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Lenovo Ideaphone S920 smartphone review

Lenovo Ideaphone S920

All Lenovo smartphones are divided between four lines - "A", "Ideaphone A", "Ideaphone P" and "Ideaphone S". The hero of this review model Lenovo Ideaphone S920 is the flagship model of the S-series, which is positioned as multimedia. What multimedia capabilities the device offers, this review will help you figure it out.

Equipment

The Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone is delivered in a small white cardboard box, which has a rather attractive and unusual ornament, which some types of gift wrapping usually have. The smartphone itself is drawn on the front side of the box, and its detailed technical characteristics are written on the back. In addition to the smartphone itself, the package box contains a power adapter (1A), a USB-microUSB cable, a headset with vacuum-type ear pads and a flat wire, a set of two pairs of ear pads of different sizes and a standard set of accompanying documentation. There is no OTG cable in the package, unlike the flagship model of the P-series - the Lenovo IdeaPhone P780 smartphone.

Appearance and ergonomics

The body of the Lenovo Ideaphone S920 smartphone is completely made of plastic with a glossy finish. The S920 is available in three colors - white, blue and gray. The body of the smartphone is assembled well, there are no backlashes, the cover of the battery pack fits snugly to the body of the phone. With a strong squeezing of the case, creaks are heard, and the backlash between the back panel and the case of the smartphone could be less. The color of the plastic used for the main body and the battery cover are slightly different.

Most of the front panel of the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone is a 5.3-inch touchscreen display, covered with a protective tempered glass. Also, the tempered glass protects the display bezels from scratches, which are made of black plastic regardless of the color. The edges of the tempered glass are protected from chips and other damages by a thin plastic edging of silver color, which rises slightly above its surface. Rising above the surface of the glass, the edging additionally protects it from the appearance of abrasions and small scratches on its surface when the smartphone lies with the display down.

The display houses the main camera lens, light sensor and proximity sensor, as well as the manufacturer's logo and a slot for the communication speaker, covered with a metal mesh. A microphone hole is located under the screen, as well as three touch buttons - "Menu", "Back" and "Home". A long press of the Menu button brings up a list of recently launched applications, and the Home button brings up the Google Now service.

The MicroUSB connector, located on the upper side edge, is covered with a rubber cap, which, unfortunately, does not fit very tightly, and therefore has a little backlash. In order to access the MicroUSB port, it is enough to lightly pry the plug with your fingernail. Also on the upper side edge are the power / lock button and standard audio output (3.5 mm). On the right side edge there are only a coupled volume control button and a slot that makes it easy to remove the battery cover. The left side face is empty.

The location of the power button on the upper side edge of a smartphone with a 5.3-inch display significantly impairs ergonomics, since in order to "wake up" the smartphone, the user each time needs to either change the grip (when operating the smartphone with one hand), or use the other hand. It is also worth noting the not the best implementation of mechanical buttons - they are relatively thin, have a rather "sluggish" pressing, almost do not protrude above the surface of the side faces, which makes it difficult to find them "blindly".

In the upper part of the rear panel of Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 there is a noise-canceling microphone that records stereo sound during video recording, a single LED flash and protruding above the surface of the rear panel, like in the HTC One X model, the main camera module. The plastic in the area where the module protrudes slightly is painted gray. In the middle of the back panel is the manufacturer's logo. In the lower left corner of the back panel there is a small slot covered with a metal mesh, under which the multimedia speaker of the Lenovo Ideaphone S920 smartphone is hidden.

By removing the battery cover, the user gains access to a removable battery with a capacity of 2250 mAh, two slots for installing SIM cards and a slot for installing a microSD memory card. You can replace the memory card without removing the battery, and to replace the SIM cards you will have to turn off the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone and remove the battery.

Display

The Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone is equipped with a 5.3-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (HD). The pixel density is 277 ppi. The matrix of the screen is made using IPS technology, which provides it with natural color reproduction, the largest viewing angles and good sensitivity. The display backlight brightness can be set between 44 cd / m2 and 456 cd / m2. The minimum brightness is significantly overestimated, which is why it is uncomfortable to work with a smartphone in complete darkness, as the eyes get very tired. The maximum backlight brightness is high, which prevents the screen from fading, even when operating in bright sunlight or bright ambient light. 50% brightness corresponds to 228 cd / m2 backlight. A good oleophobic coating is applied to the protective tempered glass, which allows you to easily erase a few fingerprints from dirt that may remain on the surface of the protective glass.

The display matrix has a good factory calibration. The color gamut is slightly wider than the reference sRGB color gamut, which is typical for most IPS matrices. The color temperature is a reference 6500 Kelvin over most of the spectrum, and only dark tones have colder hues than they should ideally be. The color gamut is also nearly perfect, making the contrast between light and dark areas as accurate as possible.

The only drawback, which can be noticed only in sunny weather and only on the “dim” screen, is the “stripes” of the touch layer, which recognizes up to ten simultaneous touches. This disadvantage is purely aesthetic and does not affect the functionality of the device in any way.

Operating system and software

The Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone runs on the Android 4.2.1 operating system with the Lenovo Launcher custom shell.

The user gets up to nine desktops, the number of which can be adjusted and the menu of installed applications, divided into two parts - "Applications" and "Widgets". The cover Lenovo Launcher offers the user advanced options for customizing the device interface. In particular, the user can independently customize the appearance of application icons, wallpapers of the desktop and lock screen, as well as other parameters, using a pre-installed set of themes, various graphic effects, etc.

The "Settings" menu has a slightly modified form, it is divided into three sections - all settings, general parameters and symbol settings. So the manufacturer tried to divide all the settings into categories and according to their importance, but how successful such a division is, each user must judge for himself.

There are no particularly interesting proprietary applications installed on the smartphone, most of the preinstalled programs are included in the standard application package from Google, prepared for every Android smartphone and Android tablet.

Communication capabilities and multimedia

Controlling calls, sending messages and transferring data in the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 model is implemented in the same way as in most other Android smartphones that work with two SIM cards.The standard contact list and dialer allow you to immediately choose which of the SIM cards you need to make a call or send a message from. There is only one radio module in the smartphone, and therefore, when a conversation is carried out using one of the SIM cards, the second SIM card is out of the network access zone.

The volume of the communication speaker is average, but it is sufficient for most situations. You may not hear the interlocutor unless on the subway or passing near a busy highway. The quality of the sound transmitted by the communication speaker is not bad, but not standard, the same can be said about the microphone - the interlocutor will clearly hear everything that you say to him. Complaints are caused by the proximity sensor - it does not always "extinguish" the display when the phone is brought to the head, which in turn can lead to accidental clicks, up to disconnecting the connection.

The multimedia speaker is loud, if its volume is set to maximum, it will be difficult not to hear the incoming call. The minimum protrusion above the slot of the multimedia speaker does not allow it to be completely drowned out when the smartphone lies with its back on a flat surface. Even at maximum volume, the multimedia speaker does not "wheeze", but its sound is of high quality, and even more "voluminous", as in the HTC One smartphone, it is impossible to call it. The vibrating alert is weak, but to a greater extent, it is not the weak vibration motor that is to blame for this, but the large dimensions of the case, which it needs to be forced to vibrate.

The quality of music playback by the multimedia speaker of the smartphone is mediocre, but it should satisfy all inexperienced users. The same can be said about the sound quality in the headphones. As for the sound transmission quality with the complete headset, it also does not differ in anything special. Although, in fairness, it is worth noting that after listening to music using the complete headset, your ears do not hurt.

The preinstalled video player was able to play most of the popular video formats. The stock video player failed only with the AC3 sound.

Hardware platform

The Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone is built on the basis of the MediaTek hardware platform, which is based on the MT6589 processor, which has four Cortex-A7 cores and operates at a clock frequency of 1.2 GHz. Graphics processing is provided by the PowerVR SGX 544MP video chip.

The RAM in the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone is one gigabyte, but after downloading all the programs and starting their background work, a little more than 500 megabytes remains available to the user. Permanent memory is four gigabytes. Part of the permanent memory is occupied by files of the operating system, user shell and preinstalled applications. The remaining memory on the flash drive is split into two parts - "Internal memory" and "USB stick". The capacity of the first section is 2170 megabytes, it is intended for installing applications. The capacity of the "USB-storage" section is 1450 megabytes, it is designed to store user-generated multimedia content. The small capacity of the built-in flash drive is compensated by the ability to install a microSD memory card (up to 32 gigabytes).

The performance of the hardware platform is at a fairly high level, a quad-core processor paired with a video chip ensures smooth operation of the interface and allows you to run most programs, including resource-intensive 3D games (Real Racing 3, N.O.V.A. 3, Dead Trigger, etc.).

Built-in wireless modules Wi-Fi 802.11 b / g / n (+ hotspot), Bluetooth 2.1 (EDR + A2DP) and GPS are working correctly. The first search for satellites took about three minutes, and the subsequent searches took no more than ten seconds.

In the synthetic performance test (benchmark) Antutu Benchmark, the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone scored 13275 points, which is a familiar indicator for a smartphone based on the MediaTek MT6589 processor and having an HD screen.

Camera

The Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 is equipped with two cameras - the main 8-megapixel and the front 2-megapixel.Both cameras allow you to record videos and take good quality photos. The standard shooting mode works better, automatically selecting the necessary parameters. The HDR mode works worse, it strongly depends on the stability of the position of the smartphone during shooting, since even a slight shake of the hands will lead to "blurring" of pictures when they are programmed "gluing". Photos taken in the dark have a slightly lower quality, they are less sharp and contain a small amount of noise.

The viewfinder has been modified by the Lenovo Launcher UI developers, but still lacks a ton of customization options. The user can configure all the basic shooting parameters and some minor ones. Perhaps this is due to the fact that, as usual, most users will not "bother" with the settings and will choose a fairly high-quality "Auto" mode, in which the camera itself determines the necessary shooting parameters.

Autonomy of work

Autonomous operation of the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 smartphone is provided by a removable lithium-ion rechargeable battery with a capacity of 2250 mAh. In the synthetic battery performance test Antutu Tester, the smartphone scored 616 points. The test results confirm the average level of autonomy. If you use your smartphone exclusively for making calls and sending messages, then without recharging it can work up to three days. If you moderately use all the multimedia capabilities of the device, then the IdeaPhone S920 model will be able to work autonomously for one day. Considering that the smartphone has a display with a diagonal of 5.3 inches and does not use any software that optimizes power consumption, its autonomy can be considered quite high.

conclusions

The Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 is a typical Chinese-made phablet, it boasts good hardware, display and camera. But immediately, as you take it in hand, the impression of the device is spoiled by impractical and unpleasant materials of the case. Therefore, if you want a smartphone with a large high-quality display and good performance for a reasonable price, and the materials from which the body is made are not important to you, then you should definitely pay attention to the IdeaPhone S920 model.

Advantages of the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920 model:

large high-quality display

good main camera

high-quality work of the GPS-module, as for a smartphone with a processor from MediaTek

Disadvantages of the Lenovo IdeaPhone S920:

slight backlash

inconvenient location of mechanical control buttons

poor performance of the proximity sensor

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