Lenovo is all set to introduce its new online-only sub-brand Zuk in
India. The Chinese company will launch the Zuk Z1 smartphone in the
second week of May. The new sub-brand was developed by
Lenovo to counter
the rise of Xiaomi in China, and will allow the company to exploit the low-cost online-only sales
model. This will be along the same lines as what we've seen from
Huawei's sub-brand
Honor and Micromax's
Yu, which have both been online
exclusives so far.
Lenovo's Zuk was expected to start operations in
China in April last year, but its first product was launched there only in August. Ahead of
the India launch, Gadgets 360 got a chance to play with the new "Lenovo
Z1 powered by Zuk" as it was called by Anuj Sharma, Head of Product
Marketing, Lenovo.
To start off, the new Lenovo Zuk Z1 smartphone
doesn't look at all like Lenovo's current devices, and sports a new
design altogether. The front of the smartphone is dominated by a
5.5-inch display. The glass on the front extends to the device's frame.
The rear panel of the Zuk Z1 is slightly curved, offering a decent grip.
The back panel feels plasticky but is non-removable. There's no
branding in front but a Zuk logo is seen on the back. It's worth noting
that there was no Lenovo logo anywhere on the sample device we handled.
The
chamfered edges give the handset a neat look, and one can see plastic
antenna stripes running across the top and bottom panels of the Zuk Z1.
The volume rocker and power buttons are on the right, where a user can
easily reach using just one hand. The 3.5mm audio jack is on the top,
while the speaker grille and USB Type-C charging port are on the bottom.
The USB Type-C connector and cables are reversible and can be plugged
in either way. Apart from that, Lenovo says that the phone supports
5Gbps USB 3.0 transfer speeds, making data transfers 10 times faster
than USB 2.0.
Overall, the design of the Lenovo Zuk Z1 looks above par
and the phone feels quite sturdy as well. At 175 grams, it's a bit heavy
for a phone with this screen size, compared to, for example, the
OnePlus One (162 grams). The Zuk Z1 measures 155.7x77.3x8.9mm and is
comfortable to hold.
The Lenovo Zuk Z1 smartphone has a
rectangular physical home button which also integrates the fingerprint
scanner, just below the 5.5-inch display. The placement was helpful in
one-handed operation. We were told that the fingerprint scanner on the
Zuk Z1 can recognise fingerprints at any angle and has a quick response
time, but were unable to test that for ourselves in the limited time we
had with the device.
The 5.5-inch full-HD (1080x1920 pixels) IPS
display on Z1 is claimed to have a 100 percent of the NTSC colour gamut,
a high contrast ratio of 1500:1, and viewing angles of up to 178
degrees.
Under the hood, the Z1 smartphone packs a dated Qualcomm
Snapdragon 801 processor clocked at 2.5GHz with integrated Adreno 330
graphics, coupled with 3GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 801 was Qualcomm's
flagship processor back in 2014 and was seen in smartphones such as the
Xiaomi Mi 4, OnePlus One, and LG G3. When asked why Lenovo chose to go
with this particular processor, Sharma explained "This is obviously the
final version of the Snapdragon 801 and comes unlocked with all the
bells and whistles. Also, this is one of the most stable chipsets from
Qualcomm. The most important reason to go for the Snapdragon 801 is that
the Cyanogen team knows the chipset really well. If we were to change
the processor now, then the entire optimisation would go for a toss."
The
Zuk Z1 packs 64GB of storage, but there's no option for storage
expansion. Another notable feature of the Zuk Z1 smartphone is that it
packs large 4100mAh battery. The dual-SIM phone supports two Nano-SIMs
and works with 4G on both SIMs using the FDD Band 3 (1800MHz) and TDD
Band 40 (2300MHz) standards common in India.
The biggest highlight
of the Lenovo Zuk Z1 is that it runs Cyanogen OS 12.1 based on Android
5.1 Lollipop, which means that users will get tons of options to
customise their phones. The Themes app will let users change wallpapers,
fonts, icons and even boot animations. The Zuk Z1 also comes with some
preloaded apps such as AudioFX which offers equaliser settings for
music, and a browser based on Opera Mini. Much like other Cyanogen 12.1
devices, the Zuk Z1 also gets Truecaller integration. In our limited
time spent with the Lenovo Zuk Z1, we noticed that it handled
multitasking without lags and responded well to touch inputs.
The
smartphone sports a 13-megapixel rear camera with a Sony IMX214 sensor
and optical image stabilization (OIS), a feature usually found only in
high-end smartphones. There is also an 8-megapixel front-facing camera.
We found the camera app easy to use, and it launched quickly whenever we
tried to launch it. In our limited camera testing, we found that images
taken with the Zuk Z1 in daylight conditions to be crisp. The low-light
performance of the rear camera was impressive as well, and photos came
out with a good amount of detail. The shots taken by the front camera
were however slightly below par.
We will have to reserve our
verdict on the Zuk Z1's overall performance till we get a chance to put
it through our detailed review process.
Final thoughts
Considering
that Lenovo's Zuk Z1 was launched in China priced at CNY 1,799 (approximately Rs. 18,250), we can
expect the India pricing to be around the same level. We will have to
wait for the company's official announcement which is due in the second
week of May.
As expected, the smartphone will be available only
via online channels and will compete against the OnePlus 2 and other
models at this price level.
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