Lenovo, a Chinese brand which is doing really well in India. A few months back, the company has launched the Z2 Plus in two variants, a 32 GB+ 3GB RAM version, and a 64GB+4GB RAM version. The 32 GB variant costs 17999 and 64 GB variant costs 19999 which are exclusively available on Amazon.in. After using the phone for more than 10 days, I have decided to review this one. Is it the best smartphone under 20000 INR ? Let’s find out.
Design
Lenovo Z2 Plus is an eye-candy device which comes with Fibre Glass Body. The phone feels lighter (149g) and compact thanks to 5″inch display. At the first glance, the phone resembles iPhone 4S or more like the iPhone SE. It has a glossy finish on the back which quite slippery and matte finish on the corners. The device is prone to smudges, So it’s better to use the case. The USB Type-C, Speakers, and 3.5 mm Jack are located at the bottom. The Fingerprint sensor is placed on the home button. Lenovo has skipped the capacitive buttons, instead, they have used on-screen navigation buttons. The phone feels like a 4.7-inch device where they could have used the off-screen buttons. Due to the large 3500 mAh battery, the smartphone feels slightly thicker. By far the best-looking midrange smartphone thanks to the Fibre Glass body.
Display
Lenovo Z2 Plus sports a 5″inch 1080P screen with 2.5D curved glass display. The viewing angles are good but the color reproduction is just fine. The display works perfectly fine in direct sunlight, the visibility is good which I wasn’t expecting. Watching videos is a treat to watch on this 5″inch display.
Performance
The Z2 Plus rocks a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 Quad-Core chipset clocked at 2×2.15 GHz Kryo & 2×1.6 GHz Kryo with Adreno 530. It is one of the best-performing smartphones at this price range thanks to its powerful hardware. The performance is excellent, you can do multitasking with ease. You can switch between the apps using the home button. The RAM management is much better compared to Le Max2. The gaming on this device is brilliant, it can play almost any game available on the play store without any glitches. The phone comes in two variants, one with 3 GB RAM+ 32 GB storage and 4GB RAM + 64 GB storage. The one I used is 64 GB variant which is the premium version.
U-Touch Fingerprint sensor and Speakers
The Fingerprint sensor works fine where you can just tap or press to unlock the device. The U-Touch Fingerprint sensor button has several functions like
- Long Press to access Google Now
- Single Touch to go back
- Single press to go home
- Swift left/right to access recent apps
- Long Touch to get notification center
- Double press for App switcher
It has bottom firing speaker and dual noise cancellation microphones. It’s not the loudest but the sounds decent enough.
U-Health
Lenovo Z2 Plus comes with a special feature called U-Health. The App uses a pedometer, accelerometer, and gyroscope to track steps, distance, and calories. It can show the trends on a daily, monthly, and yearly basis. Basically, it works like a Fitness device to track all your daily activities where you don’t need carry any extra fitness gadget.
Software and UI
The Z2 Plus runs on Android Marshmallow 6.0.1 with ZUI 2.0. The UI is more like a Stock Android with little tweaks. One thing I like about this device is there is no bloatware, unlike other Chinese UI’s which are flooded with tons of bloatware. To get a Nougat flare, I have side loaded Pixel launcher which looks great on Z2 Plus. The UI is quite smooth and has no lags what so ever while performing high-end tasks.
Camera
The smartphone has a 13-megapixel rear camera with LED flash and PDAF/CAF Hybrid Autofocus. For selfie freaks, it has an 8-megapixel front facing camera. The rear camera doesn’t support optical image stabilization and laser autofocus. The camera on the back struggles to capture images in most conditions. The saturation is on the higher side while taking photos in broad daylight. You can observe little noise in artificial conditions. It’s not that bad when you shoot in natural light, the images turn out to be decent. The slow motion at 120 FPS is pathetic, instead, it feels like fast forward video.The selfie camera does the job well in most conditions.
Rear camera
Selfie camera
Battery
The Z2 Plus houses a 3500 mAh battery with quick charging support. The adaptor we got doesn’t support the quick charge, So you need purchase quick charger separately. It took some time to charge the device to 100%.
Time to charge
- 0-47% – 60 mins
- 0-77% – 90 mins
- 0-100% – 135 mins
Due to it’s compact 5″inch display and optimization, the battery performance is excellent. It can easily last a full day on heavy to moderate usage.
Verdict: If you are a looking for a compact smartphone with powerful performance then Z2 Plus stands out. But you need to compromise with the camera where it struggles the most.
Buy from Amazon
A Great device with the SD 820 particularly with the discounted price tag of Rs. 14999. But the one thing which is worrying is the lack of authorized service centers which can deal with Z2 Plus. Hope Lenovo can improve in this aspect and it will be the best and cheapest SD 820 powered smartphone in the market.