Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro Hands-on, Initial Impressions and Photo Gallery

Samsung’s Galaxy Note series always has large screens and thus have been a choice for those who didn’t want to limit their choice to a 5-inch device. There have been some good competitors to the Note series, like the Z Ultra from Sony, and devices like Desire 816 from HTC. But one such recent smartphone that could be a real tough warrior against all is the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro, which comes in with great specs and an aggressive pricing.

The Vibe Z2 Pro is a beast of a device with the size, having a 6-inch display and it looks larger because of the thickness. But it does look premium, from every angle. But at the same time, the sides around the display are not very wide, thus keeping it compact for that size of a display. Very thin bezels and whatever space below and above the display, has been used for the functions. The brushed metallic surface on the back is a simple beauty, and it doesn’t only look good, but also has a good feel when you gently move your fingers over that surface.

The metallic buttons on the side give a good tactile response, and the power/lock button is on the right, just below the SIM card slot, while the volume rocker button is on the left frame. The SIM tray can be pulled out, with two slots for MicroSIM cards. On the back, the sharp edge from the end of display (well, almost because the bezels are almost shaved off entirely) narrows down a bit but it doesn’t present itself as a curve, to give the users a grip to hold on.

This is a unibody design, but the curvy border in the bottom demarcating the back panel from the bottom tray, makes it look very neat. The speaker grill is located in the bottom.

On the back, Lenovo has placed a unique section for the camera, with a plate fitted with some stylish screwing on the corners. The camera pops out due to the large 16-megapixel lens, and there’s a Dual LED flash just beside to it. The camera bump on the back is the only issue, as the device seems to rock on a flat surface, oddly because the camera is towards one of corners.

The Vibe UI always had looked interesting, right from the lock screen, which in the Z2 Pro has to be pulled up in order to unlock the screen. As always, there is no app drawer and the apps are directly seen on the multiple home screens. But the UI doesn’t limit the usage of widgets alongside the app icons, thus making it look all good except for the cluttered home screen structures.

The Vibe Z2 Pro runs the Android 4.4.2 KitKat, and this device is for sure in the list of ones that are going to receive the Lollipop OS update in the near future, so expect much more interesting stuff in the Vibe UI. The content is shown brilliantly on the 1440p display of the Z2 Pro, and this being an LCD display, the brightness is good and the viewing angles too are decent.

On the initial couple days of usage, the battery lasted through the first day easily, and went on till the end of second day where we used the camera for about 120 captures, browsed the web on Wi-Fi for an hour and data network was turned on with no much usage, for an entire day. The 4000 mAh battery does last quite long, but we’d do some testing before concluding in the review.

What we are blown away, is with the camera quality. It indeed is great, especially when you have low light around, and are trying to focus on a particular light source. It takes a second or two, to rightly focus but it is all near perfect in the end. There’s a professional camera setup as well, in the same camera app. It shows you all the live information of the picture, i.e. ISO, aperture, etc. and this is beneficial for those who have a good knowledge about it, and wanted to do much more than just a tap on shutter button.

For the first looks, the compact-for-the-screen, but still a large Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro is an impressive phablet and worth all the money, but the only issue we see is the camera bump on the back that gives it some uncharacteristic rocking when placed on a flat surface. Does it fit into the pocket easily? it does, thanks to the size that doesn’t make it look like a 6-inch device at all. A perfect Galaxy Note 4 competitor there?