At the IFA 2014 in Berlin, Lenovo announced the Vibe X2, the company’s latest smartphone in the X series. The device comes with 5-inch 1080p display, powered by a 2GHz Octa-Core MediaTek MT6595 processor and runs on Android 4.4 (KitKat) with Vibe UI 2.0. The phone has impressive specs and also features a 13-megapixel auto-focus rear camera with LED Flash and a 5-megapixel wide-angle front-facing camera for selfies and video calls. The device comes in dual SIM variant in Asia Pacific region and Single SIM variant in other regions.
The phone also offers 2GB RAM and 32GB on board storage. The speciality of the device is the layered design with three colors and this is the first smartphone with a layered design. The phone was announced in India couple of weeks back and is exclusive to Flipkart. The phone is priced at Rs 19999 (around $330) which is impressive for a device with the high end specs.
Related Reading: Lenovo Vibe X2 Unboxing
So here is the video review of the device, for text version read on.
Design and Build:
The first thing that strikes you when you see the device is the stunning design. This is the first device to feature a layered design as most of the devices have either unibody design or comes with removable back cover. But Lenovo has done a great work with the layered design and the device feels sold in hands. With just 120gms in weight, the device is terrific to use.
The layered design had three colors and we tested the gold variant of the phone. The power and volume keys are on the right side. The left side has the SIM tray which supports dual SIM card (in India). The top houses the 3.5mm audio jack and the micro USB charging slot is at the bottom. The build quality of the device is really good. The rear panel houses the 13MP camera, LED flash and the speakers located at the bottom. The three capacitive touch buttons below the display are backlit and offer haptic feedback. The bezels are kept to very low and there is very less wastage of space making it one of the best designed phones.
Display:
The display on the Vibe X2 is a 5 inch Full HD display with IPS technology and it is one of the best we have seen on flagship devices. The display is vibrant and sharp and has great overall quality. The viewing angles are also good since it features IPS technology, but the sunlight readability was just average. The display also features Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection to guard against minor scratches. Touch response was also really good. Text and images look vibrant and sharp and the colors were pretty good.
Overall, we were pretty happy using the Full HD display on the Vibe X2.
Software and Performance:
Lenovo Vibe X2 is powered by Android 4.4 KitKat and the company has added its own custom UI called Vibe UI 2.0 and this adds a lot of features to the OS. There are many additional features included with this UI. The UI does not feature an app drawer instead it comes with multiple home screen where you can manage apps in each screen and also group them. The notification center also has a beautiful implementation and you can also customize it.
The settings menu offers lots of additional features like smart answer, double tap to wake, smart stand by and more. The power manager has an option to switch on Ultimate power saving mode where almost everything is disabled except for calls and messages. The UI also goes black to save power.
The phone also comes with a Theme center where in you can customize the look and feel of Vibe UI with themes, wallpapers, sounds, lock screen, boot animation, system UI, notification center and more. But unlike Xiaomi’s MIUI where you can download themes online, Lenovo does not offer any online store for themes and wallpapers.
The device is powered by 2GHz MediaTek MT6595M Octa Core processor with 2GB RAM and it also supports 4G LTE in India. The performance of the device with Android KitKat and Vibe UI is good and we seldom found any lag or issues. The multi tasking option is also pretty well implemented and has options to clear all background apps in one go. Scrolling was smooth and the phone was able to play full HD video files without any issues.
The device comes with 32GB on board storage and there is no option to expand the memory using micro SD card. 32GB storage is pretty good enough for most users and the free space available is around 26GB in the first boot.
The call quality on the device was very good and we did not experience any call drops or signal issues. The external speaker is pretty good and produces decent output although not the best. The gaming performance on the device is really good and the graphic quality was good even when we played games in high graphic mode. There was no lag and the Tru Octa core processor worked very well. You can check out our Gaming review of Lenovo Vibe X2.
Overall, we are pretty happy with the software and performance on the device.
Camera:
The device sports a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front facing camera. The camera interface of the device is again a custom one from Lenovo which is easy to use and comes loaded with features including all optical attributes, HDR, Panorama and Timer and also variety of effects to choose from. The daylight shots have pretty decent amount of detailing and they came out well, but overall color reproduction was not that great and looked a bit dull. This is more evident in macro shots of flowers and leaves where the colors looked washed out. The camera also had a big issue focusing in macro mode and kept going out of focus.
The low light photos were far from being good, they were grainy and lacked detailing. With fair amount of artificial lighting the photos came pretty decent, but there are other devices in lower price points which offers better low light photos (like Lumia 730 or Zenfone5/6). The phone can record videos in 1080P and the quality was just average with clear lack of detailing. Overall, the camera was a bit disappointing considering that this phone has some of the best specs.
Here are some of the photos taken with the device.
Battery Life:
The phone comes with 2300mAh battery which is on the lower side for a device with high end specs. The battery performance of the device was not great. With phone connected to 3G and brightness set to auto mode, the battery was draining pretty quickly and the maximum life we got was 15 hours on a single charge. Most of the time we hit around the 10-12 hours which means you might end up with low battery before the end of the day. Again, the battery performance will vary based on your usage and apps running in the background.
But having said that, Lenovo offers some good settings to improve battery performance. There is a Ultimate Power Saver mode where you can disable all other options in the phone and only calls and messages will be active. Overall, the battery performance was not that great.
Verdict:
Without doubt, the Lenovo Vibe X2 at Rs 19999 is an awesome deal and you don’t get too many phones in this price point with stunning hardware. With a terrific design, build, display and a good Vibe UI with staggering performance, Vibe X2 is one device which you cant resist buying. Having said that there are some low point for the device which includes an average camera performance and a low battery life. Both these aspects can be probably fixed by software updates and we expect Lenovo to work on it considering the company is very much aggressive in smartphones.
If you are not too much concerned with battery life, go get the Lenovo Vibe X2.
