The phone runs Cyanogen OS 12.1, based on Android 5.1.1.
It's powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 SoC with 3GB of RAM.
The Lenovo Group already has two solid and instantly recognisable
brand names in its stable: Lenovo itself, and Motorola. As a result, the
company has a variety of solid products that sell in huge numbers the
world over. However, like others have done before, Lenovo has decided to
market a part of its product range as online-only. These products come
under the new Zuk sub-brand.
Today, we're reviewing the Lenovo Zuk
Z1. Although marketed
globally as the Zuk Z1, Lenovo has chosen to retain its parent name in
brand-conscious India in order to make it immediately clear what the
heritage of the device is. However, it's also important to remember that
the Zuk Z1 was first launched globally in September last year, so what
we're reviewing today is a bit dated already. Let's go into the details
in our review.
Look and feel Only a few years ago, phones
with 5.5-inch screens were considered oversized, and it was often a
topic of discussion if you had a large phone. Today, this size has
become the norm because of increased media consumption on smartphones.
The Lenovo Zuk Z1 goes with this tried and tested size, although the
phone does definitely feel a bit bulky.
The reasons for the bulk
are a metal frame and a 4100mAh battery, which contribute to the phone's
175g weight. Although it does not have a unibody casing and the back is
plastic, the battery is not user-accessible. The dual-SIM tray is on
the left side, within the frame. The phone does not support expandable
storage, so there is no slot for a microSD card.
There are two
colour options for the Lenovo Zuk Z1 in India; white and space grey. Our
review unit was grey, which we quite preferred over the white option.
The back has a dull, metallic finish, as does the frame. The phone is
bare of any Lenovo branding, with just a Zuk logo at the back and
nothing else. The camera and flash are located at the centre of the back
near the top, and on the whole we quite like the minimalist styling of
this phone.
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The bottom has the microphone, speaker, and USB Type-C
port for charging and data transfers. Also included in the box are a
13W power adapter and a USB 3.0 cable with a Type-A plug at one end and
Type-C at the other. The right side of the phone has the power and
volume buttons, while the top has the 3.5mm socket. The screen occupies
nearly 70 percent of the front of the phone, while the camera, earpiece
and proximity sensor sit above it. At the bottom is the physical home
button with its integrated fingerprint sensor, and capacitive Android
navigation keys.
We have seen plenty of good implementations of
home buttons with a fingerprint sensors built in, including the Samsung
Galaxy A8 (Review)
and HTC One A9 (Review). Many
of them allow you to unlock the phone by simply touching the sensor
even while in standby mode, but the Zuk Z1 does not. You have to wake
the phone by pressing the home button down and then maintaining contact
till your fingerprint is recognised, or hitting the power button first.
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This
isn't itself a problem, but the button is slightly recessed and a bit
firm, needing some effort to press down. The sensor itself is quick and
accurate in unlocking the phone, but the process isn't quite as easy as
it is with other devices. The sensor previously worked as a capacitive
back button as well, but this has now been disabled by a software
update.
The screen of the Lenovo Zuk Z1 sports a resolution of
1080x1920, with a density of 401ppi. It's a decent screen, and is sharp
enough to serve most of your requirements. Brightness isn't quite as
great as we'd have expected from an IPS-LCD screen, and even at its
brightest it doesn't quite seem as bright as it should be. However, a
polarising coating on the screen does help with legibility under bright
sunlight, so it doesn't need to be too bright. It is best to control
brightness manually, as the adaptive brightness mode usually makes it
too dull. Black levels are decent as well, as is the contrast ratio
which ensures a fairly accurate representation of colours through the
spectrum.
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Additionally, there is also LiveDisplay, a setting that
allows you to optimise the colour tone of the screen based on the time
of day. You can choose how cool or warm you want the colours to get
based on the time of day, or set the colour temperatures manually. This
lets you set up the IPS-LCD screen exactly as you want it. The
temperature switches made a noticeable difference to viewing comfort,
and the ability to adjust this at any time is a great addition to the
phone.
Specifications At a time when new smartphones priced
at under Rs. 15,000 are running the latest MediaTek Helio or Snapdragon
600 series SoCs, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 packs in the higher-end but older
32-bit quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801, clocked at 2.5GHz. It's been
about two years since the first Snapdragon 801 smartphones hit the
market, so Lenovo's choice of SoC will raise a few eyebrows,
particularly because it's a 32-bit SoC when practically all hardware is
now geared for newer 64-bit processors.
Apart from the fact that
the phone was first launched the better part of a year ago, an
explanation offered by Lenovo for this is that the Cyanogen team knows
the Snapdragon 801 really well, and using a different SoC at this point
would send all its software optimisation efforts for a toss. However,
you're still buying a phone with an old SoC, and this is cause for
concern about the longevity of the Zuk Z1. That said, the phone does run
the latest and most stable variant of the Snapdragon 801, the
MSM8974AC, and has the excellent Adreno 330 GPU. It's an extremely
capable SoC even today, continuing to perform with the same consistency
and strength as when it was new.
The Zuk Z1 also has 3GB of RAM,
4G connectivity on its two SIM slots (Indian bands supported), Wi-Fi ac
connectivity, and a 4,100mAh battery. The phone has a significant
internal storage capacity of 64GB as well, but there's no support for
expandable storage so you're limited to that much.
Software The
phone runs on Cyanogen OS 12.1, which is based on Android 5.1.1.
Although there has been talk of a planned upgrade to Cyanogen OS 13
based on Android 6.0, this update isn't available through the phone's
OTA software update system yet. While Cyanogen OS isn't quite as
tweakable as the geek-inspired CyanogenMod, it offers a decent blend of
customisability and stability.
In most ways, Cyanogen OS functions
just like stock Android, and you can even change the theme to have it
look like that. The system's trademark is its high degree of
customisability, and we see a lot of this in Lenovo Zuk Z1. The home
screens and app drawer can be changed to different layouts, the grid
sizes, scroll effects and icon labels can be changed and toggled, and
there's much more to play with. You get a fair amount of control over
how the user interface looks at its most basic level.
Going
further in, the Settings app also has a few different options that give
you a greater sense of control over the device than most standard
manufacturer UIs offer. This includes being able to control whether the
screen should light up when you plug in a charger, the colour of the
notification light for battery alerts, custom actions for the home and
recent buttons, the position of various elements on the status bar and
notification drawer, and much more. Cyanogen OS is the ideal operating
system for advanced users who want control over more aspects of their
phones, and one we love using because of its general stability, light
footprint and ease of use. Additionally, it's free of any bloatware and
has a good set of system apps that are well designed and light on phone
resources.
Camera The Lenovo Zuk Z1 has a 13-megapixel
primary camera built on Sony's IMX 214 sensor, and also features optical
image stabilisation and a dual-LED flash. The front camera sports an
8-megapixel sensor, and both cameras can record video at up to 1080p,
with the rear camera also featuring 60fps video recording.
The
camera app is Cyanogen's own Camera Next, which is a fairly decent
option in terms of ease of use and functionality. Most useful toggles
are easily accessible from the viewfinder screen itself, including
flash, camera and timer settings. Video recording is a one-step
procedure, and panorama mode can also be quickly toggled this way.
Additionally, resolution settings, manual controls and codec selection
can be done through the settings menu, which gives you an atypically
large amount of control over your pictures and videos.
(Tap to see full-size image)
The camera
itself is fairly capable, taking pictures that are sharp and detailed,
and manage to capture colour tones effectively and accurately. In
well-lit images, the handling of light and dark areas is particularly
good, while low-light images succeed in capturing a fair amount of
detail with an acceptably low amount of noise and grain. Indoor shots
aren't quite as good as well-lit outdoor shots, but are up to an
acceptable standard as far as detail and colours go.
Videos are
fairly good in decent light, but suffer a bit in low-light conditions.
However, the ability of the camera to focus quickly and readjust to
lighting conditions is commendable, and far better than other devices
we've seen in this price range. High-speed and slow-motion modes produce
fun results with a clean sense of motion and fluidity.
(Tap to see full-size images)
Performance Despite
its two-year-old SoC, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 is a capable performer that
outdoes a lot of newer options from both Qualcomm and MediaTek. However, you are
likely to get better performance from the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 650
and 652 SoCs which are found on some similarly priced devices. It's also
important to remember that the Adreno 330 GPU is too old to support
OpenGL ES 3.1 and 3.2, so this may affect the phone's ability to play
some newer, more graphics-intensive games.
General performance on
the phone, as well as with the games we tried (Marvel: Contest of
Champions, Trials: Frontier and Uncharted: Fortune Hunter) was
excellent, with no significant heating issues and absolutely no lag or
stutter. This can also be credited to Cyanogen OS, which ensures that
the Zuk Z1 always runs smoothly thanks to its low impact and optimal
utilisation of the device's resources.
Our suite of benchmark
tests corroborated all of this, with impressive scores through the
tests, particularly with the graphics benchmarks. AnTuTu and Quadrant
produced scores of 57,835 and 24,885 respectively, while GFXBench and 3D
Mark Ice Storm Unlimited returned scores of 28fps and 19,550. All of
these are excellent, particularly when you consider the age of the
Snapdragon 801 SoC, and are an indication of just how capable and ahead
of its time the SoC was back in 2014.
The Zuk Z1 ran for 13 hours,
40 minutes in our video loop test, which is an impressive figure. In
ordinary day-to-day use, the phone would last us well over a day on a
full charge, despite continuous 4G connectivity, a bit of gaming and the
screen brightness set at the highest level throughout. Wi-Fi, cellular
connectivity and call quality are excellent as well, and the only
drawback is the somewhat weak speaker that sounds poor. However, with
headphones, the sound quality is decent enough to use the phone as your
primary music player and for watching the occasional video.
Verdict Lenovo
has an excellent device on its hands with the Zuk Z1. The phone is well
built, runs excellent software, has a good display, comes with plenty
of storage, and has excellent connectivity and good battery life as
well. There's also a great screen which is sharp and can be tweaked and
customised to your preferences. Above all, the company has achieved all
of this at a great price that will tempt a lot of buyers, particularly
advanced users who know a thing or two about the advantages of Cyanogen
OS over other manufacturer-developed user interfaces.
Unfortunately,
there are some noteworthy drawbacks as well. Although we faced no
performance or compatibility issues during our time with the phone, it
does run an old 32-bit SoC with a GPU that may have trouble with new
games and apps going forward. There's also the previous version of
Cyanogen OS and Android out-of-the-box, with no timeline on an update to
the newest software. Although a relatively minor complaint given the
ample 64GB of on-board storage, the phone does not support expandable
storage. And finally, buying the Z1 won't be easy because of the
annoying flash sale model.
However, the Lenovo Zuk Z1 is a great
option nonetheless, particularly considering its price and the features
on offer. If you don't expect the age of the hardware to be a problem
for you over the next couple of years or plan to use this as a secondary
smartphone, the Zuk Z1 may well be worth considering over some of the
other options in this price range.
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