Short review of the Lenovo Smart clock

Introduction

I was not looking what I was doing and plugged in my Alexa power supply into my wooden LED digital clock that I purchased from Singapore for above 50 SGD and the next thing I know is the clock was beeping with screwed up display.

I knew that was the end of it. So there began my search to replace that clock. I checked out many websites in India and came across that the same LED clock including shipping would cost me much more than 50SGD. It was not worth it and I was wondering what to do when I came across the Croma web site which was selling the Lenovo Smart clock at a deep discount of 3999/- down sharply from the MRP of 9999/-

At the time it was launched the thought of someone having to pay 10k for that clock astounded me. So I did not for it at that time. However at 3999/- it was a compelling buy.

Unboxing

I made a short video on unboxing this clock. It was a fairly simple unboxing and took very minimal time and less fussy as well. Take a look for yourself.

Salient points about the gadget

The following are worth mentioning about the gadget

Quite some decent amounts of clock faces
pretty amazing brightness levels almost doubling up the clock as a night lamp for your room
Good readable main clock face font
Amazing loudness of volume for announcements and google replies

Main controls such as brightness, volume etc are neatly placed on the slide up menu on the clock
Other widgets such as alarms, weather etc are accessible by swiping left or right
Textured cloth finish with volume buttons on top of the clock
Triangular shape makes it sit on the desk without an issue

Other buttons such as mute, power cable input etc are neatly placed at the rear and are accessible without even seeing them, mute button being a slider is easy to operate
Hardware seems rock solid in the hand as well as throughout the operation

Since it connects to WiFi, even after a power cycle, it picks up the current time from the network without a fuss unlike other digital LED clocks
Integration with devices to cast to, is commendable
USB connectivity at the rear

CONS: There are really no points I can take to nitpick on this product. I really do not have much to say on the negatives of the product. In fact in my opinion there are really no negatives. Had it been sold for the original price of 10000 it would have been a huge negative, but that is also not the case now.

Conclusion

The Lenovo Smart Clock is a great buy at 3999/-, the hardware is slick and fuss free, the display is amazing and so is the sound. It does sound a bit tinny since it is not a bass machine like say the HomePod and rightly so. This is not a device built for music but still gives you listening pleasure if you wish to play music.

For what it has to offer, it is pretty accurate and integrates google tech very well inside what is a right dimension of hardware. The Lenovo Clock is a hardware that would get you to actually use it more than say a Google Home Device. Its understanding of Indian English accent is commendable as well considering how far Google has come with this.

So what are you waiting for, let me know in the comments below if you liked the review and if you are going to get yourself one of these.

Until my next post, Stay safe!

The Lenovo ZeeUK (ZUK) Z1 launch story

Being part of a launch event by FoneArena and Lenovo, us bloggers were one of the first few to lay our hands on Lenovo’s newest phone and brand launch – the ZUK Z1.

The event was hosted at multiple cities in India by a collaboration between FoneArena and Lenovo and we could manage to attend the same in Bangalore. The event was to showcase Lenovo’s latest ZUK Z1 mobile phone.

Some of the key points about the brand and the phone are better explained to you by letting you know the history of where this all came from. Lenovo spun off its ZUK brand as a smaller entity giving the team empowerment to create the next grade of devices which had better innovations up their sleeve. Some of the key challenges they attempted to solve were:

how to ensure the hardware and software were made for each other and to complement each others’ capabilities
whether the phones that saw the day through this brand could be as customizable and personal as possible
to showcase innovations that other brands did not have solutions to in terms of common problems such as water resistance or battery related topics

In order to get the best solutions to these challenges the ZUK Z1 runs Cyanogen OS which all of us know to be extremely secure and customizable in the Android world. Lenovo also made cases by tying up with super hero movie makers to get a variety including batman, superman, captain america cases and the likes for a good level of personalization. Custom themes is also possible on the Lenovo ZUK Z1. The cyanogen camera app is also included to work in conjunction with the camera on the phone providing some advanced controls.

The phone has AudioFX lossless sound output, and also has Truecaller integrated right into the OS. Further it comes inbuilt with the Cyanogen broswer as well. The processor in the phone is a SnapDragon 801 2.45Ghz with 4 x Krait 400 cores. Couple that with 3GB RAM and atleast on paper you must have a scorching device. The device is a 5.5” with a 1080p display with a 100% colour gamut reproduction which leads to a lot of sharpness in what you see.
The camera is a 13MP rear shooter with OIS image stabilization with a Qualcomm double ISR image processor. While we found the camera to be really quick in taking non HDR snaps, it was laggy when it came to HDR processing in low light. The continous burst mode also at times lagged a bit than expected and slowed down once in a way. Perhaps some software tweaks for the upcoming versions would solve this issue easily in my opinion.
What this phone also has is an Adreno 330 GPU which means that you are basically going to have flawless game performance without stutters. While we didn’t get a chance to try out games at the event, there is no doubt that there would be no issues playing graphics intensive games with this phone. Whether or not the phone will warm up or heat up is a question left to be answered by actual users on longer term ownership basis.

The design of the phone seems to be straight out of looking at an iPhone, but not extremely thin so to say. The bezel is of what you would expect out of a phone in 2016 and there are two colours gray and white.

The ZUK Z1 was launched at a price of 13,500 today in the market and for this price it mostly has what one would expect out of a lenovo or any other smartphone of the category. What is more intuitive among the innovations is the 360 degree fingerprint scanner which will read your print in whatever angle you keep the fingers on the scanner. Even if the finger is wet 🙂 The phone unfortunately does not come with a expandible storage, but it has 64GB of memory which boasts of a 10x improvement over speeds of a class 10 memory card.

The phone comes with a USB type C charger, and a whopping 4100 maH battery which must keep us going for a long time without a need for charging. Talking of which this phone also comes with a charger and battery cut off when the phone reaches 100% so as not to have mini discharge cycles between 90 and 100% through the night. Thoughtful of them to not let the battery lose its charm even after years of use. Real world statistics are yet to be proven on this count, but I cannot imagine why battery quality wont be preserved with such innovations. Good one lenovo.

Coming to network support, the phone supports most global bands of frequencies so it would just be a plug and play. The phone has 2 nano sim 4G sim slots which should provide you with enough to go through your heavy usage days, and also compatibility with current day SIMs.

To summarize the ZUK Z1 is a breath of fresh air in the commotion caused by other brands. Hopefully with the level of customization provided, the rather strong specs for the price point, some nifty innovations on the battery, and fingerprint sensors, theming support, a decent form factor and some cool skins one can expect that this phone will have its own fan following in the days to come. Lenovo in my opinion must also ensure the ZUK brand continues building on its strong points to bring in more powerful devices in future to make a sizeable market impact.

Lenovo A6000+ review

Given that I now own an iPhone 6 plus, the next search was to find something useful as a second standby phone. After spending 30s and 40s of thousands on phones, there was an era where phones suddenly started costing 20s of thousands.

With the advent of Xiaomi, people like Lenovo and Samsung faced such a wrath on pricing that they even went to the extent of reduced profits, or even sometimes sacking employees to make good the loss on business somehow. The mobile phone market only got hotter with the introduction of newer – cheaper and equally powered – qualcomm snapdragon series of chipsets at a very sweet pricing of lower than 10000 bucks. So suddenly the need to spend anything more than this price for a good android phone effectively vanished.

As I was busy checking out what I would get at about this price, which suited what I needed, I rummaged through lots of phones on flipkart and Amazon. Primarily my needs for a standby phone were these things in no particular order

Very Good battery life
4G sim trays if possible keeping it bit future proof
decent screen if not the most sharpest
lightweight phone and display of about 4.5+ inches in size
Average camera – this wasnt the purpose for me to buy
Though service was important I could forego that at the cost of the phone itself
Reasonable audio, as my purpose was not this as well

One fine day I chanced upon the Lenovo A6000+ at my friends cube at office. After playing around with it, the next moment I ordered it on a special deal price of about 1000 bucks off on flipkart app. This means, instead of the regular 7200 bucks, I got the phone at 6200 bucks.

When I received the phone, I could not but feel very good about everything that the phone had to offer for that price. I am not a big fan of Lenovo. This was because of my previous bad experience on buying a Lenovo K-900 which I detailed out on this blog. You can read more about that here.

First off when I opened the package, it was simple to open, package contents were easy to notice and understand without even a manual, and I could easily fit the micro sim cards along with memory card and battery without a fuss. Charging it was child’s play as well and nothing special from what used to be before.

Here are some of the positive things about this phone I would like to highlight about the Lenovo A6000+

Very lightweight even with the battery
4G sim card support for both sims – very futureproof
Screen is quite sharp for the price
The VIBE User interface is an amazing joy to use on android – I love the way the icons look and feel and its very modern for my kind of liking
Its just the right size for every hand and effortless to carry around
Screen protector was included which means no going to the shop just for this
I did not want a back cover for this phone as it was a standby phone for me. I guess you may not need it as well
Fast boot mode in lenovo simply rocks
Clear audio due to dolby compliance
Amazing battery life – almost 3-4 days if you keep data switched off, easily a full day on continous data usage – particularly google maps which consumes lots of battery
Easily removable back panel making it easy to access sim cards and memory card – though its not hot swappable which is not a big minus point

Every phone built to some price will have its negatives, and the Lenovo A6000+ is not an exception. So here they are:

Audio is not loud enough – this was the same grouse in my earlier K-900 and so also here.
Call volume cannot be increased beyond a point and in noisy environments this phone is just not suitable to use at all
Some people may find the phone too plasticky on all corners and at the back
No backlighting for the three android soft keys at the bottom of the phone – this is a major slip for me since you have to press they keys with more of intuition than anything of accuracy
The volume sliders and power button are easily accessible but they just dont have that feel to them as you find on other more expensive phones
Average camera – remember you are not paying for great optics here so this is the best what you can expect !!

(iphone 6 plus taken by Lenovo A6000+)

The one single selling point for me as far as this phone is concerned is the FAST BOOT mode that lenovo has put into the software. Rather it is emulating PC bootups by saving last memory status to flash storage and booting off from there the next time.

Whichever way the implementation has been done, I would say the lenovo boots up in just 2 seconds on fast boot. Yes you read it right – 2 seconds !! This is the single most important thing I have noticed as an improvement across all android phones in recent years. Simply mind blowing.

The camera is average – its not the greatest but you could live with images taken off this phone as readability is still clear. I am not expecting low light shots to be great on this phone either. If you are looking for a great camera – look elsewhere like Apple, not lenovo.

So does this phone justify the 6000 rupee price tag? – Heck, absolutely yes. Lenovo has provided brilliant value for money – or rather they have been forced to rethink on pricing by newer players such as Xiaomi who are determined to give them a run for their money. But Lenovo has clearly jumped back into the game and for good. The upcoming Lenovo k3 note is surely going to be yet another example of how good a phone can get for as low as about 11000 bucks. Yes, we already had the Xiaomi Redmi note for much lesser – by almost 40%, but then at 3GB ram the lenovo k3 note will kick some serious ass. The brilliant looking user interface only means better usability and the rather large battery and screen would only produce more fireworks.

For the budget conscious consumer the A6000+ is a very good buy offering some great usability experience, good battery backup, reasonable camera, future ready 4G sim slots and expandable memory and all this in an extremely lightweight shell. Look no further – swipe that credit card now!

Lenovo K-900 in-depth review

With this blog post, I bring to you a detailed review of the Lenovo K-900 mobile phone which was launched sometime ago by Lenovo India. This is not exactly a new mobile phone that is setting the sales charts on fire of late as much as the new Moto-G, but however the review is primarily meant to focus on Lenovos intentions and capabilities in making a mobile phone.

So shall we begin?

The Design Excellence

When everyone were only bothered about design in terms of lesser weight or bezel or etching, etc, or even gold or silver brushed titanium finishes Lenovo has done the unthinkable. The K900 is an amazing piece of hardware. If you want me to keep it to the point of discussion I have never seen something as slim as this in my life yet. Perhaps the Gionees newest slimphone release comes close but the Lenovo K900s design speaks a great deal about their industrial design strengths. If you see my previous post about the Lenovo X1 Carbon, you know what I am talking about.

Verdict: Absolutely awesome and slim.

The front panel

Though the front panel is really a part of overall design the question most mobile phone manufacturers grapple with is how they can maximize the use of the panel and minimize the bezel (gaps beyond the screen where that space is not utilized anymore). With respect to the K900, unfortunately there is way too much of bezel and this makes it look really ridiculous considering its already advertized screen size of about 5.5 inches. So much so in fact that the phone pops out of the pocket and looks quite ugly on the front side.

Verdict: Could have done better with the bezel area.

Tap to ON feature

On the lenovo K900 this is a feature that seems like being given for the heck of it. There has been NO careful consideration or testing of how often it actually works accurately. If you compare the same feature with the LG G2, the latter is miles ahead in terms of accuracy. If I tapped 10 times in a row, chances were that only 3/10 times that the phone actually turned on. This clearly shows the weaknesses of a company like Lenovo in the mobile phone hardware space.

Verdict: No accuracy and annoying when phone does not turn on as expected.

Sound and microphone

While investigating some issue with respect to the audio and microphone, I understood that Lenovo has decided to partner with a company called Wolfson Audio for the audio related aspects of the K900. I must say that the songs on my bluetooth audio have never sounded so good as much as in the K900. It clearly shows how the quality of spatial arrangement and rendering of the audio is on this phone. The same cannot be said about the microphone though unfortunately. The primary reason you may NOT want to buy this phone is because others cannot hear you quite often. Think of it like a conversation which is loud and clear and suddenly you find that the caller hears you lesser and lesser with some dropouts, perhaps some static even and then it picks up as though it recovered back to where it was. There are some microphone settings for different environments – default, soft, etc – but even after I tried all of these possible combinations, unfortunately the result was the same: Caller could not hear me properly many a time.

Verdict: The fact that the microphone does not work as expected clearly shows how poor lenovo is while planning for the audio hardware and drivers. They must also remember that the entire phone ownership experience is a waste if the basic things do not work as intended in the first place. Like mobile calls! Sorry lenovo, this is where you let me down horribly and I had no option but to ditch you altogether!

Navigation using maps

You never really realize there is an issue unless you come across the issue. One of such issues is the navigation using Google Maps. Everyone understands that Google Maps is by now an established application which has gained lots of acceptance and has become indispensable to people wanting to travel from one place to another. I have used it in the most demanding of circumstances and found that the need to stop my vehicle a billion times to ask people directions has become a thing of the past. When I took my phone along with me to Mysore to attend a wedding and enabled the GPS and Maps to take me there without mistakes, what I came to see was something that I had never observed in any android phone or even my apple device earlier. When I was navigating on a main road which was clearly marked in dark blue by Google (the actual navigation path) the pointer was chugging along on a street that was parallel to the one I was actually on. This made me take a wrong turn and I lost my way. Even when I lost my way the phone took way too long to recompute and tell me what to do next. You dont expect such silly mistakes given to know how stable the application itself is, but again Lenovo seems to have screwed up something here – like the GPS hardware calibration or something that I am unable to point out for now. If this were to be a nexus or a HTC, I would not have written this para at all.

Verdict: GPS navigation is a dicey affair with K900 and I would prefer not to rely on it if I am going out some place with this phone where I need directions. For approximations yes, but for accuracy – NO!

Heating issues

There are lots of forums on the net which talk about the heating issues with the lenovo K900 but I did not find this to be so much of a bother. The Camera and GPS heat up the phone, so does Bluetooth music and casual gaming even. All said and done, the heat dissipates as much quickly as it was generated thanks to the metal body construction and the phone cools down really quick and pretends nothing ever happened 🙂

The camera, skype video calls, google hangout calls, soft games, GPS navigation, facebook chat – all of these are gonna heat up this mobile.

Verdict: Heating issues are present in the phone and sometimes it can be annoying.

Battery Life

The one single question many people have different answers for always is the battery life. Some say the phone will last a day long, will manage a day easily, or even some statements based on performance benchmarks will appear on different forums. Let me try and clarify this to you in a much simpler way. The battery itself is 2500 mAh which is sufficient for a 5.5 phone so to say for normal tasks. But the reality is evident only based on the application you use and the duration you use it for. In my case, I have atleast 3 different mail accounts configured, with one of them being my official email receiving upto 300 mails a day. I also have twitter, Facebook, etc which I access hourly once. Other than this occasional camera use, occasional bluetooth audio when I drive from and to the office. Bluetooth phone calls strictly only while driving – the good boy that I am on the road – and very occasional soft gaming (subway surfer or angry birds etc for say half hour). With this kind of usage and also some heavy internet browsing (40-50 tabs open) the results were mixed

On a day when I did this all on WIFI only and strictly no data connection enabled I got about 12 hours of battery. When I repeated the same schedule on data only and no wifi I managed about a little over 7-8 hours. When I used mixed mode, the phone gave me a little over 9 hours. There was an instance that the phone was sleeping most times few days and I did get about 14-16 hours of battery on those days. Well that is not impressive since the phone was not getting used itself. There is also a batter saver logic which fundamentally disables all your connections (radios) one by one and tries to conserve battery. The estimate of how long your battery is going to last is also provided by lenovo but I found that only marginally reliable. I cannot be always sure of what it says. If each and every function in the lenovo was on – sync, data, wifi, gps, 100% brightness, always screen on, auto rotation, vibration – basically everything – dont expect the batter to last beyond 6-7 hours. In fact the batter went down by 1% for every 2 miles I travelled with GPS on.

Verdict: The battery is not impressive and one can only understand why – a puny 2500 maH battery is not sufficient for hardcore tasks on the phone. If you are buying this phone for battery – stay away.

Camera

The camera fires up fast, the shots are taken fast as well. The very fact that Lenovo has given a 18MP at the back and 5MP at the front are commendable actions. I particularly liked the tilt shift effect which is a default on this camera! The camera heats up the phone but its otherwise amazing. With Sonys camera hardware Lenovo cannot be wrong!

Verdict: Shutter lag needs to be even faster, would have been much appreciated

Packaging

The packaging of the Lenovo is simply top class much as the likes of Blackberry. There is no room for complaint here and its simply perfect. The k900 is actually carved out of the cardboard and shows up in RED! Brilliant.

Verdict: Top class feel and finish.

Icon carousel

The icon carousel on the K900 has some nice rotary effects animated interface effects, but I kind of grew bored of those after a while and swithced to Nova Launcher to keep it simple. Some people might like what Lenovo has done, some may not.

Verdict: Could have done it in a more functional aspect like the LG G2 interface where the focus is on functionality value add rather than just effects.

Final words

The lenovo K900 is an astounding piece of hardware with few optimizations possible in future versions. The software is just marginally good and functionally nothing impressive. The battery leaves a lot to be asked for. While the audio is great using bluetooth the speaker output and microphone quality cast a serious doubt on how such a phone can be sold in the market with these flaws. The bezel around the screen is annoying and something that can be worked upon. Finally the camera is simply awesome for both the hardware and software used. A word on the processor – Intel Atom : The phone is a testimony to prove that this processor works best for netbooks or laptops and will not achieve wonders on a phone. The processor is not optimized for gaming and it shows when games stutter every now and then. Lenovos recent release of the Vibe-X addresses the processor concerns for good hopefully. The overheating on the phone is significant but not annoying.

So will I buy this phone? For the respect for the design, yes surely. For its flaws – no, sorry. Would I recommend this phone for others? – NO, unless the show concrete improvements on the flaws mentioned above. For a cost of 24,000 after some discounts, this is still helfy compared to phones such as Moto-G that rules the marketplace in India now. I have always been a fan of Lenovo laptops and sincerely hope they do well in the mobile hardware business now that they may be buying Motorola as well in the USA from Google. Their future products are something that would be worth owning some day.