Lenovo is quietly expanding its range of smartphones, with launches in different categories, reminding us of Gionee. A series for good budget devices, K series with similar concept, P series with battery capacity in focus, and now, the S series that puts emphasis on the design and selfie camera. The Vibe S1, company’s latest addition to the portfolio in India, is a simple beauty, if we had to put that in a couple of words.
Specs are similar in many smartphones nowadays, and the pricing too is being made competitive. The only thing where one can try to excel over the other is on a specific target feature that they can call a USP, or by making a beautiful design that the user can boast about. The Honor 6 Plus, Samsung Galaxy S6 and OnePlus X have a glass coating on both the sides, and the Vibe S1 from Lenovo follows the same idea, with a metal side frame joining the front and back glass.
What’s good here with the Vibe S1, is that Lenovo hasn’t compromised with the specs in any way, while keeping the design very attractive. It is the similar chipset that powered the A7000 and K3 Note, being very decent with the performance, while there is support by 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage, and a hybrid SIM slot allowing for a MicroSD card if secondary SIM slot isn’t occupied.
The Galaxy S6 was called a copy of the iPhone 6 when the bottom of the devices were compared. That iPhone 6 was called a copy of Samsung’s own Ativ device from the past, and now, the bottom speaker grill and MicroUSB port look much similar to the Galaxy S6’s ports in the bottom. Long story short, you better end the comparisons or the claims for credit, and look at how well the device is built for the price. A slight curve on the back and a symmetrical bottom having antenna bands and speaker grill on the either side of the USB port. The simmilar antenna bands are located even on the top, and the metal buttons feel great with the tactile sensation when pressed.
While a dual glass body would ask for a proper protection and care all the time, we are seeing a transparent plastic case in the box package, which might at least do some protection during accidental falls. On the back is a 13-megapixel camera with Dual LED flash, and the front has three dark circular areas, two for the dual-selfie cameras and one for the sensors.
Let’s quickly talk about the OS. We haven’t played any games, or used this phone for more than a couple of days, so performance cannot be judged already, but the OS will be an easy road for those who have already used Lenovo devices earlier, because nothing is different. The same UI with no app drawer, and a plethora of pre-installed apps, many of which can be deleted, except the system apps like ShareIt and SyncIt. The ones that come pre-installed, include Guvera Music, Evernote, Navigate, WPS Office, UC Browser, Lenovo Companion, Truecaller, and social apps Facebook, Skype, Twitter and WeChat.
The most interesting feature about the device, or the unique one since the design isn’t a new one, is the selfie camera combo. A dual camera, with an 8MP and 2MP combination, in which the 8MP shooter does the regular selfie capturing, and the 2MP one determining the depth of field, helping the user play around with the background and do more than just the regular selfie capturing.
The concept does look interesting, because you don’t have to now work on any photo editing software with expertise to change the background, and the camera along with UI settings helps the user set the blurring of actual background, or change the background totally. But at the same time, it poses a question – are we looking forward to see selfie cameras evolve to a stage where they give the user more than what the rear camera would do? Of course there’s a lot involved – lens, sensor, aperture and software, but packing a second camera unit to just help with depth of field points at other interesting concepts ahead.
Out of 32GB internal storage, about 24GB is available to the user, and around 1.8GB RAM free after a fresh boot. All is good in this department, and we expect the Mediatek MT6752 to do well on performance, especially with heavy gaming.
There’s a huge rush in the budget and mid-range smartphone segment, and Lenovo’s trying to add to the big list of devices, though with a contender that can speak for itself. Whether it fares good in all departments, especially with the camera, battery and performance, we’d be sharing our thoughts on that in the review in a couple of weeks. Speaking of it as a complete package, the Vibe S1 does look great for Rs. 15,999.
