Lenovo P780

Lenovo P780 comes as a solution for the biggest problem in the smartphone era - Battery Life! The highlight of the device is its outstanding battery life. Well, the solution for the big problem with a Big battery does add some small problems- the weight and thickness of Lenovo P780 will not impress anyone. It is a solid build mid-range device with dual sim support and considering its price level, its display and performance is great but design and camera gives only a satisfactory impression.

BUILD / DESIGN

With simple design, its not a big looker- But a solidly build device. The Lenovo P780 is built using a mix of materials- metal, chrome and plastic. The device is a little bulky and kind of heavy(176g) due to its -out of the world- big battery!

The front of the Lenovo P780 is dominated by its 5-inch IPS display.Above the display, we have the Lenovo logo along with the earpiece, front camera and the sensor array. Below the display is the usual capacitive touch keys- home, back and settings.  Lenovo P780 comes with dimensions 143 x 73 x 9.95 mm and a Deep Black colour.

The back of the Lenovo P780 is partially made of plastic with matte finish and sports a removable metal cover. The back of the smartphone houses the 8 megapixel camera with LED flash and a microphone pinhole for noise cancellation and the speaker at the bottom right corner, which play clear and sufficiently loud sounds easily. The phone provides enough grip to hold, but the back metal-panel is a fingerprint magnet. The back panel can be opened to see the gigantic non-removable battery and to access the two SIM cards and a microSD card slots.

Theres only the volume rocker on right panel and nothing on the left side. But the top is crowded with the power/lock button, microUSB slot and a 3.5mm audio jack. One can use pen drive directly in this phone without a computer and quite surprisingly, you can even charge another phone using this one through the provided cable(cable must be purchased separately).

DISPLAY

Lenovo P780 sports a 5-inch IPS 720HD LCD display with 294ppi pixel density. The display quality is above average, with crisp and sharp look and good colour reproduction- for a 720p display.

Its one of the best mid-range smartphone screens out there. But the viewing angles are just average, as colors seemed to be washed out when tilted. The screen is really reflective and hence, leading to poor sunlight legibility. It is prone to scratches as there is no screen protection.

SOFTWARE / INTERFACE

The Lenovo P780 runs on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean heavily skinned with Lenovo’s own UI. Once the device is unlocked, the UI comes into play. It may not appeal to all but Lenovo has done a good job with it. It features switchable themes also offers things like app drawer animations, an updated notification bar, and quick access to frequent settings.

The Lenovo P780 offers a lot of customisation options. Lenovo has given a great focus on battery saving. There are different modes and CPU optimizations which offers a lot of stuff for battery saving. The Lenovo P780s software also includes support for themes and offers six preloaded themes which changes not just the homescreen but actually transform the whole UI.

In addition to all these, Lenovo P780 comes with a lot of preloaded apps. It includes Kingsoft office, Camcard, Camscanner and Evernote, etc. for a business touch. For gamers its loaded with games such as Block breaker and Asphalt GT, besides- Gameloft live app, which offers more games. There is also a compass, an email setup and a ‘Route 66 maps and navigation app on board for regular travelers. Also the music player, voice recorder and FM radio on board adds a nice touch. 

                         

CAMERA

Lenovo P780 got a 8MP eye on the back and a 1.2Mp one on the front. The rear camera on the Lenovo P780 has great color rendering and focus. It takes good quality pictures in daylight or under sufficient light. But, the dynamic range and level of details are rather limited and the noise levels are high. The rear camera records 1080p videos at 30fps while the front camera can record only 480p VGA videos.

Lenovo P780 sports its own camera app called the SuperCamera. Though it is not much different from the stock Android 4.2 app, its pretty extensive with Camera setup, customizations, different camera modes and photo gallary.

BATTERY

The big highlight of the device is the 4,000mAh battery which is about double the size of the average Android smartphone battery. Most users should get at least 2 full days of battery life with an average usage of the phone and thats something; considering most smartphones don’t even manage a day. It is possible to stretch it to 4 days with a little bit of battery management, using the power management tools. The battery is non-removable and its the reason for the weight and thickness of the device.

MEMORY

The phone comes in 4GB/8GB variants. Out of the 4GB, 2.14GB is allocated for app installation and the user memory is 1.56GB. It has a 1GB RAM. The internal storage should not be a problem as the memory is expandable with a microSD card, but only upto 32GB. 

PERFORMANCE

The Lenovo P780 is powered by the quad-core 1.2GHz (Cortex-A7) MediaTek MT6589 processor with the PowerVR SGX544MP GPU and 1GB of RAM. The Lenovo P780 is an average performer. Navigation through the interface is smooth, and there isnt any lag while launching apps, playing games, scrolling web pages or switching between apps. Overall its performance is satisfactory.

SPECIFICATIONS

Processor

MTK 6589 1.2 GHz Quad Core

Operating System

Android 4.2 Jelly Bean

Display

5.0" IPS

Resolution

1280 x 720

Navigation

5-point capacitive touch

Graphics

PowerVR SGX544

Memory

1GB RAM

Storage

4GB (eMMC)

Battery

4000mAh Lithium Polymer

Up to 25 hours 3G and 43 hours 2G talktime

Up to 35 days active standby

Dimensions (WxDxH)

143 x 73 x 9.95 mm

Weight

176g

Audio

1 speaker plus 3.5mm mic/headphone combo jack

Camera

Front: 720p fixed-focus

Rear: 8M auto-focus with LED flash

Ports/Slots

1 Micro-USB v2.0 with USB-OTG

Dual SIM slots

MicroSD up to 32GB

Sensors

A-GPS

Gravitation

Ambient light sensor

Proximity sensor

WLAN

802.11 a/b/g/n with hotspot capability

Bluetooth® 3.0

Band Coverage

GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz

UMTS 900/2100 MHz

FM receiver

SAR Value

0.972 (Head)

RATING : 7.5