After a few months and 4 OTA updates, this is your most awaited review of the Lenovo Vibe Shot.
The physical appearance of the device is quite solid and elegant as both front and back are covered with Gorilla Glass 3 and has metal sides. One advice though is better to use it with the provided phone casing as you can feel a bit of the sharp edges
You'll be greeted by this view of the Lenovo Vibe UI. I love the wallpaper which is on leather. No surprised that it has no app drawer. The pulldown menu is still Lenovo Vibe UI but a lot of controls but the app switch is like your typical Android Lollipop card style. Lucky that you can put your own launcher with no problems. At the later part of this review, I installed the Google Now launcher and it worked fine. Good thing, the SIM is hot swappable and no need for resetting of the device but I noticed when at first boot and you have phone storage as default storage and out of the fly you inserted a micro SD card and put it as the main storage, the system will ask you to reset the phone. That's not common in a number of local mobile brands that I had with hot swappable slots for micro SD and dual SIM. On display, it is one of the best that I saw on a 5 inch Full HD display.
Calls, SMS, mobile data and WiFi - Calls and texts are no problem on this one. I love the appearance of the phone and SMS UI (I installed Goggle Keyboard on this one). On mobile data, I verified that both dual micro SIMs can be in LTE. Unfortunately, there's no "LTE only" on this one. LTE connection is at best (as I expected on Qualcomm SoCs) as I can get max on over 20 Mbps on Makati , BGC and Ayala Alabang on both telcos. WiFi reception is also great.
More on the settings, out of 32 GB ROM you can have over 24 GB of app storage which is very good. I tested out a 64 GB micro SD on this one and got no issues. The USB OTG is also in handy which is perfect for this camera-centric phone.
On benchmarks, I got over 38,000 verified score on Antutu which is normal for 1.7 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor. 10-point multi touch is in this device. There's even a time that I got at 40,004 score in their media event.
For gaming, I knew that this 615 is quite far for gaming against the Snapdragon 800 series. I found out when I had Real Racing 3 which I took almost a minute in loading the main menu scenes but it will be a-ok when you're already in race mode.
On battery test using my standards of HD video playback, I got 8 hours and 58 minutes out of 2,900 mAh battery in ultra battery saving mode. In an Full HD display, that's average. In normal usage with 3G surfing, I got around 19 hours while with LTE, the battery goes down to 14 hours. We all knew that the Snapdragon 615 is not that great in thermal management but good thing, I only get a warm feeling out of this device which the provided phone is a must have. Good thing, Lenovo Mobile PH officials confirmed that it has Quick Charge 2.0 technology which I can fully charge in less than 2 hours.
I saved the best for last for the camera. On video, it can shoot nicely either by stand still or while I'm moving thanks to this OIS and laser auto focus. It only gets bad when I'm about to shoot some videos in a bit noisy environment like rock gigs whicn even I'm a few meters away from the speakers.
The first 3 OTA updates, the pathfinder is lagging at all so I had to open a third party app to check my shots. The 4th OTA update fixed it with another option to play in the Pro mode which I'll gonna tell later
These are the UI for the Auto and Pro Mode. On Auto mode, the smart switch will really help you in taking those perfect shots depending on the situation. So far, I saw a number of modes from landscape, portrait, food, panorama, landscape protrait, ultra lowlight, lowlight and HDR. It's kinda weird that you can also have HDR (but by your own controls ) at Pro mode. On Pro mode, you can adjust from manual to auto focusing, light filters, ISO, exposure and shutter speed. Unlike what it was said from another review, it is not true that you cannot see all of the adjustments in real time. You can see the changes in ISO, light filters and the focusing. The shutter speed ranges from 1/15 sec. to 1 sec (not that extensie compared to LG G4)
On Pro mode, tapping the "4 squares" will give you 7 default options which you'll gonna see below. The big change in the 4th OTA update is the letter B button which gives you 4 modes for light painting shots. The slowest speed that I got so far is at 8 seconds. This mode is perfect for night shots on the road or with those booming Christmas decors. The front camera is superb on almost on all lighing conditions plus the beautification modes are natural. The HDR for me can be a bit better.
Lenovo Vibe Shot 16 MP rear camera samples:
Same scene in 3 different filters
Macro shot
Auto mode
HDR
Night shots
1 second shutter speed
Light painting pic samples (taken at those roads at Filinvest City)
Lenovo Vibe Shot 8 MP front camera sample (shot at low light in SMX SM Aura, ISO auto set by the system at 1200):
Pros: Camera, Lenovo Vibe UI, excellent in all connectivity departments, physical appearance, hot swappable micro SIMs and micro SD, USB OTG, display, OTA updates
Cons: A bit on the battery, easily gets warm, no LTE only option.
I started this blog since 2009 with one unique thing that I had before the smartphone age, pictures taken using a mobile phone. Fast forward to this year, I am thankful that I found my perfect camera smartphone so far which I can bring mostly on blog coverages & even those special occasions which can be only be beaten so far by those flagship phones (but doesn't have a budget for those phones) The overall looks of this device is elegant yet battle ready for those tough drops. I am aware of the flaws of the Snapdragon 615 which you can manage if you know the tricks. The device has got some good OTAs so far. The battery is kinda average to me but the Quick Charge 2.0 was the equalizer on this one. The Php 16,999 price tag (on Lazada) or Php 17,999 (on physical stores) might be high against other phones with the same SoC but you are paying for the excellent looks, bigger RAM and ROM and the superb camera (except on shotting some videos in a noisy environment). I'll gonna give Lenovo Vibe Shot a 4.25 out of 5 rating.
