While most of the handset makers focus more on the hardware security and other features, Lenovo is one of the few companies out here, that gives weightage to battery. Didn’t ring a bell? Lenovo Vibe P1, K6 Power, K6 Note, Zuk Z1 and much more.
Currently, it’s so rare to get a smartphone with a combination of good display, performance and indeed the battery life.
We have seen smartphones that serve its purpose in any one arena, be it display or performance or battery life. A few days back, Lenovo launched yet another battery-centric P2 smartphone in the Indian market with humongous 5100mAh battery.
This smartphone comes in Champagne gold and Graphite gray colors starting at a price of Rs. 16,999 for the 3GB RAM variant and Rs. 17,999 for the 4GB version. So, does this smartphone ticks the boxes for the right reason? Let’s find it out.
Unboxing
We unboxed the Lenovo P2 recently. Check it out here
Box contents
- Lenovo P2 smartphone in Graphite Grey color
- Scratch guard
- Transparent Back case
- SIM ejector tool
- 2-pin fast charger (5.2V-2A, 7V-2A, 9V-2A,12V-2A)
- Micro USB Cable
- OTG adapter
- Quick start guide and warranty information
Lenovo P2 specifications
- 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD Super AMOLED display, 100% NTSC color gamut
- 2GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 14nm processor with Adreno 506 GPU
- 3GB / 4GB RAM, 32GB internal memory, expandable memory with microSD
- Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow)
- Hybrid Dual SIM (nano+nano/microSD)
- 13MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, PDAF, f/2.0 aperture, 4K video recording
- 5MP front-facing camera, f/2.2 aperture
- Fingerprint sensor
- 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio, TI Amplifier
- 4G VoLTE, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1 LE, NFC
- 5100mAh built-in battery with fast charging
Design, Hardware, and Display
First of all, kudos to the team behind the design. I often wonder, how can one cramp a big battery into such a thin appealing body. In terms of design, the P2 smartphone comes with a metal unibody design that feels bit heavy and sturdy on hands. The looks are almost similar to its predecessor (Lenovo Vibe P1) with minor refinements.
It measures 153 x 76 x 8.3 mm thick and weighs around 177 grams. Despite its heaviness, the smartphone feels good to hold and ergonomically comfortable as well. Talking about the placements, the device has 5MP front camera, earpiece, and sensors on front top, while it houses a fingerprint sensor that also functions as navigation button at the bottom of the screen.
On the right, the phone houses a volume rocker and power button, up top, we have 3.5mm audio jack, and at the bottom, there is a micro USB port with speaker grill and a microphone on either sides. Moving left, you get a hybrid SIM slot (Nano SIM + Nano SIM / microSD) with one key power saver. The back side of the device is the home to 13MP camera with dual-tone LED flash, NFC tag.
The Lenovo P2 sports a 5.5-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD Super AMOLED display translating into a pixel density of 401 ppi. It also has about 71% screen-to-body ratio.
Apart from battery, another major highlight of this device is the Full HD Super AMOLED display. The company has cracked the secret to managing the balance between display, performance and battery life. The display is bright, vibrant and offers rich colors along with good sunlight readability. It also has Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection.
Performance
The Lenovo P2 smartphone is powered by Octa-Core Snapdragon 625 14nm processor clocked at 2GHz with Adreno 506 as GPU under the hood. As expected, it offers smooth performance without any lag during daily usage and multi-tasking. There wasn’t any issues nor did the phone hang up on once.
Cleverly, Lenovo has opted for the Snapdragon 625 chipset that compliments battery life with efficiency-boosting features like universal bandwidth compression. Below, we have attached some of the benchmarks of the P2.
Gaming is also good without any issues. We tested some games, which were good and the graphics was also good.
Camera
The Lenovo P2 comes equipped with a 13MP rear camera with dual-tone LED flash, PDAF, f/2.0 aperture and 4K video recording. On the front, it has 5MP front-facing camera with f/2.2 aperture.
The smartphone camera focuses on objects quickly, due to its phase-detection autofocus capability. At the same time, the focus seems to be a bit of problem when it comes to Macro shots and low light. Most of the time, the focus didn’t lock at the right place.
In Lenovo P2 camera, the daylight shots are good under decent lighting conditions but tend to make more noise in low-light. The 5MP camera on front clicks decent selfies too.
The camera UI is simple with toggles for the front camera, flash, settings, features and video options. Moreover, the app offers various features including Pro, Panorama, Art nightscape, Artistic HDR, Fast motion and Slow motion.
The settings option allows the user to adjust the White Balance, ISO, photo resolutions and much more. Moreover, it also has smart composition feature, that helps us to enhance the photos. To be honest, we didn’t find any difference and useful either.
Check out some camera samples (Click the image for full resolution sample).
It can record videos at 4K resolution at 30 fps and also has slow motion and fast motion recording at 720p resolution. Video quality is good and the audio is crisp, thanks to the secondary microphone. Check out the video samples below.
Software
Moving on, the Lenovo P2 runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow on top of Pure Vibe UI. The Lenovo P2 has ‘Secure Zone’ that allows the user to configure the apps, accounts, wallpapers and much more. You can access it on the notification bar, once swiped down.
It also has a wide touch option that lets you create a floating bar for accessing frequently used apps like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and more. You can also enable the ‘Knock to light’ from the settings to enable double tap to wake the screen up when it’s locked.
The Micro Screen feature lets you bring one-handed micro screen when letter ‘c’ is drawn on the top edge of the screen to the bottom edge.
It also offers TheaterMax technology for an immersive VR experience when combined with a VR headset. You need to buy ANT VR headset separately, in case, if you don’t have one with you.
To enter VR mode, hold on to the power button and tap on VR mode. Right after this, the display will turn into two equal halves (keep your display in landscape mode) dividing it into left and right.
Out of 32GB of internal storage you get 24GB of usable storage, out of 3GB of RAM you get 1.8GB of free RAM on boot.
Apps, Music Player, Call quality
In regards to applications, this smartphone comes with some pre-installed apps including Theme center, Google apps, utility apps, and McAfee Security. It doesn’t have a dedicated music player, so you have to use Google Play Music. Thanks to the built-in amplifier, audio quality through the headset is good. Loudspeaker output is also good. It also has FM Radio with recording support. Call quality is good on the P2 and the earpiece is both loud and clear enough for any environment.
It has 4G support with support of 4G LTE bands (TDD B40 2300MHz, FDD B3 1800MHz, and B5 850MHz) for India and has support for VoLTE for Reliance Jio. Both the SIMs support 4G, but you can enable 4G only in one SIM at a time, while the other goes to 2G. You can set the default SIM for a voice call, messaging or data connection. It has dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, NFC and USB OTG support. The phone also has gyroscope and magnetometer.
Battery
Coming to the USP, the Lenovo P2 is juiced with 5100mAh battery with fast charging technology. To be honest, the battery life of this smartphone is killer. While the company promised up to 3 days of usage, we pretty much achieved around 2 days in a single charge after “heavy usage”. This is something impressive stuff from Lenovo.
In a smartphone backed with a heavy battery, charging process is the most irritating process. To our surprise, the 5100mAh battery got charged in a time frame of 1 hour and 18 minutes using the bundled 24W fast charger, which is commendable.
Additionally, the phone offers a power saving mode called ” ultimate power saver mode” with a dedicated hardware button on the left, which can be enabled at any time. This mode kills most of the features running in the background and offers basic things like calls, messages and some options.
In our One Charge rating, it achieved 27 hours and 30 minutes, which is impressive and highest in our charts, beating the Moto Z Play. Check out the complete set of battery life test results here.
Verdict
The Lenovo P2 is a mid-range killer when it comes to battery performance. As I had mentioned earlier, this smartphone provides the combination good display, performance, and a beastly battery life. If you are a power user, who needs to stay online 24X7, then this is for you. Wish Lenovo had used a faster processor like the Snapdragon 652.
Is this the only good smartphone available at this range? The upcoming Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 will complete with this since it will likely be priced less than this and possibly a faster processor. But, with Lenovo P2, you will get few extra goodies along with huge battery. It is exclusively available from Flipkart.
Pros
- Battery
- Fast charging
- Display
- Build
Cons
- Bit heavy
- Hybrid SIM slot
- Same old design