Lenovo A6000 Review

At the CES 2015, Lenovo announced a new budget smartphone specifically for Indian market with 4G LTE support and the company’s answer to Yu Yureka and the Redmi Note 4G. The phone was announced in India and it went on sale on Jan 28th on Flipkart. Lenovo A6000 comes with 5 inch HD IPS Display (1280 X 720P) and is powered by 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 processor with Adreno 306 GPU.

The phone has 1GB RAM and 8GB internal storage which is expandable via micro SD card. On the imaging front the device sports a 8MP rear camera and 2MP front camera. It supports 4G LTE in India. Here is the detailed review of the device.

Related Reading: Lenovo A6000 Unboxing and First Impressions

Here is the video review of the device, for text version read on.

Design and Build:

The Lenovo A6000 comes with a plastic body which has a fairly good design. The phone has matte finish rear panel and pretty slim (8.2mm) for a budget phone. The rear panel has slightly curved edges on the sides while the top and bottom has flat edges. The rear panel has the 8MP camera with the chrome finishing around it along with the LED flash, the Lenovo branding and the Dolby speakers at the bottom. The power and volume keys are on the right side and 3.5mm audio jack along with micro USB charging slot is on the top. The front panel has the 2MP camera, usual set of sensors (Ambient, Accelerometer and Proximity) and the three capacitive buttons. The touch buttons are not backlit and there is no notification light on the device.

The phone comes with dual SIM card slot and the SIM 1 supports 4G LTE in India and SIM 2 is 2G enabled. There is also micro SD card support. The build quality of the device is very good and you get a premium look with great quality materials. The device also feels pretty light at 128gms. Since it is a 5 inch device, using the device is also easy with one hand.

Display:

Lenovo A6000 sports a 5 inch IPS LCD display with a resolution of 1290 X720P and pixel density of 294PPI. The display is vibrant and the brightness levels are also good. The viewing angles are again good and the colors do not change when you tilt the display. The touch response was slightly disappointing when compared to Yureka and Redmi Note. The sunlight readability was pretty decent. Overall, we were pretty happy with the display on the device considering the price point.

Software and Performance:

The phone runs on Android 4.4.4 KitKat with the company’s custom UI called Vibe UI. The company has already promised that this device would get the Android 5.0 Lollipop update. Although there are lots of similarities between the Vibe UI on Vibe X2 and A6000, the latter has lesser features in comparison. The Vibe UI brings in lot of customized options and looks different from the core Android.

The UI does not come with app drawer and has multiple home screen which you can customize. The notification center has almost all useful quick toggles but they are not customizable.

Unlike the MIUI or the Cyanogen OS which offer themes and customization options, Vibe UI offers only couple of themes and there is no option to download more themes. One of the interesting aspects of the device is that it comes with Dolby support, so if you are a music buff, this should provide great experience. The phone has dual rear speakers and the output is also pretty good. The sound does not shatter even if you listen at full volume.

The phone also comes with few apps from Lenovo which includes Sound Recorder, FM Radio, Portable Hotspot, Security, Syncit and Shareit. The Security app allows users to keep a look on optimizations and other safety aspects of the device.

The device offers 8GB internal storage and out of which 4.5GB is available to user in the first boot. You can also extend the storage via micro SD card. The phone also allows you to install or move apps on the SD card which is a very handy feature. There is no USB OTG support available on the phone.

The Lenovo A6000 runs on 1.2Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 64 bit 410 processor with 1GB RAM. While the overall performance is pretty good, we did face slight lag when switching apps when too many apps are running in the background. At idle, there is around 470MB RAM available. The gaming performance of the device is also fairy good and it can play almost any game. We did notice slight lag when playing Asphalt 8, but it wasn’t considerable to create unpleasant gaming experience.

Related Video: Lenovo A6000 Gaming Review

The phone supports 4G LTE, but we could not test it as our region does not have 4G. The call quality on the phone was good and we didn’t notice any issues with calls.

Camera:

The Lenovo A6000 features a 8MP rear camera with LED flash and a front 2MP camera for selfies and video calls. The camera interface is different from other Lenovo phones and offer almost all features and options you would want on a camera including HDR, Panorama, Face detect, color effects and more. But the interface isn’t really user friendly with options displayed half screen.

For the images taken in daylight, there is good amount of detailing available in the photo. The colors look pretty decent and the overall clarity is pretty good for a budget smartphone. But at times under bright sunlight the color looks a bit washed out. The macro captures have come really good and the detailing is very good.

Its the low light photography where the A6000 camera impressed us the most. The clarity of the photos taken in low light was surprisingly good. Although it did have noise, it was considerably lower than Redmi Note and Yureka (both have 13MP camera). But having said that the disappointing aspect of the camera is the flash. It did add a yellowish tint to the photo and didn’t look good.

Here are some of the samples from the camera.

The phone supports 720p video recording even though the chipset has support for 1080p, this is probably a cost cutting measure from Lenovo. The video sample is also pretty good like the photos.

Battery Life:

Lenovo A6000 comes with a 2300mAh and the battery performance was very good on the device. With moderate usage, which includes couple of hours on call, browsing, social networking, taking few photos, listening to music and causal gaming along with 3G, you can get a day of usage easily. Battery capacity although it is slightly lower than Yureka, the performance is equally good if not better.

Verdict:

Priced at Rs 6999, the Lenovo A6000 makes excellent value for money with its good build, decent display and performance, above average camera and good battery life. But having said, the lack of notification light, no backlit touch button and lack of 1080p recording are some of the cost cuttings by Lenovo. Lenovo A6000 is also the cheapest 4G LTE enabled Android phone available as of now and is excellent value for money. If you can pick from one from the Flipkart flash sales, it is all worth the money.