installed programs appear directly on the desktop, and it is possible to organize them using folders. Otherwise, everything is familiar: the notification menu has a convenient strip with icons for accessing the most popular functions; in the settings there is a separate menu dedicated to gesture control, and the energy saving section traditionally has several different profiles with a lot of preset modes for all modules and functions. But what’s unusual here is that a multi-window system has appeared, that is, you can simultaneously work with two different applications in small windows on the display. This is called MultiWindow, and the mode is configured by clicking on the translucent button floating along the right edge of the screen to call up a special submenu with the ability to select programs that will simultaneously open in small windows. You can only open two windows at a time, and the menu list can be changed and supplemented to your liking.

Lenovo Vibe Z with support for two SIM cards will almost certainly not be officially supplied to the Russian market, but the model, of course, turned out to be very interesting and quite worthy for some users to bother purchasing this device from abroad. The problem is that in China itself, in local markets, manufacturers traditionally do not bother themselves with the need to pre-install a full set of proprietary Google applications - the so-called gapps. So a Russian buyer who ordered this smartphone with delivery from Asia may be unpleasantly surprised by the absence of even the usual Google Play application store, not to mention other Google programs - but the phone will have a lot of local Chinese analogues, mainly in hieroglyphs. Accordingly, here, as always in such cases, you will have to resort to the help of “traditional craftsmen”.

We took one of the simplest and most logical paths, which helped us quite easily and even without interfering with the original firmware, add Google branded applications to our Vibe Z and, if desired, obtain Root rights. The original instructions in English that we used can be found at. We will try here to briefly describe the steps we have taken, translating into Russian and adding explanations.

First you need to take the preparatory steps:

1. We download three archives to the PC: (in this case, for Android 4.2.2), and an image for recovery.
2. First, we connect the phone to the PC and install the driver (it is recorded in a special area of ​​the phone’s memory, which is mounted like a CD drive - the instructions will be there). To do this, you simply need to cancel the standard Windows driver installer and run the installation from the mounted virtual CD drive. Important: by this time you need to have ADB and fastboot installed on your PC - all this is included in the Android SDK (you can also find them separately).
3. Then we write into the phone’s memory (directly to the root) an archive with Google applications, and if Root rights are needed, then also SuperUser.
4. On your PC, download the file containing the recovery image to any convenient folder and unpack it. This will be the cwm_recovery_custom.img file.

1. We launch command line mode and go to the folder where the custom recovery image is unpacked from the archive.
2. In command line mode on the PC, run the command: “adb devices”.
3. If at the same time it displays “device: k910”, it means that everything is going according to plan, the device is correctly connected and recognized.
4. We give the command: “adb reboot-bootloader”.
5. The smartphone will reboot itself and go into recovery firmware installation mode.
6. We give the command: “fastboot boot cwm_recovery_custom.img”.
7. The standard Clockworks recovery menu will appear on the phone screen.
8. Use the volume buttons to select “install from zip”.
9. There we select in the phone memory (if you put the archives in the root, then this is the / folder) the archive with Google applications “gapps-jb-20130812-signed.zip” and then, if necessary, SuperUser (archive “UPDATE-SuperSU-v1.86 .zip".
10. After this, you can immediately select the “reboot” option.

That's all! The original firmware is not affected, over-the-air (OTA) updates, Lenovo proprietary applications and, of course, the Play Store and other Google applications will work.

Possible problems and additions:

If there are problems with installing applications from Google Play (for example, the error “could not be downloaded due to an error (406)” is displayed), then you need to turn off the smartphone, hold down the “volume down” and the power button, wait until we get into recovery mode, and select “factory reset”. After a factory reset, Google and SU apps will not be removed if they are already installed.

Important: it is better to activate Lenovo Experience mode - our experience shows that when this mode is enabled, everything works more stable.

It is also recommended to remove unnecessary Chinese applications (using a utility like root remove), and simply disable those that cannot be removed. Lenovo Safe (antivirus-firewall-optimizer-etc.) can also be disabled if it's annoying.

Performance

The Lenovo Vibe Z hardware platform is based on a single-chip system (SoC) Qualcomm Snapdragon 800. The central processor here has 4 Krait 400 cores with a maximum frequency of 2.15 GHz. The processor is supported in graphics processing by the most modern video accelerator Adreno 330. The device has 2 GB of RAM, and the storage available to the user for uploading their own files is a little more than 12 GB of the nominally designated 16 GB. Support for memory cards is not provided in the smartphone version with two SIM cards (in the “single-carry” version it is), but it is possible to connect external media using the OTG (USB host) mode, so that you can connect not only a mouse or keyboard to the smartphone , but also flash drives, which allows you to partially compensate for the lack of free memory.

To get an idea of ​​the performance of the platform of the smartphone under test, we will conduct a standard set of tests.

For convenience, we have compiled all the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the latest versions of popular benchmarks into tables. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions of benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that they once passed their “obstacle courses” on previous versions of test programs.

The results obtained during testing quite naturally confirmed very high, almost maximum performance for a smartphone to date, similar to the performance of other most famous top-end flagship models of our time built on the same platform. The smartphone is extremely powerful; its capabilities will be more than enough for a long time to perform any of the most difficult tasks that can be imagined for a modern mobile gadget.

Test results in MobileXPRT, as well as the latest versions of AnTuTu 4.x and GeekBench 3

Results of testing the graphics subsystem in the Epic Citadel gaming test

Playing video

To test the omnivorous nature of video playback (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, such as subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Internet. Note that for mobile devices it is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a single table.

Since the Micro-USB connector here supports USB-host (OTG) mode, a device with such a large, high-quality screen and very powerful hardware can be comfortably used as a multimedia processor. It is enough to connect any flash drive through the adapter, and you can play music, movies, and view photos directly from it. True, the standard player of a smartphone is not initially equipped with all the necessary hardware codecs for decoding; sometimes you will have to resort to the help of third-party solutions.

¹ MX Video Player only played sound after switching to software decoding or a new mode Hardware+; The standard player does not have this setting

We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Methodology for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)

Note: If in both columns Uniformity And Passes Green ratings are given, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and frame skipping will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with playback of the corresponding files.

According to the frame output criterion, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is high, since frames (or groups of frames) can be output with more or less uniform alternation of intervals and without skipping frames. The smartphone can even display files with a resolution of 4K up to 30p inclusive. However, uniform alternation of frames is a relatively unstable state, since some external and internal background processes lead to periodic failure of the correct alternation of intervals between frames and even (very rarely) to the skipping of individual frames. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p), the image of the video file itself is displayed one-on-one, exactly along the border of the screen, but the image is cyclically shifted 1 pixel to the left with this strip displayed on the right side of the screen. In theory, this flaw can appear not only in test images. The brightness range displayed on the screen corresponds to the standard range of 16-235 - all gradations of shades are displayed in shadows and highlights.

Battery life

The capacity of the lithium-ion battery installed in the Lenovo Vibe Z is 3050 mAh, which is decent for a smartphone by modern standards. The battery here is non-replaceable, so you can’t remove it or replace it with another one. True, despite the fact that the battery capacity is comparable to top-end solutions from Samsung and LG, in terms of battery life, the Lenovo smartphone turned out to be far from these modern centenarians. The results of testing the Lenovo Vibe Z in the most common user scenarios were not a failure, but it did not reach records either.

Continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasted until the battery was completely discharged in less than 12 hours, and when continuously watching videos from YouTube in high quality (HQ) with The device lasted about 8 hours at the same brightness level via a home Wi-Fi network - these are modest figures. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone lasted only 3.5 hours, and this is generally the same as last year’s and the year before last models, when the battery capacities were not around the 3000 mAh mark, but about 2000 mAh.

Bottom line

In general, Lenovo’s new flagship smartphone turned out to be worthy: a very powerful platform and a huge screen with Full HD resolution allow us to talk about it as one of the most productive and at the same time the most compact and lightest tablets today. The new product even slightly exceeded in compactness the size of such a very elegant smartphone for its characteristics as the Galaxy Note 3. And in terms of thickness, the Lenovo Vibe Z has practically no equal among tablet phones. True, the design of the new flagship of the line has changed, compared to the previous flagship K900, beyond recognition and, unfortunately, not for the better. Now it is just another ordinary “remnant”, smoothly turned on all sides - it did not inherit any metallic sharp-angled brutality from its ancestor. It's a pity.

As for the price of the new product, there are two nuances in this issue. Firstly, it has already been practically confirmed that this smartphone will not reach Russian stores - at least in official deliveries. So everyone who is “hooked” by this newcomer today will have to obtain the device in other ways, fortunately now almost anyone can order their favorite new product through the appropriate Internet intermediaries directly from the Middle Kingdom. True, taking into account the latest decisions of the party and government, this must be done quickly. And the cost of such a purchase can turn out to be very “delicious”: abroad the price for Lenovo Vibe Z starts at about $550 excluding delivery. Like the previous K900 model, Lenovo offers its new flagship for a very good price - this is the second nuance that allows you to turn a blind eye to some shortcomings. Needless to say, this device is more than worthy of such a price, even if it costs a little more with delivery to Russia.