Lenovo Vibe Z Review: Is Lenovo’s Newest Flagship Worth It or Is It Too Late to the Party?

Lenovo Vibe Z Review: Is Lenovo’s Newest Flagship Worth It or Is It Too Late to the Party?

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Lenovo Goes Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and LTE!

The Vibe Z represents a lot of firsts for Chinese company Lenovo. It’s their first ever flagship smartphone with LTE, and one of their few mobile phones not running on Intel’s silicone. The Vibe Z is also one of the few devices that won’t be hitting US soil, instead aimed at emerging markets like India and the Philippines. Unfortunately, the Lenovo Vibe Z is going up against some tough competition here in the Philippines – competitors who have similar specifications that have already carved out their own fans in the highly competitive hi-end market. Does the Vibe Z have what it takes to make a mark, or is it too late for the party?

Lenovo Vibe Z specs

  • 2.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Quad core processor
  • 2GB RAM
  • 5.5-in full HD IPS wide angle viewing touchscreen display, 1920 x 1080 pixels, 400 ppi, Gorilla Glass 3
  • 16GB of interal storage, non expandable
  • 13-megapixel camera, f1.8 aperture lens
  • 5-megapixel camera with 84° lens for wide-angle shots
  • WiFi, WiFi Hotspot, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
  • GSM, HSDPA, LTE
  • 3000mAh battery
  • Android 4.3 Jelly Bean with Custom UI

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Design and Build: 5.5-inch design, 4-inch footprint

The Vibe Z’s overall design is slim, elegant and lightweight. The Vibe Z may be a 5.5-inch smartphone (bordering on a phablet) but it has the footprint of a 4-inch smartphone. It weighs in at a measly 145.2 grams, which you wouldn’t have guessed by simply looking at it.

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It’s also one of the thinnest flagships around at only 7.9mm. Its overall construction is mostly plastic, but you won’t guess that by looking at it, thanks to its well made plastic exterior. The faux metal back and the silver trim on the side makes it look like it belongs to the high-end club, along with the LG G2 and the Samsung Galaxy Note 3.

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The volume rockers are located on the left side of the Vibe Z, while the power/lock button is located on the top. The SIM tray, which you can access by pressing the small hole ala iPhone sits on the right, while the charging slot is on the bottom of the device.

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On the back likes the 13-megapixel camera with an f1.8 aperture lens. The front of the device holds the 5-megapixel camera with an 84° lens for wide-angle shots, which theoretically allows you to get easier selfie shots. The overall build quality of the Vibe Z is top notch. We’re not sure how exactly the faux plastic of the Vibe Z will hold up to long-term abuse though, as we’ve seen enough phones with faux metal finishes degrade poorly as time goes by. One thing that we didn’t like is the positioning of the power button on the top – which makes it difficult to reach if you’re using the phone one handed. Fortunately though, pressing either buttons on the volume rocker allows you to unlock the phone, though you won’t be able to lock it using the same. The faux metal back is also a bit slippery for our taste, hopefully Lenovo comes out with a jelly case for it.

The 5.5-inch full HD IPS display is fantastic to look at, with great color reproduction all around. Corning’s Gorilla Glass 3 protects the display, so you shouldn’t be too worried about it shattering if you accidentally drop it.

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Hardware and Software: Specs fit for a flagship

When it comes to hardware, Lenovo spared no expense with the Vibe Z. The device carries Qualcomm’s top of the line Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor, running at 2.2 GHz. That’s paired with 2GB of RAM, along with an Adreno 330 GPU. One of the possible reasons why Lenovo went with Qualcomm’s solution over their long-term favorite Intel is that Intel’s LTE SOC solution (Merrifield) is simply not ready yet. Whatever Lenovo’s reason is, their decision to go with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 is a welcome choice. The Vibe Z was quick, zippy and very responsive during its time with us, and lagged exactly zero times. It managed to score high on AnTuTu, nabbing 33647 points, third only to Sony’s Xperia Z Ultra and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3. Going past the artificial benchmarks, the Vibe Z performed extremely well during our gaming sessions.

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While we’ve played Dead Trigger 2 a number of times before since it’s one of our main benchmark games, playing it on a device that’s capable of turning on all the graphical bells and whistles like ragdoll physics is infinitely more satisfying. Gameloft’s graphically demanding Asphalt 8 also ran beautifully on the Vibe Z.

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We encountered zero lag while playing both games, which is to be expected with the Vibe Z’s hardware. The Lenovo Vibe Z also made short work of full HD movies that we had on our home server.

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While the Vibe Z carries Android 4.3 out of the box, Lenovo saw fit to layer it with the LeWa OS, a custom UI overlay used by many Chinese Android smartphones. It has some nice features which includes pocket-dialing protection mode (the phone will disable the touchscreen if it detects it’s in your pockets), Smart Answer, Shake to Lock, Wide Touch (gives you shortcut keys that allow you to use the phone one handed) and Multi-Window functionality, among others.

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Though the UI overlay gives the device plenty of additional functionality, we really don’t like it. It makes our home screen too busy and scattered, and removes the traditional home button that allows you to check on all your apps and widgets. Instead, the LeWa OS just sort of puts everything out in the open, which is frankly annoying. We’re sure OCD users would probably get an aneurysm if they tried using the Vibe Z. At the very least Lenovo should have put an option to revert to stock Android.

Though the Vibe Z’s hardware is good to go, we worry about its non-expandable 16GB storage. That’s not really a lot of space and unfortunately there is no word of bigger storage options, so you’re pretty much stuck with 16GB. Lenovo should’ve put in a microSD slot on the side of the device, accessible the same way the SIM slot is, but that’s wishful thinking on our part.

As far as LTE is concerned, the Vibe Z delivered, matching the speed of our Samsung Galaxy S4 on several locations in the metro, which includes Quezon City and San Juan.

Call quality is good, with the people on the other end of the line saying that our voice was crystal clear during calls.

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Camera and Optics: Great performance even in dim light

The camera on the Vibe Z performs great, even under artificial light.

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We used it to take photos for our live Tweets for Lenovo’s Miix 2 8 launch the other day, and the photos came out clear and vibrant, even with the mostly dim lighting during the event. The f1.8 lens did a good job gathering light even in dim lighting conditions.

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The front camera is pretty good as well, and we found that we didn’t have to hold out the camera as far as other devices did to be able to capture a good selfie.

Battery Life: Will last you an entire day

Another thing that the Vibe Z excels at is battery life. With heavy use which includes gaming, calls, videos and browsing with LTE, we were surprised to see that the Vibe Z was still alive and kicking after 13 hours, albeit with only 10% left in the tank. That’s extremely heavy use after an unusually long work day. If you manage your settings properly, we won’t be surprised if you could squeeze more than a day’s worth of battery out of the Vibe Z.

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Verdict: Great mix of hardware and software, though low storage and custom UI drags it down

Lenovo’s newest flagship smartphone is a great step forward for the company! The Vibe Z puts them directly against other global brands who offer LTE smartphones with the latest processors from Qualcomm. Unfortunately, there are a few things that bug us about it, mainly its somewhat messy custom UI and limited storage space. Most users will probably go through the 16GB storage quickly, and the lack of expandable memory is a bummer. As far as pricing is concerned, the Vibe Z is directly competing with LG’s G2, which has a slight edge over it as far as storage is concerned (G2 32GB variant is a little pricer though fyi).

So is it too late for the party? We don’t think so. The Lenovo Vibe Z is a superb offering especially since it’s thinner than a lot of the global flagships, has almost the same specifications (complete with LTE), and has a more affordable price tag. However we think that if Lenovo brought that price down some more it would gain traction in the market much, much faster since it will be a strong alternative to the offerings of other companies in the same category. Nevertheless congratulations to Lenovo for shipping the Vibe Z!

The Vibe Z retails for Php 24,999.

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