Great looks, solid performance and an attractive price tag are what make the Lenovo ZUK Z1 the most sought after budget smartphone in the handset market at the moment.
This phone comes from the newly-added Lenovo sub-brand ZUK and it is actually the first under this brand. The phone is powered by Android OS and has the popular Cyanogen OS on top of the stock OS.
As of now, you can get a brand new Lenovo ZUK Z1 for a price tag of just $295.99, but you will be surprised with the spec combination aboard this phone. To bring out more details of the ZUK Z1 to you, here’s a closer look at the design, display, specs and features of this budget phone.
Design and display
If you are familiar with Lenovo smartphones, the ZUK Z1 won’t look strange to you. Just like the Vibe S1, the Lenovo ZUK Z1 comes with a chamfered aluminum frame and a curved rare. However, you will find more real estate on the latter than the former and it has its fingerprint embedded in the home button. The ZUK Z1 comes with support for USB Type-C connectivity for both data transfer and charging.
As for the display, Lenovo ZUK Z1 went for a huge 5.5-inch Full HD panel that gives a resolution of 1080p. The panel used gives bright displays and rich color reproduction, making it a cool device to watch videos and view photos. The screen also allows for its temperate to be adjusted and it also comes with Night Mode, something similar to Apple’s Night Shift.
In short, the ZUK Z1 has a display unit that allows for great views regardless of the time of the day.
Software and performance
Lenovo ZUK Z1 is an Android device and as usual with such devices, OEMs come in with their software that runs on top of the stock Android OS. In Lenovo’s case is the Cyanogen 12.1 OS and it is based on Android 5.1 Lollipop. With this skin, users can easily customize their Android experience without unnecessarily cluttering the interface, be it applying new themes, adjusting icons or even changing the app drawer layout.
It gets even better with the ZUK Z1 as it allows users to disable the physical navigation buttons’ functionality and instead switch to using onscreen keys for navigation. This allows users to add more options, something that is impossible with the physical setup. The software runs smoothly thanks to the decent spec combination onboard the phone.
Speaking of specs, the Lenovo ZUK Z1 packs 2014’s flagship chipset – Snapdragon 801 SoC – and is supported by a RAM of 3GB. With this combination, be sure of easily going through gaming and other intensive multitasking sessions without any problems. You get dual SIM support with each of the two supporting 4G connectivity. Since there is no expandable storage, Lenovo went for a decent 64GB memory chip, giving users enough room to store their files. You will struggle to find a phone in this price category offering such a massive onboard storage.
It gets even better for the ZUK Z1 thanks to the fact that the handset has a huge 4100mAh battery to keep the huge 5.5-inch panel alive for over a day on a single charge.
Camera and conclusion
On the rear of the Lenovo ZUK Z1 is a 13MP snapper that offers the most basic features such as dual-LED flash and autofocus. The front has a decent 8MP selfie camera that will deliver when it comes to group selfies as well as video calls.
As pointed out earlier, the ZUK Z1 is priced below $300. This is a cool device for such a price range as it comes in with great looks, promises solid performance and has an excellent battery life. It gets even better when it comes to the display size on offer as well as the camera specs, especially when looking at devices in the same price category.