Lenovo mobile phone officially returned to the Chinese market in June this year and began to adhere to the demand of consumers by launching its flagship product, Lenovo Z5. The recently launched S5 Pro and K5 Pro have been able to attract buyers from all around the world and has strengthened Lenovo’s confidence. Today we will go through the review of Lenovo K5 Pro to find out if it is the best smartphone in the budget segment available in the market today.
Lenovo K5 Pro Review
To start the review let us go through the hardware specifications first. Lenovo K5 Pro is a real, full-screen mobile phone equipped with the performance of the Snapdragon 636 mobile platform, standard 6GB running memory, to ensure a smooth daily experience. It comes with dual speakers and a large 4050mAh battery and Android 8.1. Let’s start the review with the appearance of Lenovo K5 Pro.
Fullscreen with an excellent look
The Lenovo K5 Pro features a 5.99-inch, 18:9 aspect ratio, FHD+ resolution screen with a maximum brightness of 450 nits. From the perspective of physical experience, the color performance of this screen is relatively strong, and the overall perception is at the leading position at the same price. With dual stereo speakers and a stereo Driac sound field, when you watch a video, the auditory effect is immediate. This is also an important reason why it can be called the budget king.
Thanks to the pre-installed latest ZUI system, Lenovo K5 Pro supports U-Touch full-screen gesture operation, replacing the original virtual button with a simple slide, freeing up more screen space for use. Of course, if you are uncomfortable with the gesture operation, you can switch to the original virtual button.
Known as the budget king, this product is similar to other budget smartphones available in the market. The Lenovo K5 Pro adopts a three-stage metal body, 5.99-inch FHD+ full screen, traditional forehead + chin design. These features are rare for a product that sells for less than $150.
The unique dual-camera model has formed the Lenovo ID design, which is similar to most mobile phones on the market. The vertically arranged rear dual camera protrudes slightly from the body.
In other respects, Lenovo K5 Pro uses rear fingerprint recognition, Type-C interface, 3.5mm headphone jack, and dual speakers. Overall, Lenovo K5 Pro design has reached the mainstream level, especially considering its price. It is obviously not practical to expect high on appearance in this price range.
ZUI 5.0 system, simple and smooth experience
Lenovo K5 Pro runs the latest ZUI 5.0 system, built on the Android 8.1 kernel. ZUI5.0 is more simple in design, there is no native Android’s two-tier desktop design, the application is tiled on a desktop. The icons are based on the most basic circle and square, more concise.
To be honest, Lenovo’s ZUI has never received good feedback from critics and users. In the actual experience, ZUI 5.0’s fluency and the feel of the past have been significantly improved, and I also noticed that ZUI 5.0’s interface has made some changes, such as canceling the bottom of the shortcut menu, to become more mainstream Drop-down menu.
In terms of functions, ZUI introduced a new comprehensive screen gesture, U-Touch, in order to solve the problem of full-screen interaction. The operation mode is similar to the existing one. For those who are accustomed to other gestures, getting started with U-Touch requires a certain learning cost, but it is easy to get used to this operation after a short use.
In addition, Lenovo K5 Pro retains some interesting features from the previous version of ZUI. For example, social applications such as WeChat and QQ are dual-app and the data of one app does not affect others and both the apps can run at the same time. This is good for users who have multiple social media accounts.
Thanks to the main audio-visual entertainment, Lenovo K5 Pro has added a game mode. After it is turned on, it can keep the phone in high-performance mode, and automatically clear the background after the game is started, increasing the available memory for the game. Users can also turn off notifications and do not disturb mode, turn off game keypad, and gestures to prevent accidental touches to reduce unnecessary interruptions during gameplay.
Uninterrupted audio and video enjoyment
Lenovo has also got better reviews for audio used in smartphones. The same applies to Lenovo K5 Pro. In order to let users enjoy more realistic sound effects, Lenovo K5 Pro is equipped with two-channel Dirac sound effects. Whether it is external or headphone playback, it can improve the overall sound quality. 24bit quantization precision playback and 192Kb sampling frequency (USB-C digital headphone mode) function can truly restore the sound details so that you can have an immersive sound experience whether you are watching movies or playing games.
Lenovo K5 Pro’s unique inverter power-saving design, official data shows that you can increase battery life by 20%. With a large battery capacity of 4050mAh, it can meet the high-intensity use throughout the day, reaching the extreme operation of audio wireless playback for 60 hours. The official 18W fast charge charger can charge the mobile phone to 50% in half an hour, ensuring that it can be used without heavy pressure.
With the home theater, the bottom magnetic speakers and the top 1000mW high-power 2in1 speaker bless ensures high-quality audio and volume.
In addition to visual and audio improvements, Lenovo K5 Pro has also improved on the battery. Users who often use mobile phones to play games and watch movies know that smartphone batteries are not durable and frequent charging affects the user experience.
Lenovo K5 Pro Camera Review
In terms of cameras, Lenovo K5 Pro adopts the mainstream dual-camera combination, i,e, 16+5 megapixels AI dual camera in the back. The back camera supports a double True 3D blur engine that uses 5th generation multi-frame time-domain 3D noise reduction technology. Low light photography is also clear. The 16 megapixels + 5 megapixels AI dual camera in the front supports 9-level depth of field blur and AI beauty.
Sample Photos Taken By Lenovo K5 Pro Camera
Here are some of the sample photos taken by Lenovo K5 Pro Camera
Look through the sample photos taken by Lenovo K5 Pro. The performance is not bad. The color reproduction is real, the details are reserved. Basically, it meets the needs of daily use. However, the algorithm for HDR is still somewhat biased as there is a noticeable difference between the brightest and darkest parts. Imaging is slower in backlight, night, and portrait modes. However, these problems can be optimized through software upgrades, and there won’t be many problems.
Lenovo K5 Pro Gaming Review
Talking about the Gaming review of Lenovo K5 Pro, it uses the Snapdragon 636 mobile platform.
The Snapdragon 636 mobile platform is Qualcomm’s latest 600 series product, which positions itself in the mid-range segment. From the data point of view, the Snapdragon 636 is built with the advanced 14nm FinFET process. The Kryo 260 architecture is the same as the Snapdragon 660. The highest frequency of the four large cores is 1.8Ghz, and of 4 small cores is 1.6Ghz. The main core frequency is slightly lower than the 2.2GHz of Snapdragon 660. From Geekbench’s running points, we can see that the performance of the Snapdragon 636 mobile platform has increased by 40% compared to the previous generation Snapdragon 630, which has opened a big gap.
In other respects, the Snapdragon 636 is also a solid upgrade. It’s built-in Adreno 509 GPU has about 10% improvement compared to the Adreno 508 of Snapdragon 630. The Spectra 160 ISP and Hexagon 680 DSP have reached the level of Snapdragon 660. The downlink speed of Snapdragon X12 LTE Modem is up to 600Mbps and it supports dual card dual standby dual 4G including 5G WiFi, Bluetooth 5 support. The connectivity options are very good
In the actual experience, the upgrade of the Snapdragon 636 with 6GB of RAM in the daily experience is very obvious. You can open the apps with no delay. Multi-tasking and switching between apps are also quick and smooth. The mainstream mobile game “Players of Unknown Battle Ground (PUBG)” runs in the high frame rate mode and it can maintain a framerate of more than 30fps during the intense battle. Your aim of eating chicken will be easier.
Lenovo K5 Pro Review Summary
Lenovo’s sincerity, starting at 100 USD.
To sum up the review, Lenovo K5 Pro continues the position of its brand “Conscience” and takes the excellent audio and video experience as the entry point and combines the real features of full screen, dual speakers, 6GB storage, front and rear double shooting at just below 150 USD.
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