Lenovo K900 Review: A 13MP Rear Camera with Autofocus

Lenovo as we know is one of the largest personal computer vendors. The Chinese company with its headquarters in Beijing is a multinational which sells laptops, workstations, servers, IT Management services, electronic storage devices and smart phones. Although the company has recently ventured in to the smart phone segment, it has created a big name for itself in the Chinese smart phone market.

K 800 was one of the most talked about smart phones that Lenovo launched. The phone used android ginger bread and had an 8 mega pixel camera. Lenovo gained a huge market share due to the success of K 800. The only limitation was that the phone was not launched in the US.

Lenovo has consciously decided to leverage the home market rather than venturing into the west. Recently Lenovo announced the successor of the famous K800. The Lenovo K900 was released amidst a lot of anticipation. Using the very popular basketball player Kobe Bryant as a brand ambassador Lenovo has very aggressively started marketing its new high end smart phone, the Lenovo K900.

The Appeal:

There are big phones and then there are designer big phones. Lenovo K900 is a very well designed big smart phone. Although it is huge with the dimensions 157 x 78 x 6.9 mm (6.18 x 3.07 x 0.27 in), it does not look awkward. You obviously cannot try to operate it with one hand alone. The phone looks delicately built and meticulously put together. When compared to other long, large phones this one looks classy and beautiful. It has auni-body with clean lines.

The thickness of the phone is just 6.9 mm which makes it the slimmest phone in its category. The biggest appeal factor is its sleekness and weight at 162 grams. It has a premium aluminum finish which is attractive.

The Display:

The 5.5 inch screen is quite big compared to other similar phones. The K900 has a sharp IPS LCD display tucked inside beautiful black bezels. The smart phone boasts of a capacitive touchscreen which can display 16M colors. The screen has a resolution of 1080 x 1920 pixels, which packs a whopping 401 ppi pixel density.

It is a big screen which does justice to the quality of images and text displayed. With a high pixel density the display is sharp and clear. The screen is protected by corning Gorilla glass 2.

The Engine:

At first glance it seems that the K 900 is all about the hardware and looks but it also has pretty solid software. It is an android phone with the version 4.2, Jelly Beans installed. Lenovo uses its own UI called Le Phone. The UI is neat and blends well with the android apps.

There are special short cut buttons that open up five buttons for easy access to the settings. K 900 uses an Intel Atom Z2580 chip set with a Dual-core 2 GHz. There is hardly any lag and the functions process smoothly.

The Camera:

One of the biggest high points of Lenovo K900 is its camera. The smart phone boasts of a 13 Mega pixel primary camera. This probably is the best camera in any phablet with similar features. Needless to say that the images captured are great. It captures pictures with a resolution of 4128 x 3096 pixels and 13 megapixels.

It takes very sharp pictures in the day time. Even in the dim light the K 900 captures good pictures. The low-light settings do a really great job. The pictures are sharper and less noisy in the dark as compared to quite a few other smart phone cameras. Lenovo K900 is the first smart phone to use anf1.8 lens. The credit goes to this large aperture for picture clarity especially in the dark.

The K900’s lens allows it to take clear photos in low-light conditions without using a flash. The primary camera is also adorned with a LED flash. This 13 MP, autofocus camera knows how to deliver. This is not the end of it. The K 900 is also good in the video mode. The videos are life like and are without noise. The audio captured might not be great but it does justice. Not stopping only at the primary camera, the K 900 also has a 2 mega pixel front or secondary camera.

Lenovo has not spared details here as well. The front camera has a wide 88-degree viewing angle in order to make self-photos and video chat more convenient and clear. It is without any doubt that the K900’s camera is one of its distinctive features.

The Storage:

Lenovo K 900 comes with a 16 GB in built memory. Most of the phone variants also have a micro SD card for expanding the memory to 32 GB. The phone has a 2 GB Ram which makes the processing easier and smooth. The memory is quite enough with an option to further expand it.

The Features:

The phone has some good features like the PowerVR SGX544 GPU or Graphic processing unit. It makes the images process faster and with sharpness. It also has inbuilt sensors like the accelerometer, proximity and compass. Other features include the host of MMS, Push Mail, SMS options like the SMS (threaded view), stereo FM radio, Email, IM and RSS.

It supports A-GPS as well as the HTML 5 browser. The audio is also pretty decent with features like Active noise which arrests noise with the help of its dedicated mic. The audio of videos recorded are good.

The Battery

To retain the slimness of the phone Lenovo has gone ahead with a non removable battery. The battery is nothing to rave about but with minimum usage it will take you through the day. The K 900 uses lithium, Li-Ion2500 mAh battery. It would have been better to have a stronger battery because the big screen, Lenovo UI and android apps eat up quite a lot of power.

Lenovo K900 is probably one of the best phones in this category and It borderlines between a smart phone and a tablet. Lenovo is concentrating on the China and Asian market only. K 900 will only be available only in China, Russia, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines. The US and UK launch might not happen.