* Big battery
* Good sound quality
* Sturdy build
* Good sound quality
* Sturdy build
Only a few years back, you had to buy a flagship smartphone to get a great camera experience. But thanks to the advancements in technology and lowering hardware costs, that's no longer the case. Today, even mid-range smartphones come with really capable cameras.
With smartphone cameras already pushing the boundaries in terms of pixel count (among other features), the next popular trend among manufacturers seems to have become dual-camera smartphones. And the latest to join the bandwagon is Lenovo's Phab 2 Plus.
To differentiate it from the other dual-camera smartphones in the market, the Lenovo Phab 2 Plus is playing the budget-price card. Apart from all the 'regular' features, the phablet offers things like Augmented Reality camera effects, Dolby Atmos and a bit battery, all encased in a solidly built body.
But even though all of it sounds really good, does it make the Lenovo Phab 2 Plus worth buying at the asking price of Rs 14,999? We reviewed the phablet for a few days, and here's the rest of our review.
Design and display
Even though it has a pretty well-rounded design, the Lenovo Phab 2 Plus doesn't offer anything that we haven't already seen in other smartphones. It has a metallic unibody design with gently rounded corners and 2.5D curved glass front panel.
Having a massive 6.4-inch display, this is certainly not a smartphone built for one-handed use. However, the one-handed mode shifts the lockscreen and dialpad to one corner, making things a little better. The slightly curved back helps in making the phone's grip better. But by all means, you are going to have a hard time finding a pocket big enough to stuff it in.
Coming to the sides, the right side is where the power button and volume rocker are. The left is home to a hybrid dual-SIM tray. A 3.5mm audio sits at the top, while the bottom is where the microUSB charging/data transfer port is.
Above the display is an earpiece, a proximity sensor and a 5MP front-facing camera. There are three capacitive navigation keys below the display. However, they aren't backlit.
Lenovo Phab 2 Plus has a large 6.4-inch Full HD display of 1080x1920 pixel resolution. The resulting pixel density of 344ppi, while not exactly the best, it's more than decent.
During our time with the device, we found the display to be really good. It produces vivid colours with a fair amount of accuracy. Viewing angles are good, and the screen is quite legible under direct sunlight. It's possible to adjust the colour temperature and saturation in the phone's settings.
All in all, the Lenovo Phab 2 Plus is a solid-looking phablet. And whether you love playing games or watching movies, it's going to work just fine.
Performance and camera
As a budget phablet, the Lenovo Phab 2 Plus offers fairly reasonable specifications, pretty much in line with what the competition. Under-the-hood, it's powered by an octa-core MediaTek MT8783 processor paired with 3GB RAM. There's 32GB of internal storage, expandable via microSD cards of up to 128GB in size. The phablet runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with Lenovo's Vibe UI skin baked on top.
Due to the built-in Dolby Atmos technology, we found the audio output from the Phab 2 Plus to be really loud and clear. The phablet comes with a Dolby Atmos app pre-installed that can be used to customize sound profiles based on the media you're listening to, such as movie, music and game. Lenovo has even bundled JBL earphones with the phablet.
Coming to the call quality, we found it to be decent. Network reception is good, even in places like elevators and parking lots. The phablet manages to lock on to GPS networks really well too.
Talking about the battery, the Lenovo Phab 2 has a non-removable 4,050mAh battery. In our testing, it easily lasted more than a day with heavy usage, involving an hour or so of phone calls, social media usage, some video streaming and web browsing.
Moving on to the cameras, which are probably among the most important aspects of the Phab 2 Plus. The phablet comes with a dual-camera setup comprised of two 13MP modules. These are accompanied by a dual-LED flash, PDAF and laser AF. The UI of the camera app is pretty simple and offers standard features such Panorama and Night Mode, among others.
The Phab 2 Plus comes with a 'dual lens' mode that lets you capture photos with depth of field. For these, the focus can be changed after the image is captured. But as good as it sounds, we didn't find this feature that impressive during our testing.
One of the interesting features of the Phab 2 Plus's camera app is its augmented reality mode. It makes the pictures more interactive using four available themes, which overlay animated objects over the pictures. The Pro Mode offers advanced features with manual settings such as shutter speed and focus controls.
As for the selfie camera, the 8MP front is quite decent too. Under natural conditions, it takes quite good images.
Verdict
With a good build quality and a massive battery as its biggest plus points, the Lenovo Phab Plus 2 is ideal for users who are looking for a device that provides great multimedia consumption experience on-the-go. The Dolby Audio is an added bonus as well.
However, if you want to make the Phab 2 Pro your everyday smartphone, its big size could be a bit of a problem. The camera experience is also average, at best. For those looking at alternatives within the same price range, we think that the Xiaomi Mi Max is a much better option
With a good build quality and a massive battery as its biggest plus points, the Lenovo Phab Plus 2 is ideal for users who are looking for a device that provides great multimedia consumption experience on-the-go. The Dolby Audio is an added bonus as well.
However, if you want to make the Phab 2 Pro your everyday smartphone, its big size could be a bit of a problem. The camera experience is also average, at best. For those looking at alternatives within the same price range, we think that the Xiaomi Mi Max is a much better option
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