There are many better phones available today under Rs 10,000. And Lenovo wants to maintain its hold on budget smartphones. In this way, we can say that K5 Plus is an update of the popular phone K3 Note (Review) which has been introduced with premium looks at a lower price. Is this Lenovo phone worth buying? Know the advantages and disadvantages of the smartphone in our review.
Look and design
Vibe K5 Plus may be priced low but its look is great. We got the silver colour variant for review but this phone is also available in gold and grey colour variants. There is a camera and sensor window at the top of the phone’s display and capacitive navigation buttons at the bottom. But the phone’s capacitive buttons are not backlit, which can cause problems in the dark. There is no extra space on the sides of the screen, which makes it easy to use the phone with one hand.
The sides and rear of the phone are made of one piece which makes it a bit difficult to remove the rear cover. The phone seems to have metal in the middle with plastic on the top and bottom but the rear is completely plastic with a thin metal layer on top.
There is a camera in one corner on the rear with a single LED flash. The most prominent feature at the bottom are two speaker grills and the Dolby logo. Generally, stereo speakers are rarely provided in budget phones. There is a 3.5mm audio socket and micro-USB port on the top of the smartphone and power and volume buttons on the right side.
The battery of the phone is removable. On removing the battery, you can see two micro-SIM slots and a separate microSD card slot. On purchasing the phone, you will get a 1.5A charger, USB cable and screen protector. Lenovo does not provide any headset with the phone.
Specifications and software
Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus has a mid-range Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 processor. The phone has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Vibe K5 Plus comes with LTE support. The battery capacity is 2750mAh and it has all the standard connectivity features like Bluetooth 4.1, Wi-Fi b/g/n, AGPS and USB-OTG.
The phone has a 5-inch display with a resolution of 1080×1920. This display is good for a phone of this price. The phone supports Lenovo’s VR headset to give a great experience. The rear camera is 13 megapixels while the front camera is 5 megapixels. 1080 pixel video recording can be done from the phone. Dolby audio enhancement is also available.
But the phone does not have features like fingerprint sensor and eye ammeter, whereas other phones at low price come with these special features. It seems that Lenovo has considered the metal body given in this phone as the speciality of the phone.
Lenovo has decided not to pass on all the benefits of the new Vibe UI that was introduced in the premium Vibe X3 this year to budget smartphone buyers. The phone does not have an app drawer as well as the option to switch between them. The phone is based on Android 5.1.1.
The phone has Lenovo Companion app through which you can check software updates and basic performance sub-system tests. It can also be used to transfer files and backup data just like apps like ShareIt and SyncIt. You will get six types of themes and many types of wallpapers in the theme center but you will not get stock Android. Apart from this, many apps including Game Store, Twitter, Skype, WeChat, UC Browser, Flipkart, Myntra, Evernote and Truecaller will be pre-installed but all these can also be removed as per the need.
Performance
We found the Vibe K5 Plus to be a good phone all around. The screen is sharp and bright, although colours seem a little pale. The audio on the phone is loud and clear. The twin speakers on the phone deliver great sound. The Dolby Atmos control makes the smartphone feel different from other phones, but it only works in supported apps. Our biggest complaint about this phone is that the back of the phone gets very hot during light use, such as streaming YouTube videos.
In the benchmark test, this phone gave us similar results as other budget smartphones. However, the Vibe K5 Plus scored lower in the benchmark test than the K3 Note.
The quality of the pictures taken from the phone’s camera was decent. The phone’s camera gives good closeup shots. Focus is a big problem in the phone’s camera in all kinds of light. Every time while taking a picture, we had to hold the phone tightly or else the result could be bad. However, all these problems come to the fore only when you zoom the pictures to full size. You will also get a number of filter options in the camera. The video recorded at 1080 pixels is good but the phone gets very hot even during recording. Apart from this, we also found the limited duration of 30 minutes for recording videos in the phone to be unfair.
The battery of Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus smartphone lasts for a day with normal use. In our video loop test, the battery of the phone lasted for 6 hours and 46 minutes which is quite below average. The battery of the phone also charges very slowly.
Our verdict
It seems that Lenovo has better phones at the moment. Launched at a lower price, with better features and looks, this phone could have been as popular as Lenovo K3 Note, but we have a lot of complaints about the phone’s weak battery and overheating problem.
In terms of performance, the Vibe K5 Plus competes with the more expensive Honor 5X (Review) and the Lenovo phone also competes with the similarly priced Carbon Quattro L50 HD. However, you might be happier buying the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 (Review) for a slightly higher price.
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