The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus replaces the A6000 Plus smartphone. It has a Snapdragon 616 SoC and 2GB of RAM.
The newly launched Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus will be replacing the A6000 Plus in the budget segment. It is priced a little higher, compared to the outgoing phone, at Rs. 8,499, but Lenovo has high hopes for it. The good news is that Lenovo won't be hosting flash sales this time, instead putting the phone on open sale from March 23. It will be available exclusively on Flipkart and the company didn't share whether the phone will be available offline later. While Lenovo seems confident about the device, is it really the "knockout smartphone" that it is claimed to be? Here's what we thought after spending a few minutes with the phone.
The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus is compact and light, which is worth appreciating. The phone features an aluminum body but it isn't a unibody design, as the back is still removable and the battery is swappable. The Vibe K5 Plus seemed quite sturdy and the polished strip around the front, in combination with the metal back, are able to add a premium feel to the phone. That said, one feature that has been left out is the fingerprint sensor. When asked why, Sudhin Mathur, Director, Lenovo-Smartphones, argued that a fingerprint sensor would make much sense if India gets the pay-via-phone infrastructure. Currently, only a few countries offer such service. Interestingly, the Lenovo Vibe K4 Note, which costs just a few thousand rupees more, comes with a fingerprint sensor, which seems to conflict with Mathur's argument.
Nevertheless, while the fingerprint sensor may have been something Lenovo left out, the company claims a smaller display has been added due to popular demand. The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus has a 5-inch display, with a 1080p resolution. The colour saturation felt natural and the viewing angles were decent as well. The touch response was at par with other good phones in the sub-10k price bracket such as the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (16GB/2GB model). Inside, there is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 SoC, which was earlier seen on the Honor 5X. Combined with 2GB of RAM, the Vibe K5 Plus felt quite smooth and snappy between animations and jumping between apps. Given the price range, we expect the K5 Plus to be a good performer, but we shall tell you more post the review.
The device has the standard 16GB of internal storage and offers support for a microSD card, in a dedicated slot, just like the Coolpad Note 3 Lite. Further, the two speakers at the back come with Dolby Atmos sound enhancements as well. That said, we would have appreciated the device more if the speakers would have been placed at the top and bottom to give a stereo effect. It may have aided with the TheaterMax experience with the AntVR headset as well. Yes, the Vibe K5 Plus is perhaps the cheapest phone to have a VR play at the moment.
On the optics front, the Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus is equipped with a 13MP snapper with an Omnivision OV13850 sensor. On first impressions, the image quality seemed decent in dim lighting conditions. However, we still need to check the camera thoroughly once we get the device for review. As for the front-facing camera, Lenovo chose a 5MP sensor and the camera app offer features like Beautify for selfie lovers.
The 2750mAh battery, which is replaceable, is quoted to last “at least a day” and will be able to give about 15.1 hours of talk-time on a 4G network, says Lenovo. Well, from what we have seen so far in this segment, these claims sound rather exhaggerated but aren't necessarily unachievable.
In conclusion, the Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus has the potential to be amongst the top three phones in the sub-10k segment but whether it does achieve that is yet to be tested.
Buy Lenovo vibe K5 plus at Rs.8499 on Flipkart
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Hardik Singh
Light at the top, this odd looking creature lives under the heavy medication of video games. View Full Profile
