The large-display phone fever has gone down with many phone makers, but Lenovo seems to be the one big phone company to double down on it. With the Lenovo PHAB Plus, Lenovo proposes a huge 6.8” 1080p IPS display, which makes it one of the largest phone on the market.
Inside, this device is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 (MSM8939) processor, which is anOctoo-core (4xA53 1.7GHz + 4xA53 1.0 GHz) 64-bit chip. It comes with an Adreno 405 graphics processor which is capable of handling the most advanced OpenGL ES graphics today. The chip has 2GB of RAM for apps, and 32GB of internal storage to store data (and a Micro SD slot for an additional 64GB). It has a 13 Megapixel camera in the back, and a more modest 5 Megapixel one for selfies.
Of course, the Lenovo PHAB Plus features LTE, and it also has a Dual SIM capability, which has proven to be popular in many countries. It runs on Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and I think that Lenovo no longer customizes the user interface, but does pre-load some apps. The battery capacity is 3500 mAh, which is nice, although not completely out of this world for a behemoth like this.
It is just about certain that this will be a great device to what HD movies, so Lenovo has decided to license the Dolby Atmos technology, which improves the audio rendering on any headphones. We have tested their demo, and it is quite impressive – if you can find titles that use it in a commercial app store. It’s coming, but slowly.
There’s also a Lenovo PHAB
Surprisingly, the Lenovo PHAB isn’t the smaller version. It is slightly bigger at 7” (only 1280×720), has a bigger 4250 mAh battery capacity, comes with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage (+64GB of optional Micro SD).
Just like its cousin the PHAB Plus, it has a 13 Megapixel and 5 Megapixel camera combo, but it comes with a 3-microphone arrays that can be used for all kinds of sound processing (most phones come with 2). This means that it could be used as an efficient conference call device that work with multiple people in the room.
This phone is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410, which is at the low-end of the Snapdragon family. That said, the PHAB should still remain a very decent multimedia device that plays 720p videos on its large screen. To that end, it is also equipped with Dolby Atmos technology.
Both devices are relatively thin and light (0.3” & 0.35” and 222g & 249g), and Lenovo has done a good job with the design, which is clean and modern. The pricing is pretty good too: at $299 and $179, these “phablets” are priced competitively for customers who want high “multimedia” capabilities at an affordable price.
Unfortunately for U.S customers, it won’t be available through official channels, but keep an eye on retailers. For now South East Asia, Russia, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and a few Eastern European countries will be served first.