Lenovo Vibe X
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Lenovo Vibe X 5-inch Smartphone with 5MP Selfie Camera (Hands-on Review)

Lenovo Vibe X
Lenovo Vibe X

Lenovo Vibe X was launched in Malaysia in January 2014. Lenovo Malaysia invited LiewCF to its launch event to experience the company’s latest premium smartphone.

Read on for my hands-on experience of the 5-inch Android smartphone with 5MP selfie camera.

Table of Contents

Slim and Light

Lenovo Vibe X
Lenovo Vibe X

Lenovo Vibe X is 5-inch smartphone but it does not feel bulky. Instead, it is light and thin – 121 gram and 6.9 mm thin. It has laser engraved “fabric-feel” surface on back cover to improves the grip.

Vibe X is only available in silver colour with black front panel. I like the little Chrome touch at the bottom.

Vibe X display is 5-inch Full HD (1920×1080) with 441 PPI – 20/20 Vision Display, according to Lenovo. Meaning, Vibe X display is bright and vibrant, as good as other high-end smartphones in the market.

Lenovo’s Smart User Interface ditches Android apps drawer and show apps in pages – similar to iPhone/iPad.

Some handy features are: share to lock phone, press volume button to power on, swipe up/down anywhere to open panels.

With smart keyboard on, the keyboard will shift side depends on the holding angle. I only got the feature enabled for numeric keypad, though.

Not enough storage

When we talk about “premium smartphone”, we are expecting a smartphone with at least 32GB or even 128GB storage.

Vibe X, Lenovo premium smartphone, has only 16GB storage space with about 10GB usable space. Worse still, it does not support microSD card for memory expansion.

Seriously, Lenovo?

Also, strangely, Asphalt 7 was not playable on the Vibe X demo unit I tried. The space-hungry car racing game return “not enough space”

Performance is disappointing

Vibe X is powered by MediaTek MTK 6589w 1.5GHz Quad-core processor and 2GB RAM. Disappointedly, it only runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, though Android 4.3 and 4.4 are already released in 2013.

Based on past mobile device reviews, I do not have good impression about MediaTek mobile processor.

The Taiwan company’s mobile processors are mostly used in low-cost mobile devices. It is quad-core and run at high frequency but the performance is not up to expectation.

At the launch event, the Lenovo Vibe X demo units’ (not one but all) performance was disappointing. Swiping and scrolling screen were not smooth and lagging. Apps were randomly not responding to touch and crashed unexpectedly.

I hope the demo units were lab testing units. Hopefully, the final product runs smoothly.

5MP Selfie Camera, Unusable Camera App

Lenovo Vibe X for selfie lovers
Lenovo Vibe X for selfie lovers

Vibe X equipped with 13MP rear camera with LED flash and 5MP fixed-focus camera with 84 degree wide angle lens.

Yes, 5MP front camera. High resolution selfie camera is one of the selling point of Lenovo Vibe X.

When front camera is activated, you can choose the level of auto enhancement for faces. The effect is so amazing that I look much handsome with fair and smooth face! It is truly designed for selfie!

The camera app also has dozens of photo effects for rear camera shooting.

Lenovo Vibe X camera app
Lenovo Vibe X camera app makes LiewCF a handsome boy!

However, when front camera is activated, the phone is lagging badly, not responding or the camera app simply crashed! The same problem occurs among the demo units at the event.

Unusable camera app make the high-resolution selfie camera useless.

Vibe X specs

  • Processor: MTK 6589w 1.5GHz Quad-core processor
  • Graphics: PowerVR SGX544 graphics
  • OS: Android 4.2 Jelly Bean
  • Storage: 16GB eMMC (not support microSD)
  • Memory: 2GB RAM
  • Display: 5-inch Full HD (1920×1080 pixels) IPS, 20/20 Vision display (441 ppi)
  • Camera: (rear) 13MP auto focus with LED flash; (front) 5MP fixed-focus
  • Battery: Li-Polymer 2000 mAh (embedded)
  • Size: 144 x 74 x 6.9 (mm)
  • Weight: 121g (0.25 lbs)
  • Price: RM 1,299 (~USD$390)

Lenovo Vibe X gallery

Thoughts

As “premium smartphone”, I think Vibe X should have more storage options or at least support microSD memory card.

Also, Lenovo should not launch an smartphone with outdated Android version 4.2 in 2014. Let’s hope Vibe X will receive Android OS updates soon.

Only if Lenovo fixes the software problems, Lenovo Vibe X would be a good candidate for 5-inch smartphone at only RM 1,300.

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