New lenovo vibe x. Lenovo Vibe X3 review - an audiophile's dream? reasons not to buy Lenovo Vibe X3

After the successful (in my opinion) Lenovo K900, the company began to expand its the lineup in the line of smartphones. Vibe X is just one of them. If we talk about the smartphone itself, then, with the exception of the processor, it can be safely called a device at the level of last year’s flagships.

Equipment

• Smartphone
• PC cable (also part of the charger)
• power unit
• Wired earplug headset

The smartphone comes in a beautiful black box with soft-touch coating. Among the features of the package, one can highlight only a convenient earplug headset.

Appearance, control elements, case materials, assembly

The design of the Vibe X cannot be called unique; in fact, we have before us an ordinary smartphone with rounded edges and a silver plastic bezel, stylized as metal. The only feature of this model is the back cover, made of textured plastic with a small pattern.

Most of the front side is occupied by a five-inch display. Above it are the front camera eye, the earpiece mesh, as well as light and proximity sensors. Below it is a panel with touch buttons “Menu”, “Home” and “Back”. Holding down the Menu button brings up a list latest apps, and holding the center button opens Google Now.

At the top end there is a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

On the right you can see the volume rocker, and just below there is a tray for a SIM card in microSIM format. The power button is located on the left; when holding the smartphone, the finger immediately rests on it.

The bottom end is occupied by a microUSB connector and a microphone hole.

There is not a single complaint about the assembly of the smartphone; the device is perfectly assembled, nothing creaks, does not play, or wobbles.

Dimensions

This is one of the thinnest and lightest five-inch smartphones. The Vibe X is only 6.9 mm thick and weighs 120 grams.

• - 144x71x6.9 mm, weight – 120 grams
• Samsung Galaxy S5- 142x72.5x8.1 mm, weight – 145 grams
• HTC One M8- 146.36x70.6x9.35 mm, weight - 160 grams
• Meizu MX3- 139x72x9.1 mm, weight – 143 grams

Thanks to the rounded edges, the smartphone is comfortable to hold in your hand and feels more compact than other five-inch devices. I’ll immediately note a significant disadvantage of the model - due to the smooth plastic, the device can slip out of your hands.

Display

The screen diagonal is five inches, resolution is 1920x1080 pixels, matrix type is IPS, a display without an air gap (one-glass-solution) is used, there is an oleophobic coating.

The smartphone screen is definitely the Vibe X's strongest point. It has an excellent level of maximum brightness, maximum viewing angles, and the picture from this display looks bright and clear (even the smallest fonts). A separate plus There is also an oleophobic coating, which makes using the touch screen much more convenient than that of B-brands.

The model has automatic adjustment brightness In my sample, when it was turned on, the brightness jumped from very high to very low. As a result, I disabled this feature.

operating system

The device operates under Android control 4.2.2 with a proprietary shell from Lenovo. In the new series, which Vibe X belongs to, the shell has been greatly redesigned, so let's talk about it in a little more detail.

Desktops. Lenovo decided to abandon a separate application menu and used the iOS option, when all programs are immediately placed on the desktop. The icons are presented in a 4x5 grid plus a bottom bar. The size of the icons is large, you definitely won’t miss when trying to open this or that program.

Lock screen. You can quickly open the camera from the lockscreen, phone book or messages. Various themes are supported.

Dialer. The dialer now has Russian letters and SmartDial support, making it convenient to use.

Status bar. There are switches for wireless interfaces on it; you can scroll through them using a horizontal swipe.

Conductor. Very convenient built-in file manager. In addition to access to file system, with its help it is convenient to see how much space what types of data take up.

Themes. The user can customize the launcher using pre-installed (or downloadable) themes. Their detail is at the MIUI level; you can change everything from the lock screen to application icons and built-in widgets.

Lenovo has come up with a good shell, much like MIUI. The only thing I didn’t like was some flaws in the translation; it’s clear that the company didn’t put much effort into it.

Performance

The device is built on the MediaTek MT6589T chipset with a quad-core processor operating at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, a PowerVR SGX 544MP video accelerator, RAM capacity of 2 GB, internal storage capacity of 16 GB (12 GB available to the user).

The budget chipset is the most serious drawback of this smartphone, plus Lenovo has also screwed up something with its own shell, as a result the device works with stutters and stutters. Periodic delays when scrolling through desktops and third party programs(for example, lags in Swype) negate all the advantages of the device. It's amazing how lack of optimization can ruin a smartphone. Separately, I would like to note that Artem Lutfullin also had a sample of this device in his hands, and for him it worked much faster.

Typically, there are no problems in games or when watching FullHD video. Even the top-end Asphalt 8 is running. But when working with the graphical interface, there are terrible slowdowns. I suspect that replacing the chipset with a Qualcomm 600/800 would benefit this smartphone.

Autonomous operation

The small thickness should have been reflected in the battery capacity: in the Vibe X it is only 2000 mAh. The smartphone does not work very long, it is 4 hours in HD video viewing mode and 7-8 hours when reading at 30% brightness.

With everyday use, you can count on one working day with total screen activity (Twitter, email, some video) of 2-2.5 hours.

Camera

The smartphone has a main 13 MP camera and a 1.2 MP front camera. The device can record video in a resolution of 1920x1088 (this is not a typo) pixels. The quality of the photographs themselves can only be called quite good. However, you can see examples of pictures for yourself below.

Interfaces

The device does not stand out in any way unusual in terms of interfaces: it supports 2G/3G, GPS, Bluetooth 4.0. Traditionally for MediaTek, a cold GPS start can take several minutes, and the module itself is unstable.

Conclusion

I had no complaints about the quality of speech transmission. Both you and your interlocutor can hear each other perfectly.

In popular retail networks Lenovo Vibe X costs 15,000 rubles. Its main advantage over a bunch of smartphones from B-brands is its oleophobic coating and its own shell. And the most significant drawback (which, by the way, almost all Chinese flagships with FullHD resolution on the MT6589T suffer from) is slowdown in the interface, because of them you will not be able to fully enjoy the high-quality display, thin body and light weight of the smartphone. By the way, if among you, dear readers, there are owners of the device, then please tell us how it behaves, does it slow down or not? So that we have an idea of ​​whether this is an isolated case or a mass one.

Competitors

The first competitor that came to my mind is Meizu MX3. The company's popularity, of course, is much inferior to Lenovo, but the MX 3 does not have the main drawback of the Vibe X - this smartphone works very quickly, especially if we are talking about the same built-in launcher. The devices have parity in screens (both use very high-quality matrices), as well as in the absence of a memory card. But the dimensions of the Vibe X are significantly better (the model is thinner and lighter than the Meizu MX3).

And by paying only a thousand rubles extra, you can get LG Nexus 5. And this smartphone will be an order of magnitude better than the same Vibe X. This concerns the speed and power of the chipset. Also, among the advantages, I would like to note LTE support and timely updates from Google. And due to the fact that the Vibe X abandoned the memory card slot, it doesn’t really have anything to cover it with.

Summary: due to the speed of operation, I cannot recommend this smartphone for purchase. Lags and slowdowns negate all the advantages of the model. I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to see stutters on my device every day, even if these stutters are displayed on a wonderful screen in a thin and light case.

Evgeniy Vildyaev (

Now it’s time to make a full review of the copy that went on retail sale.

Equipment

The smartphone comes in a stylish medium-sized box made of white cardboard with turquoise inserts. Inside you can find Charger, headset, USB cable, user manual and SIM card tray eject tool.

Design and usability

Lenovo Vibe X3 comes in a white body – thin frame front, aluminum side edges and again white plastic on the back. By the way, here lies one of the differences from the copy we reviewed earlier - the commercial model has a matte back cover, not glossy, with a light soft-touch coating, it turns out to be much more pleasant to the touch, and in general the smartphone is no longer slippery.

When looking at a switched off smartphone, one gets the impression that the screen occupies almost the entire area of ​​the front panel, but this is not the case - it is framed by a rather wide black frame (on which touch buttons are located at the bottom), invisible when the display is off, but immediately noticeable, standing turn it on (apparently, this is why the default home screen has black wallpaper, which visually hides the boundaries between the screen and the frame). The screen is covered with a protective Gorilla glass Glass 3, on which fingerprints are almost invisible.

On the front, on the white frame you can see the holes for the stereo speakers (top and bottom), on the black frame there is an activity indicator and the front camera lens. Traditionally for Lenovo, there are no names or logos on the front panel. On the left side there is a SIM card tray (only nanoSIM cards can be installed), on the bottom there is a micro-USB connector, on the right side there is a power button and volume rocker, on the top there is a headphone jack and an infrared port.

On the back panel in the upper part we see a block slightly rising above the body, which houses the main video camera lens, flash and fingerprint scanner.

The Lenovo Vibe X3 looks quite unusual and interesting; it has little in common with a “typical Android smartphone” in appearance - this is due to the white color of the body, the matte aluminum frame with glossy “grooves” on the edges, and the design solution with a black screen border, because of which, when turned off, the frame appears extremely narrow.

The smartphone fits well in the hand, however, for convenient operation with one hand, the palms must be quite large - the dimensions of the Lenovo Vibe X3 are not the smallest even by the standards of models with a 5.5-inch screen. A partial solution to this problem can be considered the implementation of a proprietary “micro-screen”, which reduces the usable area of ​​the screen and “glues” it to one of the lower corners. The size of such a micro-screen can vary from 3.2 to 4 inches, which will be more than enough for users with small hands.

Display

Lenovo Vibe X3 uses a 5.5-inch diagonal IPS screen with Full HD resolution (1920X1080 pixels). The pixel density is 401 PPI, which is more than enough so that even the most “big-eyed” user cannot distinguish individual pixels, no matter how closely he looks.

Measurements showed that the minimum brightness of this smartphone is 5 cd/m², the maximum is as much as 457 cd/m². This is a very high indicator; with such brightness, the image on the screen can be viewed without any problems even outdoors in sunny weather. But if this doesn’t seem enough, in the settings (screen – color balance) you can turn on the high brightness mode, in which this figure rises to 557 cd/m². The color temperature is somewhat high, this makes the image a little cold - if this bothers you, the user can manually adjust the color balance in the above-mentioned menu using a special slider, or simply select “adaptive mode”, in which the image becomes frankly warm and more pleasant for long reading from the screen.

The Lenovo Vibe X3 screen shows very bright and rich colors, which you usually expect to see in AMOLED devices - however, it is the IPS matrix that is used here, albeit with a very large color gamut (you can see this by setting the brightness to maximum and looking at the black area of ​​the image from a large angle - it will become dark -violet, which is typical for this technology). Also worth noting are the deep blacks, high contrast (1030:1) and wide viewing angles, at which the brightness decreases very slightly.

Hardware platform and performance

The Lenovo Vibe X3 uses a fairly powerful system-on-chip - a 64-bit six-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808, with two powerful ARM Cortex-A57 cores operating at frequencies up to 1.82 GHz, and four more economical ARM Cortex-A53 with frequencies up to 1.44 GHz . Responsible for video processing GPU Adreno 418. Random access memory The smartphone has 3 GB, internal – 32 GB (24.3 GB available to the user), which can be further expanded using a microSD card.

In terms of performance, the Snapdragon 808 is now at the “medium-high” level, and does not suffer from overheating, like the 810 model announced at the same time - it is not surprising, therefore, that it has become a very popular chip and is used in a number of high-end devices. In benchmarks, Lenovo Vibe X3 confidently occupies the top lines in the rating tables, and even in modern heavy games it allows you to enjoy a smooth picture without slowdowns or lags. At the same time, it does not heat up much, and in everyday use it is barely warm at all.

Operating system and shell

Lenovo Vibe X3 uses Android 5.1.1, supplemented by a new version of the proprietary Vibe UI shell. In it, the manufacturer has carried out significant “work on bugs” - the first thing that catches your eye is the application menu that has appeared, which was previously absent in this shell (following the example of MIUI or iOS). The visual style, however, remains as bright and still resembles the above-mentioned systems - both in the appearance of system icons and in the organization of folders.

Among the interesting possibilities it is worth noting flexible setup notification panel (the user can select the number of columns, the switches displayed in it and the order in which they appear, enable the display of the current download speed from the Internet, adjust the display of notifications by various applications, etc.). We also note the function of increasing the ringer volume when the smartphone is in the pocket, the “safe zone” (a kind of “sandbox” with its own set of applications), called up using the “floating” smart menu button with quick access to various options, a system of “smart scenarios”, which allows you to create special “behavior templates” according to a schedule or by reference to certain Wi-Fi networks.

Vibe UI supports interchangeable interface themes (with its own weather widgets, wallpapers, application icons, etc.) and various styles of the lock screen, and also allows you to switch between two types of task manager - the “voluminous card index” of Android L and Lenovo’s own version.

The smartphone is equipped with a fingerprint scanner - it is located on the back side, under the flash, so that it is convenient to touch it with your index finger. Fingerprint recognition is reliable, without glitches (to prevent the system from recognizing you, you need to place your finger completely “edge-on”; the angle does not matter - the smartphone can be unlocked even if you hold it upside down). The recognition speed is quite high, according to subjective feelings – less than half a second.

There are many pre-installed applications - Route 66 “Navigate” navigator, client music service Guvera, UC Browser, e-book and audiobook reader, official clients Twitter, Facebook and Skype, pedometer, Evernote note editor, GameStore game store, the ubiquitous McAffee Mobile Security antivirus, Universal remote remote control Peel, file transfer application SHAREit, creation utility backup copies local contacts SYNCit, UC Browser, office suite WPS Office etc., and not all of them can be completely removed - some applications can only be disabled and the updates installed for them removed.

Calls, multimedia

Lenovo Vibe X3 supports the installation of two nano-SIM SIM cards (a microSD memory card can be used instead of one of them). The speaker is very loud, the voice of the interlocutor sounds clear and natural, you can understand it without any problems even in a rather noisy environment.

The smartphone is equipped with stereo speakers with a power of 1.5 W each, their volume is also high, mid and high frequencies are worked out quite well for this size, but the sound lacks depth and in certain situations a barely audible rattling may appear. The stereo effect when listening to music is felt weakly (the distance between the speakers is too small), but when watching a movie it turns out to be much more noticeable. The manufacturer reports that the speakers are “equipped with Dolby Atmos technology” - in fact, this means the presence of an application of the same name designed to improve sound quality. Unlike other Lenovo models, in Vibe X3 it is not implemented as a separate program, but is available in system settings. After activating this mode, you can select one of the predefined templates (movies/music/games/voice) or create your own profile. Each of the options can be further customized - turn on/off auto volume, speech correction and virtual surround sound, as well as adjust the graphic equalizer parameters. We would not recommend turning on this technology on built-in speakers when listening to music (if it suddenly occurs to someone) - there is a difference, although small, but we cannot say that it improves the sound. But when watching movies, the situation turns out to be completely different - turning on Dolby Atmos radically improves the sound, giving it volume and depth.

To reproduce sound, the smartphone uses a powerful ESS ES9018K2M DAC, which, according to its manufacturer, was created specifically for “audiophile” devices, including smartphones. It is worth noting that the Lenovo Vibe X3 plays really well with high-quality headphones - the sound is clear, rich, with deep bass and soft, but nevertheless detailed high frequencies. For those who like something “brighter”, we recommend turning on the “Turbo Hi-Fi” option in the settings, and if that’s not enough, activate Dolby Atmos and play around with the music mode settings.

Working hours

Lenovo Vibe X3 is equipped with a non-removable lithium-polymer battery with a capacity of 3500 mAh. According to subjective feelings, the smartphone “lives” for quite a long time - it can easily last for a day with intensive use, and in medium load mode it can just as easily last two days. In the corresponding PCMark benchmark, it showed a very impressive result of almost 9 hours (for comparison, the LG G3 with a 3000 mAh battery that was on hand lasted only 5 hours).

Camera

The main camera boasts a 21-megapixel sensor made by Sony with a phase detection autofocus system. In sufficient lighting conditions, it focuses almost instantly and allows you to take high-quality images, with excellent detail, natural colors and a fairly good dynamic range. At dusk or when shooting in dimly lit rooms, detail is expected to decrease, but the pictures are still very high quality. Automatic white balance works quite correctly for the most part, “misses” happen infrequently and are relatively small.

The camera application turns out to be very functional: it allows you to change the proportions and size of the photo, adjust the white balance, select sensitivity and shooting method (normal/touch/timer/smile), switch between average and center-weighted exposure metering, display auxiliary lines and level (with with the help of which you can finally get rid of comments in the spirit of “the horizon is littered”). In addition, you can turn off the shutter sound, assign zoom to the volume buttons, enable flicker reduction, and for video shooting, select the video frame resolution, from 480p to 4K.

In addition to the main automatic mode (in which you can enable the Smart function, which selects the most optimal shooting option), the Lenovo Vibe X3 camera has several additional ones - panorama shooting (regular and selfie), several night mode options, background blur, fast / slow shooting and HDR . However, by the latter the manufacturer clearly means something of its own - none of the proposed HDR options offers truly advanced dynamic range, creating photographs with more or less over-saturated saturation (up to completely unnatural-looking colors, more suitable for advertising postcards).

Results

Lenovo has made a successful smartphone - with interesting design, a high-quality screen, on a productive platform, with a very good camera and a capacious battery that allows it to “live” for two days without recharging without any problems. It is also worth noting decent musical “abilities” and good sound on speakers in movies and games using Dolby Atmos technology. The large black frame around the screen quickly ceases to be an eyesore and begins to be perceived as another design element - and, by and large, this is almost the only thing you can find fault with here if you wish... except for the size that could be a little less for such a screen diagonal.

Notify when on sale

The Vibe series opened a new stage in the development of Lenovo's line of mobile devices. The first development was lucky enough to be the s960 model, which is also known as Vibe X. The rethought interface and unique design will not leave Lenovo device lovers indifferent. Apparently, the Lenovo s960 smartphone is designed to increase the popularity of the manufacturer, becoming its calling card.

The hardware and appearance of the smartphone are worthy of a premium, which cannot be said about the MediaTek chipset. But what can you do, Lenovo loves experiments, so users were once again surprised to see a high-end device created on a budget platform.

First impressions and equipment

When you first get acquainted with the smartphone, its lightness and graceful features catch your eye. And although lenovo phone s960 belongs to the usual “flat point-and-shoot”, uniqueness on its face. Its corners are rounded, and the glass of the screen curves smoothly at the edges. Thanks to the oleophobic coating, fingerprints are practically invisible, so the smartphone retains its attractive appearance. appearance even during active use. The top coating of the phone is very slippery, so there is a possibility of it falling from a table standing even on a minimal slope.

At the bottom there are three backlit control buttons. They do not surprise users because they are installed in a familiar place. At the top there is the company logo and a speaker for conversations, as well as a peephole for the front camera. The locking and turning function is performed by a metal button located on the top left side. The manufacturer has moved the compartment for installing the SIM card to the side. Now there is no point for users to remove the back cover to get to the SIM card. The back surface is matte, with a fine notch, which prevents the device from slipping in the hand. The main camera is located on top.

The scope of delivery includes:

• the smartphone itself;
• warranty card;
• Micro-USB cable;
• Charger;
• silicone ear pads.

After removing the contents, do not rush to throw away the package with the manual, since the SIM card holder extractor is attached to it.

Lenovo s960 specifications

Parameter	Meaning
CPU	Mediatek MT6589T 4 cores
operating system	Android 4.2.2
RAM	2 GB
Own memory	16 GB
Memory cards	Not supported
Cameras	Main - 13 MP, front - 5 MP
Wireless interface support	Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0
Battery	2000 mAh

Screen

The smartphone has a 5-inch IPS display. It is reliably protected by glass with an oleophobic coating. The display brightness is adjusted automatically thanks to a light sensor. Touchscreen sensitivity is at high level. Processes up to 5 touches at once. The Lenovo 960 device is ideal for those who often have to work in the sun. The smartphone does not suffer from significant glare, its display does not go blind, and the brightness reserve is quite enough to see what is happening on the screen. Color rendition is good, but the contrast is a little lacking. And although the manufacturer promised wide viewing angles, during use you may notice that the colors fade and are distorted when viewed from an angle. In general, the smartphone screen does not stand out in terms of quality among its competitors, but is not inferior to them.

Interface

The convenient organization of the menu, which is somewhat unusual for Android systems, immediately catches your eye. Program icons are not hidden under the call button in the form of one list, but are distributed on the desktop. Additional screens are provided for this. In other words, the ease of use of the interface is excellent.

Performance

The clock frequency of the quad-core Mediatek MT6589T processor is 1500 MHz. The “budget” nature of the platform is noticeable. When launching applications and games with the highest resource consumption, the user will encounter freezes, which not everyone will like. If you do not plan to use the phone for these purposes, you can safely purchase it, because for daily tasks The device is quite suitable.

Memory

Of course, 16 GB of internal memory is good. But why the manufacturer did not provide for the possibility of expanding it is not entirely clear. There is no support for MicroSD and external USB drives. Moreover, the user will receive only 12.07 GB of internal memory.

Camera

The main camera of the Lenovo s960 vibe smartphone can be characterized on the positive side. It does not show limit values, but many Lenovo devices are equipped with 8 MP modules. However, it was not without its drawbacks. There is reduced detail in dark areas in the photo, as well as noise when shooting in the dark. The front camera is capable of recognizing faces, which already causes surprise among those who are accustomed to seeing it as a useless module. Here, as much as 5 megapixels are offered. In addition to facial recognition, the front camera can use filters and smooth out skin imperfections. It is quite suitable for amateur photographs.

Autonomous operation

The smartphone battery has a capacity of 2000 mAh. According to the manufacturer, the device will easily withstand 16 hours of talk time, as well as 12 days of standby time. However, in practice everything turns out to be somewhat different. When performing everyday tasks, the device will be completely discharged in 1-2 days. If you play continuously on it, only 5 hours will last, and when used to send messages and calls (within reason, of course), the phone will last about two days. Charging occurs quite quickly, a little over two hours.

Drawing a conclusion from everything that has been said above, we can safely say that a smartphone of this model is capable of coping with, if not all, then many of the tasks that are posed to such devices. Its design is perfect. Due to its versatility, the device will look great not only in a man’s, but also in a woman’s hand. The limited memory capacity is a little disappointing, but this is nothing compared to the good hardware and ease of use.

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LenovoS960 vibe x review

It's been over a year since Lenovo announced the new Vibe concept for its mobile phones. Vibe devices with a new design and Vibe ROM firmware are loved by many customers and the models of the Vibe line have earned a lot of praise.

LenovoVibeX review, introduced more than a year ago, became one of the first smartphones in the new line that could be bought in our country. During the time it was on the market, its hardware platform became outdated, and the smartphone moved to the lower middle class according to your parameters. But the stylish appearance and record-breaking thinness of the case compared to its competitors still make this model attractive to those who do not chase parrots in Antutu, but like to use comfortable and beautiful things.

So, today we bring to your attention a review of a 5-inch smartphone LenovoVibeX, which can also be found on sale under the name LenovoS960.

Characteristics

As usual, at the beginning of the review we provide a detailed description technical characteristics our test subject.

SpecificationsLenovoS960 vibe x review

Number of SIM cards:
	5" IPS, 1920x1080 pixels.
CPU:	MT6589T, 4 cores, 1500 MHz
RAM:
Built-in memory:	16 GB, not expandable
Wireless interfaces:	Wi-fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS
	13 MP main, 5 MP front
Battery:
	72 x 144 x 6.9 mm

As you can see, the processor installed in the Lenovo Vibe X is already outdated, but together with 2 GB of RAM it should provide decent performance at least in normal user tasks, when watching HD videos and in simple games. What is striking is the presence of only one SIM card slot, as well as the inability to increase the amount of internal storage. For many users, this may be the deciding factor against the Lenovo Vibe X when choosing whether to buy this or a competing model.

But the price of our review hero has more than doubled since it went on sale. You can buy a smartphone today for 3,500 UAH (approximately $184). The price is quite high for old model, but looks, given the parameters of the device and its design, quite reasonable.

Description of Lenovo vibe x s960

Expensive devices of the Vibe series, unlike the manufacturer's budget mobile phones, are supplied in beautiful boxes with a dust jacket on which the model name is cut out. This packaging looks very stylish. After removing the top cover, the following list of accessories can be found inside the package:

Charger with adapter for European sockets;

USB cable;

Instructions in Chinese;

Cute white earbuds with two additional sets of tips.

Unlike more affordable models, which come with very cheap-looking headphones, here the manufacturer did not skimp on their appearance. Well, we will still have the opportunity to test how these headphones sound.

The Lenovo Vibe X itself looks and feels great. The first thing you want to roll off your tongue when you take it mobile phone in your hands, it's "Wow!" Lenovo has managed to accustom us to the inexpressiveness of its monotonous bricks, but the manufacturer’s designers did a great job on this model. I don’t know about anyone, but we really liked the rounded contours of the case with a thin silver frame around the perimeter. The design is universal and can satisfy both men and women.

The dimensions of Lenovo Vibe X will definitely not leave any user indifferent. Thanks to the elegance of the body (thickness is only 6.9 mm), the device with a 5-inch display and not the narrowest frames around the sensor fits perfectly in the palm of your hand and is quite comfortable to operate even with one hand. We think our enthusiastic reviews of this feature are shared by many users who have managed to buy and test the Lenovo Vibe X in action.

The placement of elements on the front panel of the smartphone is quite standard. At the top there is a fairly wide speaker grille. Please note that it is the only one in this model, fulfilling the role of both conversational and external. Nearby there is a window for sensors, and to the right is a peephole for the front camera. At the bottom there are three regular touch buttons “Menu”, “Home” and “Back”, which are dimly backlit.

The edges of the model, especially the side ones, are noticeably rounded towards the back cover. It looks stylish, but causes some inconveniences, which we will mention later. Along the perimeter of the mobile phone there is a strip of silver plastic “chrome-look”, expanding from the bottom and creeping onto the back cover.

On the top edge of the Lenovo vibe x s960 there is a 3.5" headphone jack.

At the bottom right we can see a tray for a single micro-SIM card, which can be opened using a special clip, and above is a sound volume rocker. Due to the rounding of the side ends downward, it is located slightly “under” the front panel, and the key is not very convenient to use.

On the left we see a lonely power button, which is also inconvenient to press due to the design features described above.

On the bottom edge there is a micro-USB connector and a microphone hole.

In Lenovo vibe x review, the back cover is non-removable. It is made of silver plastic with a very fine pattern, which is pleasant to the touch and, thanks to its texture, fits comfortably in the hand. In its upper left corner we can see the window of the main camera and the flash LED, between which there is a hole for another microphone.

As you can see, in this model, for the sake of design, Lenovo engineers made some controversial decisions. The mobile phone battery cannot be replaced when it wears out, and the side buttons are difficult to use due to the features of the edges of the case.

The Lenovo Vibe X is assembled with very high quality; during the tests we did not find anything to complain about, and for this parameter the model receives the most commendable reviews from us.

Lenovo vibe x s960 screen

The Lenovo vibe x s960 screen has Full HD resolution, which, with a 5" sensor diagonal, ensures the highest quality of rendering of elements. It is impossible to notice any pixelation in the graphics on the display.

The maximum brightness of the display is clearly excessive under normal operating conditions, but you can be sure that the Lenovo vibe x s960 will be comfortable to work with during the day under the sun. The Lenovo vibe x s960 touchscreen is connected to the matrix using OGS technology. The viewing angles thanks to the IPS matrix are excellent, as is the color rendition, in which it is difficult to detect any distortion by eye. The sensor is protected by impact-resistant Gorilla Glass. The touchscreen supports 5 clicks.

Iron

The platform based on Mediatek MT6589T, whose four cores operate at a frequency of 1.5 GHz, has become quite outdated today. However, during normal use of the smartphone, it is difficult to notice any problems with performance, the OS interface is moderately fast (not up to modern models, but does not slow down), applications do not load for long, HD video plays without any brakes.

The user will encounter lags only in new 3D games, but we would venture to assume that in order to play the user will prefer to buy more modern device, and Lenovo Vibe X is more of a fashion model than a gaming one.

Of the 16 GB of internal memory, 11 are available to the user, which is not so much, considering that it is impossible to increase this characteristic by installing a micro-SD flash drive.

As for the test results, in Antutu our review hero scored 18300 points, which is comparable to models on the modern budget Mediatek MT6582 processor. 3D Mark Ice Storm Extreme showed a modest 1804 points with this model.

Other parameters of Lenovo vibe x s960

The sound of the only speaker on the Lenovo vibe x s960 is average in volume and sound quality. The sound in the standard headphones is quite loud, but it doesn’t have any special quality either, everything is quite normal.

The Lenovo Vibe X Wi-fi module has average reception quality. There are no problems with the signal level close to the access point, but this is clearly not the leader in Wi-fi range.

The GPS module starts cold for about one minute. The location accuracy is good, within a few meters.

Camera

The Lenovo S960 vibe x review has two cameras, the characteristics of which allow us to hope for decent results when shooting photos and videos.

The main camera of the smartphone fully met our expectations. Photos obtained from it have good sharpness over the entire image field, good detail for a mobile phone, high-quality macro, and HDR work that significantly improves picture quality. The Lenovo Vibe X allows you to take good pictures both with and without a flash. We also liked the video in Full HD 1080p resolution.

The front camera, unfortunately, despite its 5 megapixels, which are quite good for this type of camera, could not boast of anything. It produces a soapy picture, with aberrations, of terrible quality. There is a suspicion that low-resolution extrapolation to 5 megapixels is used here.

Examples of photos:

Front-camera:

Example video:

Firmware

During its time on the market, Lenovo Vibe X managed to update its firmware from Android 4.2 to Android 4.4. As an add-on to regular Android, the proprietary Vibe UI interface is used, adding functionality to the standard OS.

There is no main program menu in Vibe UI; all programs are collected on desktops. They can be grouped into folders, which is very convenient. The desktops themselves can be customized as you wish. There are a number of proprietary “Special” interface settings, some of them are quite convenient, some have questionable implementation quality. You can find several very useful programs, such as the Security antivirus suite, SYNCit, as well as the convenient file sharing application SHAREit.

As mentioned above, the firmware is not particularly fast, but it does not slow down either. During the tests, no problems with firmware stability were found.

Battery

The Lenovo Vibe X battery has a capacity of 2000 mAh. It is clear that such savings on the battery are caused by the need to squeeze it into a thin body, but you should not count on long-term operation of a device with a Full HD screen and a battery of only 2000 mAh.

During testing under load with the screen at maximum brightness and all wireless interfaces turned on, the Lenovo vibe x s960 smartphone discharged quite quickly. Of course, running tests in a loop for several hours is not a typical usage model, but active user you should be ready to charge your mobile friend every day. At an average load level, the device can work for a couple of days.

In the Antutu battery test, our review hero Lenovo S960 scored a good, but far from record 5451 points.

conclusions

When the Lenovo vibe x s960 was launched on the market, it was one of the thinnest models with a diagonal size of 5 inches. Since then Chinese manufacturers presented devices that are a full millimeter thicker or more, but still, in terms of this parameter, Lenovo Vibe X remains in the group of leaders.

Having lost the advantages in the hardware characteristics of the Lenovo vibe x s960, the model retained the elegance of its design and significantly lost in price, remaining attractive to image-conscious users who want to buy something that is not very expensive, but will make their smartphone stand out among many.

The presence of only one SIM card slot in the model, as well as the inability to expand the memory beyond the standard 16 GB, which today is not enough (especially since 5 GB out of the box is occupied by the system and applications), may hinder the choice of Lenovo Vibe X.

Lenovo Vibe X has plenty of competitors. Of the strongest, we note the high-performance 8-core platform, with two SIM cards, the ability to install an external flash drive, and even costs a couple of hundred hryvnia less. The advantages of the Lenovo Vibe X remain the appearance and thickness of the body, as well as 8 GB of more internal storage and a higher resolution screen.

200-300 UAH more expensive. costs which is inferior to our hero only in display resolution of 1280x720 pixels, and again, in size and weight.

Fans of high autonomy can buy one with a 4000 mAh battery. Of course, the size and weight of this model will be incomparably greater. Plus, the version at almost the same price (3700 UAH) will only have 1 GB of RAM.

To summarize the above, in view of all the limitations and competitors mentioned, we cannot call the Lenovo Vibe X a good purchase for all occasions. If the price for this model had dropped even more, the choice would have been more obvious, but in this situation, Lenovo Vibe X is primarily a mobile phone for those who care about their appearance and the design of the things they use. As such, it is an excellent choice that is unlikely to make you doubt it.

Advantages	Flaws
Design, dimensions and weight; High-quality main camera	Only 1 SIM card; Outdated platform; Inability to expand memory; Weak front camera;

Average model price segment from the new Lenovo Vibe line

Not long ago, the hero of our review was a new flagship model, which led the line of smartphones Lenovo new type. The Vibe Z smartphone is a device that is remarkable in several aspects. Firstly, it was with this model that the countdown began for a new design that was completely unusual for the company’s previous devices. Secondly, this design now unites all the company's new smartphones, and even several new tablets will be released in this same design. This also includes the refusal of Intel’s “services” in terms of hardware and a return to more “traditional” Qualcomm solutions: the heart of Lenovo’s top model is now the Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC. Plus, new flagship“dressed up” and in a new graphical shell: from now on it is completely redrawn on the outside and carries a lot of changes inside the so-called Vibe ROM - a common interface for all new smartphones of the company, which has become undoubtedly more user-friendly, but also brighter, clumsier in appearance, not so strict.

Simultaneously with the new top model, at the beginning of the year, Lenovo officially presented the cheaper Lenovo Vibe X model, which, according to internal classification, belongs to a different line (which is understandable), but outwardly looks like an almost exact copy of the flagship, only more simplified in terms of characteristics and costing, accordingly, less. We bring to your attention a review of it.

Key Features of Lenovo Vibe X (Model S960)

	Lenovo Vibe X	Alcatel OT Idol X	Fly Luminor IQ453	Oppo Mirror R819	Lenovo Vibe Z (K910 Dual SIM)
Screen	5″, IPS	5″, IPS	5″, IPS	4.7″, IPS	5.5″, IPS
Permission	1920×1080, 440 ppi	1920×1080, 440 ppi	1920×1080, 440 ppi	1280×720, 312 ppi	1920×1080, 400 ppi
SoC		MediaTek MT6589T (4 cores ARM Cortex-A7) @1.5 GHz	MediaTek MT6589T (4 cores ARM Cortex-A7) @1.5 GHz	MediaTek MT6589 (4 cores ARM Cortex-A7) @1.2 GHz	Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 (4 Krait 400 cores) @2.2 GHz
GPU	PowerVR SGX 544MP	PowerVR SGX 544MP	PowerVR SGX 544MP	PowerVR SGX 544MP	Adreno 330
RAM	2 GB	2 GB	2 GB	1 GB	2 GB
Flash memory	16 GB	16 GB	32 GB	16 GB	16 GB
Memory card support	—	—	—	—	—
operating system	Google Android 4.2	Google Android 4.2	Google Android 4.2	Google Android 4.2	Google Android 4.2
Battery	non-removable, 2000 mAh	non-removable, 2000 mAh	non-removable, 2000 mAh	non-removable, 2000 mAh	non-removable, 3050 mAh
Cameras		rear (13 MP), front (2 MP)	rear (13 MP), front (5 MP)	rear (8 MP), front (2 MP)	rear (13 MP), front (5 MP)
Dimensions	144×74×6.9 mm, 121 g	140×68×6.9 mm, 120 g	144×69×7.7 mm, 131 g	137×68×7.3 mm, 110 g	149×77×7.9 mm, 147 g
average price	T-10505226	T-10467810	T-10533924	T-10470422	T-10516952
Lenovo Vibe X offers	L-10505226-10

• SoC MediaTek MT6589T, 1.5 GHz, 4 cores, ARM Cortex-A7
• GPU PowerVR SGX 544MP
• operating room Android system 4.2.2 Jelly Bean
• Touch IPS display, 5″, 1920×1080, 440 ppi
• Random access memory (RAM) 2 GB, inner memory 16 GB
• GSM communication 900/1800/1900 MHz
• Communication 3G WCDMA 900/2100 MHz
• SIM card format: Micro
• Bluetooth 4.0HS
• Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, point Wi-Fi access
• GPS, A-GPS
• Position, proximity, lighting sensors, electronic compass
• 13 MP camera, automatic and manual focusing
• Camera 5 MP (front)
• Li-ion battery 2000 mAh
• Dimensions 144×74×6.9 mm
• Weight 121 g

Equipment

The new smartphone goes on sale in exactly the same black cardboard box with an additional casing as the older model, but now, of course, the letters “Vibe X” are cut into the casing. The packaging is large, but quite neat, made of matte, velvety black cardboard with a minimal amount of information on the outside.

Inside, everything also remained the same: there were several compartments containing a charger (output current 1 A), a USB-Micro-USB connecting cable, wired stereo headphones with vacuum-type gel ear pads and a flat noodle wire, as well as a key clip for removing the SIM card and several paper books packed in a separate smaller box.

Appearance and ease of use

The Lenovo Vibe X smartphone is made in the same style as the new flagship Lenovo Vibe Z. Let us repeat that this design now unites all the company’s new mobile devices, both smartphones and tablets from several lines. Now it doesn’t matter what letter is in the model name - their technical equipment, but not their appearance, depends on it.

The smartphone is made in the form of a neat, “sleek” on all sides and very thin candy bar with strongly rounded edges, made of materials that look like metal. Shiny chrome inserts are adjacent to textured matte silver surfaces, but all this is an imitation - there is no real metal here, only plastic. The rim connecting all four end faces has a smoother and more slippery coating, also similar to chrome-plated metal. The rear surface of the smartphone, due to its matte texture, is completely non-staining; the entire front panel is entirely covered with a slightly convex protective glass, scratch-resistant, Gorilla Glass 3.

The smartphone has a completely original and unconventional design; it has a fairly neat body in shape and structure with high-quality assembly. The smartphone looks attractive, it’s nice to pick it up, and it doesn’t have a distinct gender identity - the device is thin, elegant and suits a female audience no less than a male one.

The Lenovo Vibe X case is a monoblock with a non-removable back cover, hence the side slot method of installing a SIM card.

A Micro SIM card is inserted into a metal slide that can be pulled out using a paperclip key. There are no other slots provided here - Lenovo Vibe X does not support either the ability to expand memory capacity or work with two SIM cards.

On the back surface there are familiar elements: a slightly raised rear camera window, framed by a chrome rim, as well as a single led flash, shining brightly enough and ready to serve as a flashlight with SOS mode - the corresponding software is preinstalled in the factory firmware.

There is no separate grille for sound output from the “ringing” speaker: all sounds are produced by one single (“telephone”) speaker located in the upper part of the front panel. Accordingly, nothing blocks the sound if the phone is lying face up on the table surface.

The front panel is completely covered with flat protective glass with sloping edges, making it look slightly convex. It uses scratch-resistant tempered glass, Gorilla Glass 3, with a slot cut out on top for the earpiece grille. Nearby you can see the eyes of the front camera and touch sensors. Below the screen there is a traditional row of touch-sensitive hardware control buttons, which have a dim and uneven white backlight.

There are only two mechanical hardware keys on the sides of the device: a lock key and a two-position volume rocker. All the buttons are quite large, protrude well beyond the body, are perfectly defined to the touch and, moreover, have a soft and pliable, but quite distinct action. Thus, if we take into account the fact that the lock key here is placed not on the top end, but on the side, then there are no complaints at all about the controls in general.

In addition to the buttons, there are also universal connectors on the side edges of the device: an audio output with a diameter of 3.5 mm for headphones or a headset is embedded in the upper end, and a standard Micro-USB connector and a conversational microphone are embedded in the lower end.

Now a little about noticeable distinctive little things and details. Firstly, it should be noted that the ergonomics are improved compared to the flagship Lenovo Vibe Z, because the lock key was inconveniently located on the top end, where it is impossible to reach with any finger of the hand holding the smartphone. Here this button is located on the left side, which is undoubtedly more convenient and much more comfortable to use. But unlike the Lenovo Vibe Z, the USB connector here does not support connection mode external devices(OTG), and therefore there is no way to connect a flash drive. But, like the flagship, there is a very useful light event indicator - a bright dot shines in different colors directly from under the earpiece grille and signals the charging status and incoming events.

The Lenovo Vibe X smartphone, unlike the flagship, goes on sale in only one color - silver. A black version, like the Lenovo Vibe Z, was not provided for the hero of today’s review (perhaps not yet).

Screen

The Lenovo Vibe X smartphone is equipped with an IPS touch matrix, which is of very good quality. Perhaps this is one of the most noticeable advantages of the new product: after all, the smartphone cannot boast of powerful hardware, but the display is of excellent quality and is characterized not only by its large size, which is popular with most users, but also by full Full HD resolution. The screen dimensions are 62x110 mm, diagonal - 5 inches, resolution - 1920x1080 pixels. The pixel density per inch here is 440 ppi - a high figure, and until the epidemic of the transition to the next ultra-high resolution, the pixel density of this screen will remain one of the record ones. The thickness of the side frames from the edge of the screen to the edge of the case is at least 5 mm - the frames are quite wide.

The display brightness can be adjusted manually, or you can use automatic adjustment. Multi-touch technology here allows you to process up to 5 simultaneous touches. The smartphone also has a proximity sensor that blocks the screen when you bring the smartphone to your ear.

A detailed examination using measuring instruments was carried out by the editor of the “Monitors” and “Projectors and TV” sections, Alexey Kudryavtsev. Here is his expert opinion on the screen of the sample under study.

The front surface of the screen is made in the form of a glass plate with a mirror-smooth surface that is scratch-resistant. Judging by the reflection of objects, there is an effective anti-glare filter, which is slightly better in reducing the brightness of the reflection than the Google Nexus 7 (2013) (hereinafter simply Nexus 7). For clarity, here is a photo in which a white surface is reflected when the screens are turned off (on the left is Nexus 7, on the right is Lenovo Vibe X, then they can be distinguished by size):

At first glance, the Lenovo Vibe X's screen is slightly darker, which is confirmed by statistics from graphic editor— brightness according to photographs is 76 versus 79 for Nexus 7. The ghosting of reflected objects in the Vibe X screen is very weak, this indicates that there is no air gap between the layers of the screen (more specifically, between the outer glass and the surface of the LCD matrix). The outer surface of the screen has a special oleophobic (grease-repellent) coating (effective, but slightly worse than that of the Nexus 7), so fingerprints are removed much more easily and appear at a slower rate than with regular glass.

When manually controlling the brightness and displaying the white field in full screen, the maximum brightness value was about 400 cd/m², the minimum was 7 cd/m². The maximum brightness is quite high, which means that, taking into account the effective anti-glare filter, readability even on a sunny day outdoors should be at a good level. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable level. There is automatic brightness adjustment based on the light sensor (located above the right edge of the front speaker slot). In automatic mode, as external lighting conditions change, the screen brightness both increases and decreases. In complete darkness in automatic mode, the brightness is reduced to 12 cd/m² (low), in an artificially lit office (approximately 400 lux) the brightness is set to 90 cd/m² (normal), in a brightly lit environment (corresponding to lighting on a clear day outdoors , but without direct sunlight - 20,000 lux or a little more) - rises to 210 cd/m² (far from the maximum). As a result, the auto-brightness function does not work quite adequately, since in a bright environment the backlight brightness remains at a low level, and in the dark it is too low. At any brightness level, there is virtually no backlight modulation, so there is no screen flickering.

IN this smartphone An IPS type matrix is ​​used. The microphotographs show a typical IPS subpixel structure:

For comparison, you can see the gallery of microphotographs of screens used in mobile technology.

The screen has good viewing angles without significant color shift even with large viewing deviations from perpendicular to the screen and without inverting shades. For comparison, here are photographs in which Lenovo screens The Vibe X and Nexus 7 display identical images, with screen brightness initially set to approximately 200 cd/m². There is a white field perpendicular to the screens:

Note the good uniformity of brightness and color tone of the white field (when photographing, the color balance is forced to 6500 K). And a test picture:

The Lenovo Vibe X's picture is dark and the colors are clearly oversaturated. Now at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to the plane and to the side of the screen:

It can be seen that the colors did not change much on both screens, but the contrast at an angle in the case of the Lenovo Vibe X decreased due to a significant increase in black levels. And a white field:

The brightness at an angle of the screens decreased (by at least 5 times, based on the difference in shutter speed), but in the case of the Lenovo Vibe X the drop in brightness is slightly greater than that of the Nexus 7 (brightness according to photographs is 231 versus 236 for the Nexus 7). When deviated diagonally, the black field brightens greatly and acquires a yellowish tint or remains almost neutral gray. The photographs below demonstrate this (the brightness of the white areas in the direction perpendicular to the plane of the screens is the same for the screens!):

And from another angle:

When viewed perpendicularly, the uniformity of the black field is very good, although not ideal:

The contrast (approximately in the center of the screen) is normal - about 740:1. The response time for the black-white-black transition is 26 ms (17 ms on + 9 ms off). The transition between halftones of gray 25% and 75% (based on the numerical value of the color) and back takes a total of 28 ms (less than usual). A gamma curve constructed using 32 points did not reveal any blockage in either the highlights or the shadows. The exponent of the approximating power function is 2.67, which is higher than the standard value of 2.2, while the real gamma curve noticeably deviates from the power dependence:

Due to the presence of non-disabled dynamic adjustment of the backlight brightness in accordance with the nature of the displayed image (in dark images, the brightness tends to decrease), the resulting dependence of brightness on hue (gamma curve) most likely does not correspond to the gamma curve of a static image (although on In the photo above, the image on the screen is really dark), since the measurements were carried out with sequential display of shades of gray on the entire screen. For this reason, we carried out a number of tests - determining contrast and response time, comparing black illumination at angles - when displaying special templates with a constant average brightness, and not monochromatic fields in the entire screen.

Color gamut is close to sRGB:

The spectra show that the matrix filters moderately mix the components with each other:

As a result, visually the colors have (or rather can have) natural saturation. The balance of shades on the gray scale is good, since Colorful temperature slightly higher than the standard 6500 K, while the deviation from the blackbody spectrum (ΔE) is less than 10, which is considered a good indicator for a consumer device, and ΔE and color temperature change little from hue to hue - this has a positive effect on the visual assessment of color balance. (Dark areas of the gray scale can be ignored, since color balance there is not very important, and the error in measuring color characteristics at low brightness is large.)

In the screen settings, you can find a tab where the user is asked to select the level of saturation and hue correction from fixed profiles:

Saturation correction is simply done by increasing or decreasing color contrast without changing the gamut. As an example, here are photos of the screen for the mode Gamma = Bright:

And for the regime Gamma = Soft:

The colors on the screen by default are already excessively bright, but in Gamma = Bright the situation is only getting worse. But maybe someone likes it better. In mode Gamma = Soft the image becomes noticeably closer to the natural version. Profiles Hue adjust color temperature. Since it is already higher than standard, it makes sense to lower it by selecting the option Warm. Indeed, the color temperature becomes closer to 6500 K, but at the same time ΔE increases significantly, which neutralizes any positive effect (see graphs above). Total on tab Screen effects it makes sense to choose a profile Gamma = Soft, A Hue leave on Standard.

The screen has a fairly high maximum brightness and an effective anti-glare filter, so the smartphone can be used outdoors without much difficulty, even on a sunny summer day. In complete darkness, the brightness can be reduced to a comfortable value. The auto-brightness mode is of limited use, as it does not cope with setting the backlight brightness in very dark and very bright environments. The advantages of the screen include a good oleophobic coating, no flicker or air gap in the layers of the screen, good uniformity of the black field, color gamut, almost equal to sRGB, and good color balance. The main disadvantage is the low stability of black to gaze deviation from perpendicular to the screen plane. Despite this, the totality of the screen’s properties is of high quality.

Sound

In terms of sound, the smartphone is nothing special. There are no “premium” sound chips installed here, there are no proprietary software sound enhancers, except for the capabilities standard player Play Music, founded by Google itself. As already mentioned, the smartphone has an unusual structure: there is only one speaker that handles all the sound functions of the smartphone. It sounds loud enough, but low frequencies not noticed at all in the spectrum. As a conversational speaker, the speaker is not bad: the speech of a familiar interlocutor is quite intelligible, the timbre and intonation are easily recognizable.

The smartphone comes standard with an FM radio, and there is also a voice recorder. The radio will not work without headphones connected as an external antenna. The voice recorder is used to create audio notes and can record telephone conversations off the line. To do this, right during a conversation, you can press the corresponding conversation recording key on the screen.

Camera

Lenovo Vibe X is equipped with two digital camera modules with a resolution of 13 and 5 megapixels; the camera capabilities are unequal. The front camera takes pictures with a maximum resolution of 1920x2560 and shoots video with a resolution of 640x480. You can take photos while recording videos.

The main rear camera is equipped with a 13-megapixel Sony sensor with autofocus, a single-section LED flash and the ability to shoot video in 1080p resolution. It also allows you to take photos in parallel with video recording. When shooting at maximum resolution, photos are 4096x3072 in size. The settings menu is quite detailed; it is quite traditionally located right on top of the viewfinder, but, unfortunately, it has only one, horizontal layout, which is not entirely convenient. Shooting can be done either by touching a special icon on the display or by pressing the volume key, which, when the camera is activated, begins to be responsible for the camera shutter function.

The camera can shoot video; there are several resolutions to choose from, up to a maximum of 1920x1088. An example of a test video is presented below (video: MPEG4 Video 1920×1088 30.833 fps 24.6 Mbps; audio: AAC 48 kHz stereo 128 Kbps).

• Video No. 1 (68.4 MB, 1920×1088)

Examples of photographs with our comments are presented below.

	The exposition is well chosen.
	Sharpness is good. In faint shadows, noise is practically invisible.
	Sharpness “walks” a little across the frame and is generally not very good.
	In the central part the sharpness is good, but decreases slightly towards the edges.
	In the foreground the sharpness is quite good, in the distance it is a little worse.
	There is a noticeable drop in sharpness towards the edges, but overall the sharpness is quite good.
	The camera does macro quite well.
	The text is visible, but it is too blurry, despite the fairly short shutter speed.

The camera copes with noise quite well, although in strong shadows you can find colored spots, which, however, are not noticeable. The camera can choose the exposure, and software processing does not abuse. However, it has one significant drawback. Despite working at low sensitivities and fast shutter speeds, some images appear blurry. Or rather, it’s not even a blur, but a banal blur, probably caused by a focus error. Moreover, the camera can take sharp pictures, which it demonstrated, which means the problem is not the quality of the optics. There is little hope that this can be fixed programmatically. Or rather, it is theoretically possible, but whether the manufacturer will do this is another question. But here, of course, a hardware problem is also possible.

Overall, the camera is quite good, and for documentary or artistic subjects it may well be suitable, especially if you are lucky with focusing.

Telephone and communications

The smartphone works as standard in modern 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks; there is no LTE support in smartphones on MediaTek platforms yet; the release of commercial samples with LTE support to the market is still ahead, but this moment is already approaching. As a standard, you can organize a wireless access point via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth channels; there is a mode Wi-Fi Direct, 5 GHz and NFC standards are not supported. The navigation module only works with the GPS system (with A-GPS) - there is no support for the domestic Glonass system. The speed and quality of the GPS module, unlike Zopo 998 and THL T100S, is not satisfactory here: the system works quickly and flawlessly.

There were no spontaneous reboots/shutdowns observed during testing; there are no problems with this. The screen of the smartphone is large, so the drawing of letters and numbers virtual keyboards quite comfortable to drive. The layout and location of the keys are standard: switching languages ​​here is done by pressing a special button with a globe image; there is no dedicated top row with numbers - you will have to switch the layout each time. The phone application supports Smart Dial, that is, while dialing phone number A search is also carried out immediately using the first letters in contacts. A very convenient functionality that you instantly get used to, but which is initially missing in some smartphones.

OS and software

The Lenovo Vibe X smartphone is currently running on software platform Google Android versions 4.2.2, however, the developers have already announced that for this model, as well as for several others, an update to the latest version 4.4 is just around the corner. Here, as in the flagship Vibe Z, the company installed new version its proprietary shell, which is now called Vibe ROM (with an update to Android 4.4 KitKat it will carry version Vibe ROM 1.5). Organizationally, the most visible distinguishing feature pre-installed branded GUI The problem is that this shell does not have an application menu. All icons are here installed programs are automatically laid out directly on desktops, mixed with widgets. Naturally, not only the creation of folders/groups is supported, but most of the already pre-installed applications are carefully arranged into thematic folders by the developers themselves.

The settings menu is divided here into three subgroups, two of which represent selections of the most popular functions, and the middle one, called Special, is responsible for working with gestures. This is a large settings section: the device has very broad support for working with various gestures, from smart response when bringing the device to your ear to face control. There are a lot of settings, as well as gestures, most of which are familiar from devices from other companies, for example Samsung.

Performance

The Lenovo Vibe X hardware platform is based on the MediaTek MT6589T single-chip system (SoC). CPU it has 4 Cortex-A7 cores operating at 1.5 GHz. The letter prefix in the model name indicates that this platform has been modified: the original MediaTek MT6589 has a core frequency of 1.2 GHz - the Oppo Mirror smartphone, which we also tested and added to the table for comparison, is built on this platform.

The processor here is assisted in processing graphics by the PowerVR SGX 544MP video accelerator. The device has 2 GB of RAM, which is quite modern. But the smartphone doesn’t have a lot of built-in memory - 16 GB nominally and only about 12.7 GB of free space in reality. Expanding memory using microSD cards the smartphone does not support, and there is no way to solve the problem by connecting flash drives to USB port(USB Host, USB OTG), since this mode is also not supported here. As a result, the Lenovo Vibe X user is once and for all limited by the amount of memory that is built in initially.

According to the testing results, the hardware platform of the Lenovo Vibe X smartphone demonstrated very modest - below average - results (15K in AnTuTu). In this regard, it would be useful to recall the current balance of power. Top solutions based on Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 give 35K points or more in the AnTuTu test; the new eight-core MediaTek MT6592 platform with a frequency of 2.0 GHz Cortex-A7 cores shows a slightly worse result (31K for TCL Idol X+), the same eight cores Cortex-A7 MT6592 with a frequency of 1.7 GHz already show 26K, and the previous MediaTek model, The quad-core MT6589T produces only 15K points in these tests. Moreover, similar results were demonstrated by Alcatel Idol X with Fly Luminor IQ453, which are built on the same platform as the Lenovo Vibe X. The main modification of this SoC, MediaTek MT6589 with a Cortex-A7 core frequency of 1.2 GHz, logically demonstrates an even weaker result of about 10K glasses (Oppo Mirror). A popular competing solution for this platform is the quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 (the same 4 ARM Cortex A7 cores, 1.2 GHz), but this system shows slight superiority not only over the regular MT6589 (Cortex-A7 1.2 GHz), but also over overclocked MT6589T (Cortex-A7 1.5 GHz), on which the hero of today's review runs. For example, Motorola Moto G on Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 scored about 17K points in AnTuTu versus 10K from Oppo Mirror on MT6589 with the same four Cortex-A7 1.2 GHz cores and against 15K from Lenovo Vibe X (4 Cortex-A7 1.5 cores) GHz).

All the results we obtained when testing the smartphone in the most latest versions popular benchmarks, we have summarized them in tables for convenience. The table usually adds several other devices from different segments, also tested on similar latest versions of benchmarks (this is done only for a visual assessment of the obtained dry figures). Unfortunately, within the framework of one comparison it is impossible to present the results from different versions benchmarks, so many worthy and relevant models remain “behind the scenes” - due to the fact that at one time they passed the “obstacle course” on previous versions test programs.

Testing in MobileXPRT, as well as in the latest versions of AnTuTu 4.x and GeekBench 3:

When testing the graphics subsystem in the cross-platform 3DMark test for the most powerful smartphones, it is now possible to run 3DMark in Unlimited mode, where the rendering resolution is fixed at 720p and VSync is disabled (which can cause the speed to rise above 60 fps).

Results of testing the graphics subsystem in the Epic Citadel gaming test, as well as Basemark X and Bonsai Benchmark:

The lag in the PowerVR SGX 544MP video subsystem is very high: this video accelerator produces approximately 27 fps in those test modes, where top video accelerators show 60 fps.

Browser cross-platform tests:

As for benchmarks for assessing the speed of the javascript engine, you should always make allowance for the fact that their results significantly depend on the browser in which they are launched, so the comparison can only be truly correct on the same OS and browsers, and this is possible during testing not always. For Android OS, we always try to use Google Chrome.

Playing video

To test omnivorousness when playing video (including support for various codecs, containers and special features, for example subtitles), we used the most common formats, which make up the bulk of the content available on the Web. Note that for mobile devices It is important to have support for hardware video decoding at the chip level, since it is most often impossible to process modern options using processor cores alone. Also, you shouldn’t expect a mobile device to decode everything, since the leadership in flexibility belongs to the PC, and no one is going to challenge it. All results are summarized in a single table.

Since the Micro-USB connector here does not support USB-host mode (OTG), and the smartphone does not support memory cards, it is difficult to say that a device with a once and for all limited memory capacity (≈12 GB) is well suited for the role of a multimedia processor. The standard video player of a smartphone is not initially equipped with all the necessary hardware decoders for playback - sometimes you will have to resort to the help of third-party solutions. But in the end, when playing even the most “heavy” of the test files, the device coped with the task well: there was not the slightest image delay.

Format	Container, video, sound	MX Video Player	Standard video player
DVDRip	AVI, XviD 720×400 2200 Kbps, MP3+AC3	plays normally	plays normally
Web-DL SD	AVI, XviD 720×400 1400 Kbps, MP3+AC3	plays normally	plays normally
Web-DL HD	MKV, H.264 1280×720 3000 Kbps, AC3	Hardware+
BDRip 720p	MKV, H.264 1280×720 4000 Kbps, AC3	plays fine with decoder Hardware+	The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹
BDRip 1080p	MKV, H.264 1920×1080 8000 Kbps, AC3	plays fine with decoder Hardware+	The video plays fine, but there is no sound¹

¹ MX Video Player only played sound after switching to software decoding or Hardware+; The standard player does not have this setting

We did not find the MHL interface, like Mobility DisplayPort, in this smartphone, so we had to limit ourselves to testing the output of video files on the screen of the device itself. To do this, we used a set of test files with an arrow and a rectangle moving one division per frame (see “Method for testing video playback and display devices. Version 1 (for mobile devices)”). Screenshots with a shutter speed of 1 s helped determine the nature of the output of frames of video files with various parameters: the resolution varied (1280 by 720 (720p) and 1920 by 1080 (1080p) pixels) and frame rate (24, 25, 30, 50 and 60 frames/ With). In our tests, we used the MX Player video player in the “Hardware” mode, since there were a lot of artifacts in the “Hardware+” mode. The test results are summarized in the table:

720/30p Fine No 720/25p Fine No 720/24p Fine No

Note: If in both columns Uniformity And Passes Green ratings are given, this means that, most likely, when watching films, artifacts caused by uneven alternation and frame skipping will either not be visible at all, or their number and visibility will not affect the viewing comfort. Red marks indicate possible problems with playback of the corresponding files.

Based on the frame output criterion, the quality of playback of video files on the screen of the smartphone itself is not the highest, since frames (or groups of frames) are displayed with uneven alternation of intervals and often with frame skipping. When playing video files with a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels (1080p), the image of the video file itself is displayed exactly along the border of the screen, one-to-one pixel by pixel in the horizontal direction, but vertically the image is stretched by a couple of pixels, which reduces the clarity of the picture. The luminance range displayed on the screen is more of an extended range (i.e. 0-255 range), while most video files are encoded in the video luminance range 16-235, so the white color of such video files appears as light light gray on the screen of this smartphone. and blacks are a dark, dark grey, which obviously doesn't improve image quality.

Battery life

The lithium-ion battery installed in the Lenovo Vibe X has a fairly small capacity by modern standards of 2000 mAh. This is partly due to the thin body of the smartphone, and besides, the less powerful MediaTek platform is traditionally considered to be more economical at the same time, so the small battery capacity provides quite decent durability results here battery life. Test results in the most common user scenarios are collected in a table.

Continuous reading in the FBReader program (with a standard, light theme) at a minimum comfortable brightness level (brightness was set to 100 cd/m²) lasted about 15.5 hours until the battery was completely discharged, and when continuously watching videos from YouTube in high quality (HQ ) with the same brightness level through home Wi-Fi network the device lasted more than 7 hours - much better performance than one would expect from a 2000 mAh battery, and even with a 5-inch Full HD screen. In 3D gaming mode, the smartphone lasted a very respectable 4 hours 40 minutes, but it’s worth considering that with such a weak video subsystem and the entire system as a whole, you won’t be able to play demanding games comfortably - you’ll experience stuttering and frame drops.

Bottom line

In general, as already mentioned, new smartphone Lenovo Vibe X turned out to be quite attractive in appearance, but not a very productive device. Due to the peculiarities of the Taiwanese MediaTek platform (primarily a weak video system), as well as the limited amount of built-in memory, the device cannot be recommended for solving multimedia tasks. More like a phone can be classified as a fashion model: an excellent quality large and clear IPS screen and a nice body design with imitation metal materials “close” this issue completely. However, the issue of performance, and against the background of the inflated price of the device, remains open. Now in our stores the official price for Lenovo Vibe X is set at 15 thousand rubles, and this, of course, is an excessively inflated price. At this price this device does not correspond in any way, besides, for less money you can buy, for example, Alcatel Idol X, which is a direct competitor to the model in question, and even compares favorably additional features, which Lenovo Vibe X does not have - at least support for memory cards. I would like to believe that very soon we will hear about a price reduction for new model Lenovo - it would be justified.