Lenovo Phab 2 Plus Review in Hindi, Lenovo Phab 2 Plus Review
This year, Lenovo Phab 2 Plus, Phab 2 and Phab 2 Pro were launched at the company’s Tech World event. Only the Fab Plus variant has been launched in India so far and it is an upgraded variant of the Fab Plus. The biggest feature of this phone is the dual rear camera setup given in this phone. Priced at Rs 14,999, the Lenovo Phab 2 Plus smartphone will compete with Xiaomi’s Mi Max (Review). Mi Max is the only smartphone in this segment with a similar feature.
But the Mi Max smartphone is out of stock almost everywhere. So has Lenovo introduced an alternative for this smartphone? Let us know in the review.
Lenovo Phab 2 Plus design and build
This Lenovo phone is made of metal unibody and has curved Gorilla Glass on the front. The Phab 2 Plus is a big smartphone. Lenovo has tried its best to reduce its size by giving thin bezels and due to this there is no empty space below and above the display. But still, both hands are required to use the phone. The phone has a one-handed mode but the numeric PIN keypad and dialpad on the lockscreen can be shifted for better accessibility. But the entire screen does not shrink.
The phone has a 6.4 inch Full HD IPS panel and the screen density is 344 PPI. Text on the display looks sharp and icons appear clear around all four edges. Color reproduction is very good and the Lenovo Phab 2 Plus can be read clearly even in sunlight. However, sometimes the ambient light sensor works quite slowly. Touch response is also low at times.
The Phab 2 Plus has backlit capacitive navigation buttons at the bottom while there is a notification LED at the top. There is a hybrid SIM tray on the left side, that is, you will get support for two SIM cards or one SIM card and a microSD card. The volume and power buttons are easily accessible and are placed on the right side. A mono speaker is provided at the bottom along with a micro-USB port while there is a headphone jack at the top.
The rear of Lenovo Phab 2 Plus is slightly curved so that it easily fits in the palm. There is a dual camera and fingerprint sensor on the rear. The fingerprint sensor works well and unlocks the phone quickly. We never had any problem with fingerprints. However, it can be used only to unlock the phone and not to unlock apps and folders. The Phab 2 Plus comes with a 10-watt charger, data cable, SIM ejector, instruction manual and JBL earphones. The quality of the included accessories is good, however, we found the length of the included cable to be short.
The design of Lenovo Phab 2 Plus is fantastic. The design is a bit common but what is strange is its size and weight. It is quite inconvenient to carry the weight of 218 grams in your pocket every day. Due to the size of the phone, it seems a bit difficult to use. But if you keep the phone in a handbag or backpack then this is not a problem. But keeping the Phab 2 Plus in a trouser pocket seems to be a problem almost all the time.
Lenovo Phab 2 Plus Specifications and Features
Talking about the specifications, the Fab 2 Plus has everything that is expected from a smartphone in this segment. This phone has an octa-core MediaTek processor (MT8783), 3 GB RAM and 32 GB storage. It is worth noting that this is not a very well-known processor. And apart from this, due to eight ARM Cortex-A53 and 28nm fabrication process, it is not much different from other MediaTek chips.
The remaining specifications of the phone include Bluetooth 4.0, dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, FM radio, GPS and USB OTG. Apart from supporting 4G for all Indian bands, the phone is also equipped with VoLTE. Android Marshmallow based custom interface has been given in the phone.
The Settings app has a Smart Assist feature that provides controls like one-handed mode and auto answering calls. Smart Shortcuts provides a floating menu from which to add app shortcuts. Apps like McAfee Security, Netflix and Swiftkey come pre-loaded in this Lenovo phone. Apart from this, like Lenovo laptops, there are also apps like ShareKit, SyncIt which provide different cloud services at one place.
lenovo phab 2 plus performance
General performance is good given the near-stock Android version, but as soon as you start switching apps, using the AR feature of the camera, or anything CPU-related, the performance starts to deteriorate. We noticed problems with the shutter while using the camera and multitasking. Apart from this, Lenovo Phab 2 Plus starts heating up during video playback, using camera or talking for a long time. This warmth can be felt on the edges near the buttons and headphone jack and on the rear.
The situation becomes clearer from the benchmark. Due to weak graphics performance in the phone, Full HD gaming experience is not good. Overall, this processor is weaker than the Snapdragon 620 offered in smartphones of this price. A better processor was to be given in Lenovo Phab 2 Plus.
Lenovo is touting the Dolby Atmos audio in the phone as the biggest feature of this smartphone. Through one app, the sound profile can be customized to suit different types of media in the phone. Atmos is 360-degree sound that isn’t possible with a single speaker. However, the speaker of this phone is much louder than smartphones with single speaker and the sound for games and other media is much better. The audio of the JBL earphones that comes with it is not very good. Videos play well in Fab 2 Plus and it can also play 1080 pixel videos easily.
Lenovo Phab 2 Plus has a 13-megapixel camera sensor that comes with laser auto focus and phase detection auto focus. The secondary camera is used for depth but we did not feel that it made any difference to the quality of the photos. We tried to take clean and clear pictures with the help of both the lenses but we did not see any difference. We would recommend you to use HDR mode for landscape photos in daylight. And without it the photos look quite dull. Photos from Phab 2 Plus provide good detailing in distant objects but macro shots were much better.
The camera focuses quickly and the autofocus works quickly with video too. We did like the tap-to-focus feature, though. Once the phone starts heating up, the focus speed reduces and the app starts glitching.
Focus manipulation doesn’t work well. It also has an AR mode that lets you add cats, dogs, and other virtual elements to a photo. However, this feature is not new and Sony has been offering it in its Xperia smartphones for years.
A maximum video recording of 100 pixels can be done from the phone. But the Phab 2 Plus also has the option of HDR recording. We tested it on an HDRTV and noticed that there was a slight difference, and a noticeable one. Video is recorded with Dolby 5.1 audio by default. Due to three microphones, the recorded sound is crisp. The front 8 megapixel takes good selfies in daylight but cannot take very good pictures in artificial light, while the front flash also helps a lot.
The phone’s battery lasted 6 hours and 19 minutes in our HD video loop test. Our review unit lasted only 13 hours under normal usage. However, when we reset the device and tested again, we got up to 8 hours of video playback and around 16-18 hours of normal usage. The 4050 mAh battery provides average battery life. We noticed that the battery capacity remains good when the phone is not used at night but it starts decreasing rapidly while using the camera or playing games. The battery comes with fast charging but it takes more than 2 hours to charge the phone with a 10 watt charger.
our decision
The Phab 2 Plus is a good phone, it has a big screen for great media viewing. But in our view, due to some poor choice, this phone becomes a little different from Xiaomi’s Mi Max smartphone.
The design, display, software and audio quality of the phone are good. There doesn’t seem to be a need for a dual camera setup and other features also don’t seem very good. But the pictures taken from the camera are not too bad, especially the macro shots. Apart from this, we also liked HDR video recording in the phone. But a phone like this should have a good processor and Lenovo has given a weak processor for augmented reality apps, graphics games and multitasking. The Fab 2 Plus heats up very quickly which is quite strange. We expected long battery life in the phone but in our test the battery life was average.
Our advice is that only those users who consume a lot of data should buy this heavy phone. Otherwise, Xiaomi Mi Max is a better option due to its thinness and excellent battery life. If you don’t want a big screen and just need a good all-rounder phone, the Moto G4 Plus (Review) and Lenovo ZUK Z1 (Review) are better options in this segment.
