Battle of the titans is one thing. What about those who are still finding their way to the battlefield? The likes of Lenovo, which up until a year ago, was associated with laptops and workstations, is yet to become a familiar name for smartphones. Last year, the company had launched a series of phones for the first time in the Indian market. The range was impressive, but the reception a bit muted. Now, after six months, the company has released its brand new line-up of smartphones for Indian consumers. We picked the best (read the costliest) of the lot – a 5.5-incher Lenovo K900 – to see how much progress the company has made in the interim.

Display

If there was ever a ‘Super Size Me’-style documentary on smartphones, the Lenovo K900 would make it to the list. The device is massive with its 5.5-inch screen. Thankfully, it doesn’t translate to bulkiness because the phone feels quite light. Yes, the form factor is a bit quirky. I’ll admit I tried not to take it out too much in public because it was a bit weird talking into a device that is almost as big as my face! But anyway, the good thing about massive form factors is the big screens. I mean, most of us use smartphones to read, surf the web, email, watch movies and nothing helps the cause like a big screen. The resolution on the Lenovo K900 is top notch – it’s a full HD display with an IPS screen. The colours on the display don’t pop out like they do on Super-AMOLED displays but sometimes that can be a good thing!

If it’s not aluminium, it’s not classy. Or at least that’s the mantra the tech world is living by for now. I’m not complaining though. The phone does look classy with its brushed aluminium back panel and an all-black fascia with a very thin bezel. However, the ‘tall’ design of the K900 means you have to inch your way to the buttons that rest on either side of the top half of the phone – the power button on the right and the volume rocker on the left.

Lenovo has stamped the K900 with its user interface so much so that at times you really wonder if you’re still using an Android system. That is of course, aesthetically speaking. I understand that people need biggish icons for the sake of visibility on a 5.5-inch smartphone, but the icons on the Lenovo K900 walk a tight rope bordering between big and freakily big!

You notice it most when you press the virtual button to access a matrix of all applications on the phone. They’ve added an extra effect here – when you swipe from one page of apps to another, it does a swivelling barrel effect and it first catches your eye but ultimately feels a bit jarring when you use the phone for a couple of days. Most of the icons look a bit cartoony too and that can put off some users.

One of the nice features about the UI is the battery or like Lenovo calls it the Endurance widget. From the time you switch your phone on, it shows you an estimate of how long the battery is going to last. As you open new applications such as WhatsApp or Facebook, it’ll take cognizance of those functions and recalculate the time left accordingly.

Multimedia

The K900 packs in a 13-megapixel F1.8 camera module sourced from Sony, which is supplemented by a dual-LED flash. The camera app gets itself a shortcut icon directly from the locked home page. Most settings are arranged into a couple of circular buttons around the screen. The best part about the Camera is the endless number of effects that Lenovo has built into it. The image quality was pretty good but at times it felt like the camera had a bit of trouble getting the focus right. It was fun to play around with most effects on the camera and there are enough to keep you from getting bored anytime soon.

The Lenovo K900 uses the latest Intel Atom mobile processor, a dual-core 1.8GHz unit and it’s one of the very few phones currently in the market that run on this processor. I didn’t run into any lags or freezes during the review, but the phone wasn’t blazing fast either when it came to executing functions. Running our Quadrant Benchmarking test on the phone produced a score of about 5,013 points, positioning it ahead of the HTC One X but lower than the likes of the quad-core LG Optimus G. The smartphone also packs in 16GB of storage space which should be sufficient for most of your media storage requirements.

One of the best parts about the Lenovo K900 is its super-long battery life. What this phone manages to achieve, despite its large screen, is almost astounding. After a full charge, with Wi-Fi on and regular usage for two days, the battery had drained only by 50 per cent.

Verdict

The Lenovo K900 is a well-built phone although the massive form factor might not appeal to many. While the phone runs on the latest Android operating the system, its proprietary interface layer can seem a bit gimmicky. All in all, the K900 comes across as a device that’s trying to pack in all that appeals to the modern-day consumers but it still has a way to go before it can execute those responsibilities well.

Rs 32,999

Love – Massive screen, super-long battery life

Hate – Gimmicky user interface, average camera

mahananda.bohidar@thehindu.co.in

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