Lenovo P780 comes with Dual-SIM facility, 5 inch display, quad core processor and a massive battery. While the smartphone sounds good on paper, let’s find out what the device is actually worth.
Look and Feel
Lenovo P780 has a big 5 inch display and the manufacturer has tried its level best to make the device sleek as much as possible. The handset comes with glossy front and matte Black color rear panel, accented with metallic trimmings on the sides; overall, it looks great and classy.
The front of the device has been protected with the use of Corning Gorilla Glass which provides some protection from scratches. The flush front is accented with three hardware feather touch keys with variable control for backlighting for battery savings. The key placement of the device is a bit of a hassle as the power key has been placed right on top making it difficult to access considering the big size of the device.
The back panel of the smartphone has been constructed entirely of metal and that too adds durability to the device. Another interesting innovation that Lenovo has adopted for the Lenovo P780 is that they have used the back cover as a heat radiator source for the battery with proper metallic buffer being provided at specific points on battery and between the back plates for better heat dissipation.
Lenovo has also announced a magic flip cover for the P780. However, to reduce cost the flip cover is not included in the box. Users can get it form the seller separately. The magic flip cover actually enables the auto display turn on and off feature for the Lenovo P780. What that means for the user is that they no longer need to manually lock the device by pushing the hardware button anymore all they need to do is close the flip cover and device goes to standby .
The Lenovo P780 at 176 grams is too heavy for a smartphone but you should also consider the fact that it has a massive 4000 mAh battery.
Display
The 5 inch display of the Lenovo P780 has 1280 x 780 pixel resolution. The IPS technology based display offers better contrast as well as brightness and colour vibrancy too. The maximum brightness supported by the display makes it perfect device to be used even in bright light conditions such as outdoors.
The display is for sure the biggest battery consuming hardware on the device followed closely by the processor. And the Lenovo P780’s 5 inch display is bright enough to deplete the battery in one whole day. But to control that the Lenovo P780 gets a very accurate ambient light sensor and the integrated battery saving utility that control display’s brightness optimally to offer maximum battery performance.
Hardware and Operating system
The Lenovo P780 utilises the Mediatek 6589 Chipset that includes a 1.2 GHz quad core processor and PowerVR SGX 544 GPU. The processor and graphics chip combination gives the Lenovo P780 enough muscle to tackle most daily tasks with ease along with some HD games as well. The device performs well and fluid thanks to Android Jelly Bean operating system and Lenovo’s custom user interface.
The phone has 1 GB RAM and 4 GB of internal storage or ROM of which users only get to use the 2.7 GB memory, which is decent and anyway you can expand its memory by another 32 GB using a micro SD card.
The Lenovo P780 smartphone comes with Android Jelly Bean 4.2. Along with that Lenovo has done a number of customisations on the user interface on this device that are very functional as well. Overall the software optimisation for the device is great and complements the device in every way. Along with that the User interface comes with a number of themes with separate icon packs.
The user interface is very easy to get around on the device plus at any point of time it does not put any additional load on the device’s hardware and the memory consumption of the device stays well below 400 MB in most conditions. Along with that most utilities one would need for smooth usage of the device including a task manager, file explorer are already available on the device.
Performance and usage
Lenovo P780, during the course of the review, underwent a lot of application testing and stressing but the device never hung or froze. But in the odd case of device being frozen or unresponsive, users should not panic because of the non-removable battery – you can take out the battery to reset it. Also, there is a reset button that has been provided under the slave SIM slot.
On performance front, the Lenovo P780 scored 13,575 in Antutu benchmark. This in simpler words puts it at the toes of the older HTC One X in terms of performance while Quadrant Benchmarking utility ranks the Lenovo P780 above the HTC One X. To further stress test the hardware we tested the device using Vellamo from Qulacomm in which the device neared Samsung Galaxy Note with 413 points in Metal or hardware test while scoring 1443 point in the HTML 5 test on which most web application work these days. Overall the device offers ample performance but the Internal Memory of 4 GB is a big turn off as we weren’t able to install HD games on it as only 2.4 GB is available.
The onscreen keypad which by default is Google’s updated keyboard with Swipe to type functionality is nice and offers great utility. Although people with fat fingers might have slight discomfort while using this phone but this problem can also be overcome with swipe functionality.
We had no issued with the call performance of the phone. The calls are received and made without any issue. The earpiece and loudspeaker volume is abundant and the microphone offers clear sounds to the receiver. The Lenovo P780 smartphone features dual SIM but it has Single ISM active which means if one SIM is busy the other SIM also gets a busy tone.
It has a second microphone for noise cancellation. The second microphone at the device’s back identifies noises and cancels them to offer better sound for the receiver of the call.
Camera and Multimedia
The Lenovo P780 comes with a very useful 8 Megapixel camera with an LED flash for additional illumination. The camera although is non BSI (back Side Illumination) sensor based it still manages low light shots pretty well. The image quality of the camera is good in both the outdoor and indoor modes and the light provided by the flash light is sufficient enough for bearing objects. The colours are captured nicely with details but indoor pictures capture some noise which is a turn off.
This smartphone can capture Full HD (1080p) videos at 30 frames per second and the videos are good and smooth at all times. The handset also features a HD front facing camera that is good for video calling and can record 720p Resolution videos as well.
Lenovo P780 features support for all generic video formats and anyway since it is an Android smartphone, you can install applications from Google Play Store to extend its multimedia capabilities.
Battery backup
Battery life is among one of the major advantaged of the Lenovo P780. With nominal gaming, audio video use and web browsing over both 3G and WiFi the device usually lasts above and beyond for 2 days between full recharges.
Further, it has a battery saving utility called the ‘Energy Smart’. The application promotes battery savings plus it gets intelligent CPU control as well, which put unused CPU cores to sleep when they are not required.
But one thing that Lenovo has creatively added to the device is the capability to charge other devices as well. Yes that’s right you can use the cell phone’s USB port to charge other devices. Technically Lenovo has managed to do this by adding extra power to the USB port, which also means that it can be used to run USB powered devices as well if need be.
Conclusion
At Rs 18,799, the Lenovo P780 brings in a good battery backup which is one of most crucial things today for a smartphone. Along with that it has speedy hardware and a superb build quality complete with a metallic back panel that has been very innovatively used as a heat radiator as well. But the smallish internal storage for a mid-range device is one of its major turn offs.
The smartphone has a sweet camera and a great display. And overall the dual SIM functionality comes in real handy. So it’s for those who seek a decent smartphone that has it all and surely the Lenovo P780 has got it all.