After launching the Lenovo K6 Power (Review) and Lenovo K6 Note (Review) in December, the company has launched the Lenovo P2 in India in early 2017. The smartphone was launched at IFA last year and has arrived in India four months after its international launch.
Like its previous smartphone Lenovo Vibe P1, the most important feature of the P2 smartphone is its big battery. This time, however, Lenovo is also promoting the design, camera and security features of the phone. Looking at the price of Lenovo P2, it will compete with other popular mid-range smartphones. Will the company’s first smartphone launched in 2017 be able to repeat the success of last year’s successful smartphone? Let’s know in the review.
Lenovo P2 look and design
Lenovo P2 smartphone is a metal body smartphone. And the aluminum material feels good. There is nothing new in this phone when it comes to design but the P2 gives a premium feel overall. There is a lot of free space above and below the display. There is a fingerprint scanner integrated in the physical home button. But there is nothing else on the thick chin of the phone.
Lenovo P2 has been launched in India in Champagne Gold and Graphite Grey colours. Weighing 177 grams, the phone feels a little heavier than other smartphones in this price range. But one reason for this is the bigger battery. Lenovo is touting that the Lenovo P2 is thinner than the previous Lenovo P1 which was 9.9 mm thick and it is 8.3 mm thin. The Lenovo P2 feels heavy during normal use and we found it comfortable to use with two hands, especially while typing.
The volume rocker and power button are placed on the right side of the P2 while the left side has a hybrid SIM tray that supports dual-nano SIM. There is a slider switch on the left side that Lenovo calls ‘Power Saving Key’, which can be used to toggle the Ultimate Power Saver mode. In this mode, you can see a countdown timer that gives you the remaining battery life. The physical buttons and all other buttons work well.
The phone has a micro-USB port along with a speaker grill at the bottom while a 3.5mm audio jack is provided at the top. There is a primary camera with dual-LED flash at the rear and Lenovo’s branding can be seen at the bottom. This smartphone also has a ‘Made in India’ tag. The design of the rear panel of the P2 is quite similar to other Lenovo smartphones.
The 5.5-inch Full HD Super AMOLED display on the Lenovo P2 is excellent. The phone can be used even in sunlight without any problems. Text and images look quite sharp. And the experience of watching media on the phone is great. Viewing angles are good and color reproduction is also good. There is a 2.5D curved glass to protect the display. However, we were disappointed by the lack of scratch protection on the phone and we did see a few scratches during our review process.
In the retail box, the customer will get a screen guard, a cover, a data cable, a 24W power adapter, a SIM ejector and an instruction booklet.
Lenovo P2 specifications and features
Lenovo P2 has a 2 GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 (MSM8953) processor. It has 3 GB or 4 GB of RAM. Both variants have 32 GB of storage.
Several other smartphones have already been launched in India with this processor. These include the Asus Zenfone 3 and the Moto Z Play (Review). Both are priced higher than the P2 smartphone.
The 32GB storage can be expanded up to 128GB via a microSD card. However, the hybrid SIM means that the user will have to choose between a second SIM and a microSD card. There is a 13-megapixel camera on the rear with dual LED flash and Sony sensor. Apart from this, there is a 5-megapixel camera on the front.
Other specifications include Wi-Fi 802.11 ac/a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.1, NFC, FM radio, and GPS/A-GPS. The phone supports 4G as well as VoLTE on both SIM slots. And it can make voice calls via the Jio network.
The Lenovo P2 runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with the company’s Vibe Pure UI on top. In terms of software, the Lenovo P2 is similar to the Lenovo K6 Power (Review) and K6 Note (Review). The P2 features on-screen navigation buttons instead of capacitive buttons. Lenovo told Gadgets 360 that the P2 is Lenovo’s first smartphone to feature on-screen navigation buttons. And it doesn’t have the same problem as the Lenovo K6 Power and K6 Note due to the lack of backlit capacitive buttons.
Lenovo has given a system button option in the settings, which can change the position of the onscreen buttons or hide the navigation bar. When this setting is enabled, the user will have to swipe up from the bottom to show the hidden buttons. The P2 has many software features like Lenovo K6 Power and K6 Note. These also include dual apps, which allow users to login to two different accounts in the same phone. When the phone is off, you can activate the phone by double tapping on the screen. VR mode allows the smartphone to support VR headsets. And wide touch allows one-touch shortcuts through the floating button. Apart from this, when the phone is in standby mode, you can toggle the flashlight by long pressing the home button.
Lenovo P2 has a Security Zone feature but this feature will only work if the Dual App Profile feature is turned off. The Secure Zone feature allows configuring secondary accounts like WhatsApp. Like previous Lenovo handsets, users will get the option of PIN, pattern or fingerprint sensor to lock the phone.
You can perform gestures using the fingerprint sensor on the Lenovo P2. A single tap acts as a back button. And a single click takes you back to the home screen. A long press on the fingerprint scanner launches Google Now.
With the new UI, Lenovo has reduced the bloatware. However, the Lenovo P2 comes preinstalled with a number of third-party apps that can be uninstalled. These include Evernote, McAfee Security, Skype, Truecaller and UC Browser. Apart from this, the phone also has apps like Lenovo Companion, ShareIt and SyncIt.
The notification shade houses a number of settings panels along with notifications. The Theme Center app, which comes preloaded on the P2, has a number of wallpapers, icons, lock screen settings. We found the UI on the P2 to be quite good and good for everyday use.
Lenovo P2 performance
Lenovo P2 smartphone performs quite well when it comes to multitasking and general app performance. With 4GB of RAM, there is enough memory at all times. With a 5.5-inch display, watching videos and viewing photos is a pleasure. We had a good time playing Asphalt 8 on P2 and did not face any frame drops at any time.
It works well on mobile networks all the time and works well at 4G speeds. Talking about the audio, the speakers work fine for a small and empty room but there was some problem at higher volumes. Lenovo has once again disappointed with the bundled earphones. And we would recommend you to use a third-party headset instead of the one that comes in the box.
The phone scored well in benchmarking tests. The 13-megapixel rear camera is fast and easy to focus thanks to phase-detection autofocus. The P2 can click macro shots with detail in low light conditions, but landscape shots are average. The detailing in the photos is decent, but noise can be seen at the edges. The P2 takes great photos in low light. Without any artificial light, the photos look quite blurry. Apart from this, we noticed that the P2 smartphone fails to focus on the subject in low light and this disappointed us. The camera reproduces correct colors, but only in those photos taken in good light.
The camera app on the Lenovo P2 is similar to the one on the K6 Power and K6 Note and is easy to use. The camera can be accessed with just a single tap. The P2 can record full-HD videos in great quality. Selfies taken in good light are decent but the quality deteriorates in the dark. Overall, the camera on the Lenovo P2 works pretty well even though it is not the most distinctive feature of this phone.
The phone packs a 5100mAh non-removable battery that lasted 21 hours and 40 minutes in our video loop test. The Lenovo P2 is said to last up to two days with normal use.
The battery of Lenovo P2 lasted for about two hours even after using music streaming, Google Maps for navigation and YouTube video streaming app. Fast charging support is a useful feature and it charges 30-40 percent battery in just 20 minutes. Along with this, the phone gets fully charged in 90 minutes.
Another highlight of the P2 is its Ultimate Power Saver mode which extends battery life to a great extent. This mode stops features like cellular data connectivity and sync. With this mode active, only basic functions like calls, text messages and radio work but it is quite useful in case of emergency. We got the option of Ultimate Power Saver mode when the phone was down to 20 percent battery and after that the device remained active for about 20 hours.
Our verdict
Lenovo P2 is a great smartphone when it comes to battery performance. Users who like to stay online all the time without worrying about battery drain will love the P2 smartphone. It can also be a good option for people who travel most of the time. Talking about overall performance, P2 can prove to be a good phone for everyday use with its octa-core processor. A phone that has given more importance to battery life, the camera gives good performance and its software is also easy to use.
Lenovo P2 starts at Rs 16,999 for the 3GB RAM and 32GB storage variant. The 4GB RAM variant costs Rs 17,999. The smartphone will be available exclusively on Flipkart from Wednesday night.
The Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime, Asus Zenfone 3 Max and the old Xiaomi Mi 5 smartphone are other phones in the same price range that can compete with it.
#lenovo #review