The Lenovo Group already has two solid and instantly recognisable brand names in its stable: Lenovo itself, and Motorola. As a result, the company has a variety of solid products that sell in huge numbers the world over. However, like others have sầu done before, Lenovo has decided to lớn market a part of its sản phẩm range as online-only. These products come under the new Zuk sub-br&.
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Today, we"re reviewing the Lenovo Zuk Z1. Although marketed globally as the Zuk Z1, Lenovo has chosen lớn retain its parent name in brand-conscious India in order lớn make it immediately clear what the heritage of the device is. However, it"s also important to rethành viên that the Zuk Z1 was first launched globally in September last year, so what we"re reviewing today is a bit dated already. Let"s go into lớn the details in our Reviews.
Look & feelOnly a few years ago, phones with 5.5-inch screens were considered oversized, & it was often a topic of discussion if you had a large phone. Today, this kích cỡ has become the norm because of increased truyền thông consumption on smartphones. The Lenovo Zuk Z1 goes with this tried & tested kích cỡ, although the phone does definitely feel a bit bulky.
The reasons for the bulk are a metal frame and a 4100mAh battery, which contribute khổng lồ the phone"s 175g weight. Although it does not have a unibody toàn thân casing & the back is plastic, the battery is not user-accessible. The dual-SIM tray is on the left side, within the frame. The phone does not support expandable storage, so there is no slot for a microSD card.
There are two colour options for the Lenovo Zuk Z1 in India; trắng & space grey. Our nhận xét unit was grey, which we quite preferred over the white option. The baông chồng has a dull, metallic finish, as does the frame. The phone is bare of any Lenovo branding, with just a Zuk biểu tượng logo at the back and nothing else. The camera & flash are located at the centre of the baông chồng near the top, and on the whole we quite lượt thích the minimacác mục styling of this phone.
The bottom has the microphone, speaker, & USB Type-C port for charging & data transfers. Also included in the box are a 13W power adapter and a USB 3.0 cable with a Type-A plug at one over and Type-C at the other. The right side of the phone has the power & volume buttons, while the top has the 3.5milimet socket. The screen occupies nearly 70 percent of the front of the phone, while the camera, earpiece and proximity sensor sit above it. At the bottom is the physical trang chính button with its integrated fingerprint sensor, and capacitive sầu Android navigation keys.
We have sầu seen plenty of good implementations of trang chủ buttons with a fingerprint sensors built in, including the Samsung Galaxy A8 (Review) & Điện thoại HTC One A9 (Review). Many of them allow you to unloông chồng the phone by simply touching the sensor even while in standby mode, but the Zuk Z1 does not. You have sầu to wake the phone by pressing the trang chính button down & then maintaining contact till your fingerprint is recognised, or hitting the power button first.
This isn"t itself a problem, but the button is slightly recessed và a bit firm, needing some effort to press down. The sensor itself is quiông chồng and accurate in unlocking the phone, but the process isn"t quite as easy as it is with other devices. The sensor previously worked as a capacitive baông chồng button as well, but this has now been disabled by a software update.
The screen of the Lenovo Zuk Z1 sports a resolution of 1080x19trăng tròn, with a mật độ trùng lặp từ khóa of 401ppi. It"s a decent screen, và is sharp enough to serve most of your requirements. Brightness isn"t quite as great as we"d have sầu expected from an IPS-LCD screen, and even at its brighthử nghiệm it doesn"t quite seem as bright as it should be. However, a polarising coating on the screen does help with legibility under bright sunlight, so it doesn"t need to lớn be too bright. It is best khổng lồ control brightness manually, as the adaptive brightness mode usually makes it too dull. Blachồng levels are decent as well, as is the contrast ratio which ensures a fairly accurate representation of colours through the spectrum.
Additionally, there is also LiveDisplay, a setting that allows you to lớn optimise the colour tone of the screen based on the time of day. You can choose how cool or warm you want the colours lớn get based on the time of day, or set the colour temperatures manually. This lets you phối up the IPS-LCD screen exactly as you want it. The temperature switches made a noticeable difference to lớn viewing comfort, and the ability lớn adjust this at any time is a great addition lớn the phone.
SpecificationsAt a time when new smartphones priced at under Rs. 15,000 are running the lademo MediaTek Helio or Snaprồng 600 series SoCs, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 packs in the higher-kết thúc but older 32-bit quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, clocked at 2.5GHz. It"s been about two years since the first Snapdragon 801 smartphones hit the market, so Lenovo"s choice of SoC will raise a few eyebrows, particularly because it"s a 32-bit SoC when practically all hardware is now geared for newer 64-bit processors.
Apart from the fact that the phone was first launched the better part of a year ago, an explanation offered by Lenovo for this is that the Cyanoren team knows the Snapdragon 801 really well, & using a different SoC at this point would skết thúc all its software optimisation efforts for a toss. However, you"re still buying a phone with an old SoC, và this is cause for concern about the longevity of the Zuk Z1. That said, the phone does run the lathử nghiệm and most stable variant of the Snapdragon 801, the MSM8974AC, & has the excellent Adreno 330 GPU. It"s an extremely capable SoC even today, continuing to persize with the same consistency và strength as when it was new.
The Zuk Z1 also has 3GB of RAM, 4G connectivity on its two SIM slots (Indian bands supported), Wi-Fi ac connectivity, và a 4,100mAh battery. The phone has a significant internal storage capathành phố of 64GB as well, but there"s no support for expandable storage so you"re limited lớn that much.
SoftwareThe phone runs on Cyanogene OS 12.1, which is based on Android 5.1.1. Although there has been talk of a planned tăng cấp khổng lồ Cyanogen OS 13 based on Android 6.0, this update isn"t available through the phone"s OTA software update system yet. While Cyanogene OS isn"t quite as tweakable as the geek-inspired CyanogenMod, it offers a decent blover of customisability và stability.
In most ways, Cyanogen OS functions just lượt thích stock Android, & you can even change the theme to lớn have sầu it look like that. The system"s trademark is its high degree of customisability, and we see a lot of this in Lenovo Zuk Z1. The home page screens và app drawer can be changed lớn different layouts, the grid sizes, scroll effects & inhỏ labels can be changed & toggled, & there"s much more khổng lồ play with. You get a fair amount of control over how the user interface looks at its most basic cấp độ.
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Going further in, the Settings tiện ích also has a few different options that give sầu you a greater sense of control over the device than most standard manufacturer UIs offer. This includes being able khổng lồ control whether the screen should light up when you plug in a charger, the colour of the notification light for battery alerts, custom actions for the home page & recent buttons, the position of various elements on the status bar & notification drawer, & much more. Cyanoren OS is the ikhuyễn mãi giảm giá operating system for advanced users who want control over more aspects of their phones, and one we love using because of its general stability, light footprint & ease of use. Additionally, it"s không tính tiền of any bloatware & has a good set of system apps that are well designed và light on phone resources.
CameraThe Lenovo Zuk Z1 has a 13-megapixel primary camera built on Sony"s IMX 214 sensor, & also features optical image stabilisation and a dual-LED flash. The front camera sports an 8-megapx sensor, và both cameras can record video clip at up to 1080p, with the rear camera also featuring 60fps đoạn Clip recording.
The camera ứng dụng is Cyanogen"s own Camera Next, which is a fairly decent option in terms of ease of use and functionality. Most useful toggles are easily accessible from the viewfinder screen itself, including flash, camera và timer settings. Video recording is a one-step procedure, và panorama mode can also be quickly toggled this way. Additionally, resolution settings, manual controls and codec selection can be done through the settings menu, which gives you an atypically large amount of control over your pictures & videos.
(Tap khổng lồ see full-kích thước image)
The camera itself is fairly capable, taking pictures that are sharp and detailed, and manage to lớn capture colour tones effectively and accurately. In well-lit images, the handling of light & dark areas is particularly good, while low-light images succeed in capturing a fair amount of detail with an acceptably low amount of noise and grain. Indoor shots aren"t quite as good as well-lit outdoor shots, but are up to an acceptable standard as far as detail and colours go.
Videos are fairly good in decent light, but suffer a bit in low-light conditions. However, the ability of the camera khổng lồ focus quickly & readjust lớn lighting conditions is commendable, và far better than other devices we"ve sầu seen in this price range. High-speed & slow-motion modes produce fun results with a clean sense of motion & fluidity.
(Tap to see full-form size images)
PerformanceDespite its two-year-old SoC, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 is a capable performer that outdoes a lot of newer options from both Qualcomilimet and MediaTek. However, you are likely to get better performance from the new Qualcomilimet Snaprồng 650 and 652 SoCs which are found on some similarly priced devices. It"s also important to remember that the Adreno 330 GPU is too old khổng lồ support OpenGL ES 3.1 & 3.2, so this may affect the phone"s ability lớn play some newer, more graphics-intensive sầu games.
General performance on the phone, as well as with the games we tried (Marvel: Contest of Champions, Trials: Frontier và Uncharted: Fortune Hunter) was excellent, with no significant heating issues & absolutely no lag or stutter. This can also be credited to lớn Cyanogene OS, which ensures that the Zuk Z1 always runs smoothly thanks to its low impact and optimal utilisation of the device"s resources.
Our suite of benchmark tests corroborated all of this, with impressive scores through the tests, particularly with the graphics benchmarks. AnTuTu and Quadrant produced scores of 57,835 and 24,885 respectively, while GFXBench và 3D Mark Ice Storm Unlimited returned scores of 28fps and 19,550. All of these are excellent, particularly when you consider the age of the Snapdragon 801 SoC, & are an indication of just how capable and ahead of its time the SoC was baông xã in năm trước.
The Zuk Z1 ran for 13 hours, 40 minutes in our video loop test, which is an impressive figure. In ordinary day-to-day use, the phone would last us well over a day on a full charge, despite continuous 4G connectivity, a bit of gaming & the screen brightness phối at the highest màn chơi throughout. Wi-Fi, cellular connectivity & gọi unique are excellent as well, & the only drawbachồng is the somewhat weak speaker that sounds poor. However, with headphones, the sound chất lượng is decent enough lớn use the phone as your primary music player và for watching the occasional đoạn Clip.
VerdictLenovo has an excellent device on its hands with the Zuk Z1. The phone is well built, runs excellent software, has a good display, comes with plenty of storage, & has excellent connectivity & good battery life as well. There"s also a great screen which is sharp và can be tweaked và customised lớn your preferences. Above sầu all, the company has achieved all of this at a great price that will tempt a lot of buyers, particularly advanced users who know a thing or two about the advantages of Cyanogen OS over other manufacturer-developed user interfaces.
Unfortunately, there are some noteworthy drawbacks as well. Although we faced no performance or compatibility issues during our time with the phone, it does run an old 32-bit SoC with a GPU that may have sầu trouble with new games & apps going forward. There"s also the previous version of Cyanogene OS và Android out-of-the-box, with no timeline on an update lớn the newest software. Although a relatively minor complaint given the ample 64GB of on-board storage, the phone does not support expandable storage. And finally, buying the Z1 won"t be easy because of the annoying flash sale model.
However, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 is a great option nonetheless, particularly considering its price & the features on offer. If you don"t expect the age of the hardware to lớn be a problem for you over the next couple of years or plan khổng lồ use this as a secondary smartphone, the Zuk Z1 may well be worth considering over some of the other options in this price range.
