Lenovo ZUK Z1 review: A mighty powerhouse that doesn’t cost a bomb!
Lenovo ZUK Z1 review - Off late, Lenovo has been on a roll with quite a few profitable smartphones, which incorporates the likes of the Lenovo K3 Note, the Vibe S1, the Vibe X3, the K4 Note and the lately launched Vibe K5 Plus. Lenovo additionally has two different manufacturers below its umbrella – Motorola, which it acquired from Google in 2014, and ZUK, the net-solely model to tackle the likes of Xiaomi and YU amongst others. The ZUK Z1 is the model’s first smartphone which was launched in China final yr, and now launched in India too.
Priced at Rs 13,499 and accessible completely through Amazon India, the Lenovo ZUK Z1 packs good hardware in its value vary. One of many key highlights of the smartphone is that it runs on CyanogenOS, which was beforehand unique to Micromax sub-model YU. It's also the primary smartphone underneath Rs 13,500 range to boast a 13-megapixel digital camera with optical picture stabilization. After utilizing the ZUK Z1 for shut to 2 weeks, right here is the detailed assessment.
Design and build
Smartphones with metallic body and unibody design have gotten a typical as of late, and the ZUK Z1 is not any completely different. With diamond-minimize chamfered edges and barely curved again, it feels slightly heavy, but strong and durable once you maintain it. Up entrance you will have the sensors, earpiece and the selfie digicam positioned positioned above the show and a bodily residence button under it. Apart from this button, you could have two capacitive buttons – again and app switcher. Beneath settings, you additionally get an choice to activate the on-display screen buttons for house, app switcher and again, if you need.
The house button additionally doubles as a fingerprint scanner for biometric authentication. Customers can configure as much as 5 fingerprints and the reader is fast and correct too. It is probably not the quickest fingerprint scanner like most producers declare, however unlocks the smartphone in lower than two seconds. Flip to the again and you've got a thick and non-detachable plastic covers that hides the battery. Up prime is the digicam sensor with LED flash, whereas the underside has the ZUK branding.
Coming to buttons and ports, you will have twin SIM card tray on the left edge – it only accepts nano SIM playing cards. On the proper edge, you've the amount rocker and energy buttons – each of that are simply accessible. The three.5mm audio port is positioned on the highest, whereas the underside has the USB Kind-C (Model three.zero) port, speaker grille and opening for the mic. One benefit of the brand new USB Kind-C port is that indisputable fact that it's a reversible connector, that means you don’t have to fret about which facet is the wrong way up. The plastic strips for antenna bands are intelligently positioned throughout the highest and the underside edge, which additionally helps to supply a clear again design.
Display and screen quality
The ZUK Z1 houses a 5.5-inch full HD (1080p) show with pixel density of 401ppi and brightness that may notch as much as 450 nits. The display could be very sharp and viewing angles are good too. The colour copy of the show can be fairly good, and the content material – be it films, video games or images, look full of life. The whites look vivid and the black ranges are deep too. And whereas it is probably not as punchy because the AMOLED show, it’s fairly good for its price ticket.
Lenovo has additionally included adaptive brightness and LiveDisplay below settings show settings, which is part of Cyanogen. Whereas legibility below direct daylight was no drawback, I had points with the ambient mild sensor. It takes greater than 5 to seven seconds or extra to regulate the show brightness. I typically discovered myself manually tweaking the brightness ranges. The LiveDisplay setting is an effective addition, which robotically adjusts the colour temperature of the display screen relying on the time of the day. At night time, it provides a yellow tint to the display screen to make sure the show doesn’t pressure your eyes.
Hardware
On the coronary heart of the Z1 runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor clocked at 2.5GHz paired with 3GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. Some might argue that the processor is nearly two years previous, however it is very important notice that it had been the flagship one among its time. In contrast to the Snapdragon 810 that was flawed with thermal points, the Snapdragon 801 is fairly steady, and has powered a few of the smartphones such because the HTC One M8, LG G3, Xiaomi Mi four and the Samsung Galaxy S5 amongst others.
The Z1 has 64GB of onboard storage and there's no choice for expandable storage, however I assume it needs to be sufficient for storing your favourite music, movies, some films, video games and apps. On the connectivity facet, you get 4G LTE on each SIMs, Bluetooth four.1, GPS and dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac
CyanogenOS
One of many key speaking factors of the ZUK Z1 is that it runs on Android 5.1.1-based CyanogenOS, which most of geeks who typically flash their smartphones with customized ROMs could be accustomed to. Whereas it doesn’t allow you to tweak as a lot as CyanogenMod, you continue to get a variety of customization choices. The smartphone can also be anticipated to get the Android 6.zero Marshmallow replace.
The smartphone comes with inventory Cyanogen camera app which may be very snappy and has a neat and litter free interface. Focusing takes about a few seconds and it takes one other two seconds to seize the photograph and reserve it within the library. Whereas this isn’t fairly fast, I can’t complain a lot contemplating its price ticket. I did discover the again and facet of the body getting just a little heat when utilizing the digicam app for a bit over 5 minutes.
The 8-megapixel selfie digital camera is fairly good and captures good and detailed images outside and below good lighting situations. Underneath synthetic lighting circumstances, the digicam provides an honest efficiency. Nevertheless, at occasions, some graininess is noticeable within the images.
The first digital camera helps full HD video recording, and each the recording high quality and playback is fairly clean. It additionally helps timelapse movies, sluggish movement and excessive-pace movement video recording at 60fps. I attempted all these modes and was impressed with the output. The entrance-dealing with digicam additionally helps video recording at full HD (1080p) decision and it’s fairly spectacular too.
Battery
When you've a smartphone outfitted with a strong hardware, it does take a toll on its battery life. Fortunately, that isn’t the identical with the ZUK Z1. Along with correct OS optimization and the huge four,100mAh battery, it's adequate to final all through the day and much more (a number of this depends upon your utilization). Beneath battery settings possibility, you get to decide on between three modes – energy saver, steadiness and efficiency. I had at all times been utilizing the Z1 in efficiency mode.
With my traditional day by day utilization, I used to be capable of squeeze out practically 5 hours of display screen on time or extra. My utilization included – Bluetooth turned on on a regular basis, linked to a smartwatch and wi-fi headset; three electronic mail accounts in sync; brightness set at 60 p.c; nearly an hour price of cellphone calls; and Wi-Fi, GPS and 4G LTE linked on a regular basis. My utilization additionally included an hour price of gaming and music every; watching a few YouTube movies in full HD; WhatsApp and Messenger chats for over two hours.
The ZUK Z1 additionally helps quick charging characteristic and the bundled 2.5A charger takes the four,100mAh battery from zero-one hundred pc is about two hours. I additionally ran PC Mark’s work battery life check which performs sure duties on loop with display screen on constantly. The benchmark ran for 10 hours and fifty eight minutes, with 20 % battery to spare.
Verdict
Much like different Lenovo smartphones, the corporate as soon as once more has a winner on its arms. The ZUK Z1 is aggressively priced, contains a effectively constructed and durable design and runs on a properly-optimized CyanogenOS that doesn’t present any indicators of stutter, even with heavy utilization. Additionally on the supply is an effective and succesful digicam, 64GB of storage, flagship hardware and battery life that would simply allow you to sail by the day, even with heavy utilization.
Mix all this with the efficiency and the general package deal is one thing that's troublesome to seek out on a sub Rs 15,000 smartphone. Should you’re in search of a superb smartphone that’s bang on price range and presents efficiency, the Lenovo ZUK Z1 ought to be in your listing. Different alternate options may very well be the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, which had impressed us with its general efficiency, besides the digital camera. The LeEco Le 1s, alternatively, supplied a good efficiency, albeit an iffy battery life.
Priced at Rs 13,499 and accessible completely through Amazon India, the Lenovo ZUK Z1 packs good hardware in its value vary. One of many key highlights of the smartphone is that it runs on CyanogenOS, which was beforehand unique to Micromax sub-model YU. It's also the primary smartphone underneath Rs 13,500 range to boast a 13-megapixel digital camera with optical picture stabilization. After utilizing the ZUK Z1 for shut to 2 weeks, right here is the detailed assessment.
Design and build
Smartphones with metallic body and unibody design have gotten a typical as of late, and the ZUK Z1 is not any completely different. With diamond-minimize chamfered edges and barely curved again, it feels slightly heavy, but strong and durable once you maintain it. Up entrance you will have the sensors, earpiece and the selfie digicam positioned positioned above the show and a bodily residence button under it. Apart from this button, you could have two capacitive buttons – again and app switcher. Beneath settings, you additionally get an choice to activate the on-display screen buttons for house, app switcher and again, if you need.
The house button additionally doubles as a fingerprint scanner for biometric authentication. Customers can configure as much as 5 fingerprints and the reader is fast and correct too. It is probably not the quickest fingerprint scanner like most producers declare, however unlocks the smartphone in lower than two seconds. Flip to the again and you've got a thick and non-detachable plastic covers that hides the battery. Up prime is the digicam sensor with LED flash, whereas the underside has the ZUK branding.
Coming to buttons and ports, you will have twin SIM card tray on the left edge – it only accepts nano SIM playing cards. On the proper edge, you've the amount rocker and energy buttons – each of that are simply accessible. The three.5mm audio port is positioned on the highest, whereas the underside has the USB Kind-C (Model three.zero) port, speaker grille and opening for the mic. One benefit of the brand new USB Kind-C port is that indisputable fact that it's a reversible connector, that means you don’t have to fret about which facet is the wrong way up. The plastic strips for antenna bands are intelligently positioned throughout the highest and the underside edge, which additionally helps to supply a clear again design.
Display and screen quality
The ZUK Z1 houses a 5.5-inch full HD (1080p) show with pixel density of 401ppi and brightness that may notch as much as 450 nits. The display could be very sharp and viewing angles are good too. The colour copy of the show can be fairly good, and the content material – be it films, video games or images, look full of life. The whites look vivid and the black ranges are deep too. And whereas it is probably not as punchy because the AMOLED show, it’s fairly good for its price ticket.
Lenovo has additionally included adaptive brightness and LiveDisplay below settings show settings, which is part of Cyanogen. Whereas legibility below direct daylight was no drawback, I had points with the ambient mild sensor. It takes greater than 5 to seven seconds or extra to regulate the show brightness. I typically discovered myself manually tweaking the brightness ranges. The LiveDisplay setting is an effective addition, which robotically adjusts the colour temperature of the display screen relying on the time of the day. At night time, it provides a yellow tint to the display screen to make sure the show doesn’t pressure your eyes.
Hardware
On the coronary heart of the Z1 runs Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 801 quad-core processor clocked at 2.5GHz paired with 3GB of RAM and Adreno 330 GPU. Some might argue that the processor is nearly two years previous, however it is very important notice that it had been the flagship one among its time. In contrast to the Snapdragon 810 that was flawed with thermal points, the Snapdragon 801 is fairly steady, and has powered a few of the smartphones such because the HTC One M8, LG G3, Xiaomi Mi four and the Samsung Galaxy S5 amongst others.
The Z1 has 64GB of onboard storage and there's no choice for expandable storage, however I assume it needs to be sufficient for storing your favourite music, movies, some films, video games and apps. On the connectivity facet, you get 4G LTE on each SIMs, Bluetooth four.1, GPS and dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11ac
CyanogenOS
One of many key speaking factors of the ZUK Z1 is that it runs on Android 5.1.1-based CyanogenOS, which most of geeks who typically flash their smartphones with customized ROMs could be accustomed to. Whereas it doesn’t allow you to tweak as a lot as CyanogenMod, you continue to get a variety of customization choices. The smartphone can also be anticipated to get the Android 6.zero Marshmallow replace.
By way of customization, you get the themes app the place you may obtain loads of free and paid themes to immediately change the looks and interface of your smartphone. That’s not all; you get to customise each side of the theme, proper from wallpaper, icons, fonts and standing bar besides animation and extra. CyanogenOS additionally consists of double-faucet to wake the display.
Fortunately, Lenovo hasn’t loaded any bloatware apps and also you simply get the Google suite of apps pre-put in. CyanogenOS additionally will get TrueCaller integration constructed throughout the OS. So, each time you get a name from unknown numbers, it's going to pickup from the database and allow you to know who’s calling.
Performance
Along with Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM and nicely optimized CyanogenOS, the ZUK Z1 provides a really fluid and snappy expertise. Throughout my two weeks of utilization, I by no means got here throughout any lag of types. Proper from the app drawer to switching between apps and extra, the entire expertise is clean as butter.
Multimedia
The smartphone comes with Google Play music and it helps playback of well-liked audio codecs, comparable to MP3, AAC, Wav and FLAC. As part of CyanogenOS, Audio FX music equalizer can also be current which helps you to tinker round with the audio itemizing expertise. With a great pair of headphones, audio listening expertise is fairly good. It gives a good mixture of bass and treble, together with an in depth output. Nonetheless, the speaker isn’t that nice. It's loud from the output perspective, however the particulars aren’t clear and it sounds muffled. This is similar even with excessive-high quality MP3 information encoded in 320kbps and FLAC information too.
The constructed-in video participant is fairly easy and performs a variety of codecs. The smartphone was capable of play HD (720p) and full HD (1080p) videos with none lag or stutter. Even the Blu-ray film rip that weighs over 2GB in measurement performed clean as butter. I additionally transferred some 4K video clips, and had no issues enjoying them both.
Gaming
The gaming efficiency on the ZUK Z1 is fairly good. I had no points taking part in informal video games akin to Temple Run 2, Indignant Birds, Subway Surfers and Benji Bananas. Even some graphics intense video games resembling Asphalt 8: Airborne, N.O.V.A 3 and Modern Combat 5: Blackout ran easily with none seen stuttering. Nonetheless, I did discover some thermal heating across the high of the body. It will get heat shortly, even with 5 minutes of recreation time, but it surely doesn’t really feel uncomfortable to carry even after half-hour of steady gaming.
Cameras
The Z1 is provided with a 13-megapixel rear camera of aperture f/2.2. Lenovo has used the Sony IMX214 sensor which is identical that was utilized in different in style smartphones such because the Xiaomi Mi 4, OnePlus One and Oppo Find 7 amongst others. The camera additionally options OIS (optical picture stabilization), which is one thing that's generally present in excessive-finish smartphones. This additionally makes the ZUK Z1 probably the most reasonably priced smartphones with OIS.
Fortunately, Lenovo hasn’t loaded any bloatware apps and also you simply get the Google suite of apps pre-put in. CyanogenOS additionally will get TrueCaller integration constructed throughout the OS. So, each time you get a name from unknown numbers, it's going to pickup from the database and allow you to know who’s calling.
Performance
Along with Snapdragon 801 processor, 3GB of RAM and nicely optimized CyanogenOS, the ZUK Z1 provides a really fluid and snappy expertise. Throughout my two weeks of utilization, I by no means got here throughout any lag of types. Proper from the app drawer to switching between apps and extra, the entire expertise is clean as butter.
Multimedia
The smartphone comes with Google Play music and it helps playback of well-liked audio codecs, comparable to MP3, AAC, Wav and FLAC. As part of CyanogenOS, Audio FX music equalizer can also be current which helps you to tinker round with the audio itemizing expertise. With a great pair of headphones, audio listening expertise is fairly good. It gives a good mixture of bass and treble, together with an in depth output. Nonetheless, the speaker isn’t that nice. It's loud from the output perspective, however the particulars aren’t clear and it sounds muffled. This is similar even with excessive-high quality MP3 information encoded in 320kbps and FLAC information too.
The constructed-in video participant is fairly easy and performs a variety of codecs. The smartphone was capable of play HD (720p) and full HD (1080p) videos with none lag or stutter. Even the Blu-ray film rip that weighs over 2GB in measurement performed clean as butter. I additionally transferred some 4K video clips, and had no issues enjoying them both.
Gaming
The gaming efficiency on the ZUK Z1 is fairly good. I had no points taking part in informal video games akin to Temple Run 2, Indignant Birds, Subway Surfers and Benji Bananas. Even some graphics intense video games resembling Asphalt 8: Airborne, N.O.V.A 3 and Modern Combat 5: Blackout ran easily with none seen stuttering. Nonetheless, I did discover some thermal heating across the high of the body. It will get heat shortly, even with 5 minutes of recreation time, but it surely doesn’t really feel uncomfortable to carry even after half-hour of steady gaming.
Cameras
The Z1 is provided with a 13-megapixel rear camera of aperture f/2.2. Lenovo has used the Sony IMX214 sensor which is identical that was utilized in different in style smartphones such because the Xiaomi Mi 4, OnePlus One and Oppo Find 7 amongst others. The camera additionally options OIS (optical picture stabilization), which is one thing that's generally present in excessive-finish smartphones. This additionally makes the ZUK Z1 probably the most reasonably priced smartphones with OIS.
The smartphone comes with inventory Cyanogen camera app which may be very snappy and has a neat and litter free interface. Focusing takes about a few seconds and it takes one other two seconds to seize the photograph and reserve it within the library. Whereas this isn’t fairly fast, I can’t complain a lot contemplating its price ticket. I did discover the again and facet of the body getting just a little heat when utilizing the digicam app for a bit over 5 minutes.
I used the digital camera to seize images in several lighting situations, and whereas the standard isn’t thoughts blowing, is surprisingly good in contrast some smartphones in its worth vary. Photographs shot in vibrant out of doors gentle look good and the digicam is ready to seize sufficient particulars. Below low lighting circumstances, some noise is seen, however that's one thing that's anticipated. One factor I want to level out is that despite the fact that it has auto-focus, it’s higher to faucet and focus as soon as earlier than clicking the picture, in any other case it might come out blurry. The OIS does assist to compensate the shaky hand moments to an extent, and however as I mentioned, it really works the very best while you first faucet to focus.
The 8-megapixel selfie digital camera is fairly good and captures good and detailed images outside and below good lighting situations. Underneath synthetic lighting circumstances, the digicam provides an honest efficiency. Nevertheless, at occasions, some graininess is noticeable within the images.
The first digital camera helps full HD video recording, and each the recording high quality and playback is fairly clean. It additionally helps timelapse movies, sluggish movement and excessive-pace movement video recording at 60fps. I attempted all these modes and was impressed with the output. The entrance-dealing with digicam additionally helps video recording at full HD (1080p) decision and it’s fairly spectacular too.
Battery
When you've a smartphone outfitted with a strong hardware, it does take a toll on its battery life. Fortunately, that isn’t the identical with the ZUK Z1. Along with correct OS optimization and the huge four,100mAh battery, it's adequate to final all through the day and much more (a number of this depends upon your utilization). Beneath battery settings possibility, you get to decide on between three modes – energy saver, steadiness and efficiency. I had at all times been utilizing the Z1 in efficiency mode.
With my traditional day by day utilization, I used to be capable of squeeze out practically 5 hours of display screen on time or extra. My utilization included – Bluetooth turned on on a regular basis, linked to a smartwatch and wi-fi headset; three electronic mail accounts in sync; brightness set at 60 p.c; nearly an hour price of cellphone calls; and Wi-Fi, GPS and 4G LTE linked on a regular basis. My utilization additionally included an hour price of gaming and music every; watching a few YouTube movies in full HD; WhatsApp and Messenger chats for over two hours.
The ZUK Z1 additionally helps quick charging characteristic and the bundled 2.5A charger takes the four,100mAh battery from zero-one hundred pc is about two hours. I additionally ran PC Mark’s work battery life check which performs sure duties on loop with display screen on constantly. The benchmark ran for 10 hours and fifty eight minutes, with 20 % battery to spare.
Verdict
Much like different Lenovo smartphones, the corporate as soon as once more has a winner on its arms. The ZUK Z1 is aggressively priced, contains a effectively constructed and durable design and runs on a properly-optimized CyanogenOS that doesn’t present any indicators of stutter, even with heavy utilization. Additionally on the supply is an effective and succesful digicam, 64GB of storage, flagship hardware and battery life that would simply allow you to sail by the day, even with heavy utilization.
Mix all this with the efficiency and the general package deal is one thing that's troublesome to seek out on a sub Rs 15,000 smartphone. Should you’re in search of a superb smartphone that’s bang on price range and presents efficiency, the Lenovo ZUK Z1 ought to be in your listing. Different alternate options may very well be the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, which had impressed us with its general efficiency, besides the digital camera. The LeEco Le 1s, alternatively, supplied a good efficiency, albeit an iffy battery life.
Lenovo ZUK Z1 review: A mighty powerhouse that doesn’t cost a bomb!
Reviewed by Larry bring
on
02:21:00
Rating:
Reviewed by Larry bring
on
02:21:00
Rating:
