Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro

Review in pictures

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The phablet of steel (aluminium, to be precise)

Follows the design language of the Lenovo K900 with an all-metal body

Thanks to the metal body, the unibody smartphone gets a premium appeal

along with being robust

The device is available in grey, silver and gold options

The front is mainly dominated by the display, along with an earpiece, a few

sensors and front camera above and a row of capacitive buttons at the bottom

The buttons and port placement is fairly standard

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It’s BIG

With a ginormous 6-inch display, the Vibe Z2 Pro is surely one of the

largest smartphones available in the market

However, designers must be given credit to keep the width of the phone in

check by shaving off space around the display

In fact, its dimensions are similar to the iPhone 6 Plus, that has a relatively

smaller 5.5-inch display

It weighs considerably at 179g, and its thickness is average at 7.7mm

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Going beyond pixels

Not only does the device feature a large 6-inch display, it also

offers the highest resolution on a smartphone – 2,560 x 1,440

pixels (also called 2K or QHD)

This makes the Vibe Z2 Pro the largest smartphone with a 2K

resolution

The display reproduces great visuals and sharp text, along with

good viewing angles

You can also change the colour balance of the display

A layer of Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protects the display against

scratches

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Lenovo's custom skin gives out positive vibes…

The OS on offer is

Android 4.4 KitKat,

layered with Lenovo’s skin

dubbed as Vibe UI

Vibe UI brings a lot of

changes to the OS, both in

terms of looks as well as

features

Similar to most Chinese

brands, the interface

combines the home screen

and app launcher into one

Themes allow you to

change the look of the

interface easily

Preloaded with apps such

as Facebook, Guvera,

Evernote, etc.

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… and is loaded with features

Offers numerous gesture-

based features as well as

enabling pocket mode or

customising shortcuts

With Micro screen, you can

use the device with a

single hand

With gestures, you can

accept or reject calls, and

navigate the screen left or

right as well as up or down

Wide Touch brings up a

floating button to quickly

access various features

You can also lock the

device by shaking it or

unlock it with the volume

rocker

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All it takes is a flick of a button to switch to stock Android

Of course, all these

features don’t matter if

you are attracted to the

pure Android interface

Thankfully, Lenovo

provides an option to

switch to stock Android

That too without any

cumbersome process, or

risk of data loss

You can get it by going to

Developer Mode, available

in the settings menu

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A capable pair of shooters…

Equipped with a 16-megapixel BSI sensor that comes with optical image stabilisation technologySupplemented by dual-LED flashThe custom camera app is crammed to the neck with various settings and modesBut, instead of inundating the user with many options, those are available in the pro shooting modeThe rear camera can record videos from 720p all the way up to 4k resolutionThe 5MP camera at the front can shoot videos in full HD resolution

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… but just a notch below perfection

The images clicked by the primary shooter are great on detail and colour reproductionBut the camera struggles in poorly-lit conditionsThe dual-LED flash spoils the image further, as it’s so strong that colours start bleedingWe also think that the images lack certain punchiness in some situationsThe front-facing snapper is pretty good for capturing selfies or making video calls

Close up

Long shot

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Flexes its performance muscles well

Fuelled by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 SoC, offering four cores

clocked at 2.5GHz and supported by Adreno 330 GPU

The chipset is further supplemented by 3GB RAM

The device literally zips through screens and apps, without any trace of

lag

The story continues even while playing graphics-intensive titles as well

However, the device heats up very quickly, which is more noticeable

with the metallic rear panel

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Whopping 32GB of storage

Comes with 32GB of flash

storage

After considering for the

space taken by OS and

supported resources, users

can access 25.2GB for the

installation of apps and

storing personal content

However, you can’t extend

it further

You can make use of USB

OTG capabilities for using

flash drives

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Comfortably lasts a day and then some more

Sips juice from a

4,000mAh non-

removable battery

Comfortably gives more

than a day’s worth of

juice

In our battery rundown

test, it delivered a little

over 11 hours of video

playback time

With the Power Saver

app, you get several

options to manage the

battery life

You can enable Power

Saving and Emergency

modes, as well as freeze

rarely-used apps

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At a glance…

Measures 81.3 x 7.7 x 156mm Weighs 179g 6-inch display with a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels (~490ppi) 2.5GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor Adreno 330 graphics processor 3GB RAM 32GB fixed storage 16-megapixel BSI camera on the rear with dual-LED flash 5-megapixel front-facing camera Android 4.4 KitKat 4,000mAh sealed battery

Pros and cons

Great design Marvellous display Powerful hardwareOption to switch to stock Android interface

Difficult for one-handed usage No support for Indian 4G band

Pricing & verdict

Price: Rs 32,999

“With the Vibe Z2 Pro, Lenovo is bringing its A-game to the smartphone market. It has everything you can ask from a smartphone – looks (with robustness), display, internals, camera and even a good battery life, which is one of the most important concerns with many capable devices. Combine all that with a jaw-dropping pricing of Rs 32,999, and the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro easily becomes one of the best flagship smartphones around.”