Lenovo S860, S660 and A526 Hands-on: Up Close and Personal With Lenovo’s Newest Offerings

Lenovo S860, S660 and A526 Hands-on: Up Close and Personal With Lenovo’s Newest Offerings

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We get our hands on three of Lenovo’s newest smartphones!

Lenovo announced a few weeks ago that they’d be releasing three new mid-range Android smartphones to the Philippine market soon: the S860, S660 and the A536. Today, we were invited by the Chinese phone maker to take a look at the three devices in the flesh. Two of the smartphones – the S860 and the S660 were announced back in Febraury during MWC, while the third phone the A536 was announced around a month later.

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Lenovo S860 specs

  • 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor
  • 2GB RAM
  • 5.3-inch IPS HD display, 720 x 1280 resolution
  • 16GB of storage
  • 8-megapixel camera with autofocus
  • 1.5-megapixel front camera
  • Dual-SIM
  • 3G, HSDPA
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
  • 4000mAh battery
  • Android 4.2

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The Lenovo S860 is actually the biggest of the three, and obviously is the most expensive. One of its biggest draws is the large, 4000mAh battery that it utilizes, which should guarantee all-day battery life (and then some). The device, while hefty, isn’t a burden when you’re holding it in your hands. Most of the heft is probably because of the sealed, metallic body that the S860 uses. Speaking of the body, it’s very handsome, even if the device is comparably chunkier compared to other smartphones in its class. Unfortunately, the battery is non-removable, and you don’t get expandable storage with the S860.

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Like Lenovo’s other offerings, the S860 uses the company’s own UI overlay. This UI overlay adds additional functionality to the S860 including features like shake to lock, for example. The pairing of the 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 2GB of RAM keep the whole user experience nice and snappy. While the S860 ships with Android 4.2 out of the box, it can be upgraded to KitKat later on (the device we were playing with already had KitKat on-board).

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Lenovo S660 specs

  • 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 processor
  • 1GB RAM
  • 4.7 inch IPS display, 540 x 960 pixels
  • 8GB of storage, expandable via microSD up to 32GB
  • 8-megapixel back camera with autofocus
  • VGA front camera
  • Dual-SIM
  • 3G, HSDPA
  • WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
  • 3000 mAh battery
  • Android 4.2

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The Lenovo S660 shares the same premium look of the S860, with a few differences. Although the S660 has a metal back and the same metal finish of the S860, it’s actually removable, although great care needs to be taken when removing it or you risk deforming the back of the thin metal back.

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The Lenovo S660 takes a bit of a performance hit compared to the S860 because it only has 1GB of RAM compared to 2GB that the S860 has, though the 1.3GHz processor and 1GB of RAM still managed to keep the user experience of the S660 fluid and seamless. Like the S860, the S660 has Lenovo’s propreitary UI built-in, though it lacks some of the other features that we saw on the S860. Another nice thing on the Lenovo S660 is that the batter is a bit larger than your typical quad-core MediaTek smartphone, coming in at 3000mAh.

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Lenovo A526 specs

  • 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582M
  • 1GB of RAM
  • 4.5-inch capacitive display, 480 x 854 resolution
  • 4GB of storage, expandable via microSD
  • 5-megapixel camera
  • VGA secondary camera
  • Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS, A-GPS
  • Dual-SIM, dual standby
  • 3G, HSDPA
  • 2000mAh battery
  • Android 4.2

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The Lenovo A526 is obviously the runt of the litter, though it’s still roughly equivalent to the S660 as far as some of the specs are concerned. Unlike the other two smartphones, the A526 uses a plastic body. It also uses a 4.5-inch capacitive TN display compared to an IPS display that’s on the other two smartphones. In Lenovo’s credit though, the TN panel that they utilized with the A526 is pretty good, and had above average viewing angles compared to other TN displays in other devices. You only actually see the negative effect that’s present in other TN panels when you look at the display at a top-down angle. While the A526 has a custom UI overlay on it, it’s not quite the same as the one on the two previous phones. As far as the user interface is concerned, everything was nice and snappy, much like the two smartphones that it launched with, though only a full review would show what it can really do.

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The Lenovo A526 has a price of Php 6,299 while the Lenovo S660 will be around Php 10,299. The S860 meanwhile will retail for Php 15,999.

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