Lenovo Z5 Pro smartphone - advantages and disadvantages

The Chinese group of companies "Lenovo" is one of the largest manufacturers of electronic gadgets. This company ranks fifth in the world market for the development and production of mobile phones.

Lenovo smartphones are stylish and reliable. In October 2018, another novelty Z5 Pro is presented. Presumably, the presentation will take place on the 11th, but some of the features and characteristics of the new model have already become known.

What surprises can you expect from the improved version of the Z5? The following overview will open the veil of mystery.

Specifications

Design

The appearance of the device at first glance does not differ much from other fresh smartphones. The rounded corners and aluminum bezel around the contour of the case looks ordinary, but behind the unremarkable design lies an interesting development from Lenovo. The highlight of the new flagship is the slider display.

The smartphone screen occupies almost the entire surface of the front panel without the usual "monobrow". The bezel around the display is very thin, but widened at the bottom. The front camera with flash and earpiece is hidden in the opening block at the top of the device. Such a module is very different from the outgoing cameras Vivo NEX S or Oppo Find X. Instead of the automated appearance and hiding of the lens, a mechanical technique is used - a slider. When you slide the display down from above, the camera opens, however, the application for it will have to be launched manually.

The power button and volume control are located on the left side of the case. There are two cameras with flash on the back. The exact position of these elements is still unknown. We can only assume that, by analogy with its predecessor Z5, the cameras are shifted to the left edge. But the fingerprint sensor on the rear panel will no longer be, but more on that later.

On the bottom there is a Type-C charging connector, a stereo speaker and a microphone. There is no separate headphone jack.

The dimensions of the device are still unknown. Judging by the increased diagonal of the screen, the smartphone will be slightly larger than the Z5. The dimensions of the predecessor: 153 × 75.6 × 7.9 mm. The Z5 weighs 165 grams. The new smartphone will also be stretched in height, so it will retain its ease of use.

Body material - metal and glass. For the older model, this solution was impractical and collected a lot of fingerprints. The oleophobic coating only made cleaning the device slightly easier.

It is assumed that the Z5 Pro will be made in classic black.

Display

The full-size 6.42-inch screen has a resolution of 1080 × 2340 pixels. The pixel density is approximately 401 ppi. The aspect ratio of 19.5 × 9, which first appeared on the popular iPhone X, is respected. This proportion improves the ergonomics of the smartphone and does not create a feeling of bulk.In addition, portrait mode displays more information on the screen.

The Amoled display features high contrast, instant pixel response and low thickness. Such a screen remains bright even in the sun. The top of the display is protected by impact-resistant toughened Corning Gorilla Glass.

operating system

The smartphone is equipped with the Android 8.1 Oreo operating system, aimed at saving battery power. One of the useful features of this system is the availability of information about the battery charge of paired Bluetooth devices. On the downside, the Z5 Pro will not be able to keep the Wi-Fi network active in sleep mode.

CPU

According to insiders, the phone will be equipped with a powerful flagship processor. Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon is a top-end octa-core system. Performance is provided by four cores with a high clock speed of 2.8 Ghz. The economical component is four cores with a frequency of 1.8 Ghz. 3 Mb of cache allow the system to cope with light tasks without involving RAM.

The Adreno 630 graphics chip is well suited for gaming and virtual reality. Image quality and accurate gaze tracking opens up new possibilities in the virtual environment.

Qualcomm's architecture supports artificial intelligence operations. All modules of the system are involved in solving such problems.

Memory

It is assumed that the RAM will be installed 6 Gb or 8 Gb. Thanks to this, the smartphone can easily cope with multitasking and demanding applications.

A lot of internal memory is also expected: 64 Gb - in the budget version and 128 Gb - in the more expensive one. This is enough for a large number of applications, music and other files. This amount of built-in storage justifies the lack of a separate slot for a memory card.

Dual sim

For all smartphones with a non-removable cover, the placement of SIM cards in a pull-out tray is still used. The Z5 Pro is no exception. The device supports two physical Nano-SIM cards. The hybrid second slot in the drawer allows you to install a microSD card instead of a SIM.

Autonomy

The capacity of the non-removable Li-Ion battery will be 4000 mAh. Thus, the smartphone will be able to work with constant workload for at least eight hours. In standby mode, it can last up to 25 hours. The manufacturer claims that if the battery is completely discharged, there will be a reserve for a 30-minute conversation.

The Z5 Pro also has a useful fast charging feature.

Communication and navigation

The smartphone supports the multi-band GSM mobile communication standard. For Internet access, HSPA and LTE technologies are used, which provide high data transfer rates.

The device works in a Wi-Fi network of two ranges: 2Ghz and 5 Ghz. As a hotspot, your phone will quickly and easily create a network of various Wi-Fi enabled devices. File exchange with other electronics is carried out via Bluetooth version 5.0 with low energy consumption.

Satellite systems are used for navigation: GPS, GLONASS and BDS. Additional add-on A-GPS speeds up the search for device coordinates. The Chinese positioning system BDS is little known in Russia, since its functionality is limited here. A stable signal is observed only in the European part of Russia.

Unlocking

A fingerprint sensor and face ID are provided to unlock the smartphone. The fingerprint scanner is built into the smartphone display, so the place for the print appears only on the lock screen.

The face recognition sensor is traditionally located next to the front camera and recognizes the owner in a split second.

Interface

On the lock screen, in the lower right corner, there is a button for quick access to the camera. A circular fingerprint symbol is located in the lower center. The upper right corner shows the battery power and network, and the center shows the date and time.

The start page looks typical for Android smartphones. At the bottom of the display are three touch buttons: "back", "recent applications" and "home".Above are the icons of the main applications, the order of which can be changed.

Camera

The rear camera is equipped with two sensors 20 MP and 16 MP and LED flash. The high-resolution lens has a 1 / 2.8 ”matrix and f / 2.0 aperture. Such indicators should provide good quality photos and videos, even in low light. However, due to the small pixels of only 1.0 μm, some graininess is possible. The second lens has more interesting performance with f / 2.0 aperture and 1 / 2.6 ”matrix size with pixels on the level of decent budget smartphones 1.22 μm. The dual rear camera allows you to take good pictures with the bokeh effect, which is responsible for blurring the background. It may well be that the manufacturer will endow such a camera with some other additional property, for example, improving detail or enlarging images without losing quality.

With PDAF-type autofocus, you can take clear pictures of moving objects even in the dark. Artificial intelligence adjusts the settings and autofocus itself to get better shots. Optical OIS reduces hand shake and keeps motion smooth.

You can shoot video in the following resolutions: 2160p, 1080p and 720p.

The 8MP front camera has an f / 2.0 aperture. Judging by the attitude of the manufacturer to release a flagship smartphone, the photo quality should be decent. The front camera can also shoot Full HD 1080p video.

If a Qualcomm SDM845 Snapdragon processor is installed in the smartphone, the Spectra 280 chip will handle the image processing. It provides 2K video recording and allows you to shoot 720p slow-motion video. It is also possible to take a photo while filming. Rec.2020's expanded color gamut HDR delivers rich color depth and rich, vibrant color for your photos.

Music and video playback

A bright, large display with a clear image is ideal for watching videos. The player supports popular formats: MP4, H.264 and FLAC.

Thanks to the spacious internal storage, the smartphone can be used as a music player. True, you will have to get Bluetooth headphones or an adapter for a 3.5 mm jack. The phone recognizes audio files: MP3, eAAC + and WAV.

Equipment

Lenovo usually packs its smartphones in white compact boxes with a color image of the device. The kit includes:

• Smartphone with a protective protective film on the screen;
• USB Type-C cable for connecting your phone to a computer and charging. The length of the cord will remain within 1 m;
• Network adapter;
• Key to open the SIM tray;
• Various booklets.

Price

The prices for this device have not yet been announced. With such characteristics, the smartphone is quite capable of occupying the flagship sector, which will lead to a high final price. As you know, two variants of the Z5 Pro are being prepared for release, from which it will be possible to choose a device on a budget without losing much in performance.

Advantages and disadvantages

Based on the preliminary review, the following pros and cons can be identified:

• Two physical SIM cards;
• Dual rear camera;
• 4G LTE support;
• Full-size screen without monobrow;
• Powerful hardware.

• There is no separate slot for a memory card;
• No headphone jack.

Outcome

Preliminary information about the smartphone may differ from the actual specifications of the Z5 Pro. The company "Lenovo" has already been noticed exaggerating the qualities of the expected phones, so you can be disappointed in some details after the presentation. According to information leaked to the Internet, the device is an interesting solution with a productive "filling" and an unusual design. Also, do not forget that the Pro prefix in the model name indicates the top-end smartphone assembly. In general, the release promises to be interesting.