Lenovo K8 Note

In all fairness, the Chinese brand did manage to stock the phone with an awful lot of specs that might raise your eyebrows, but a question would always be welcomed at a buyer’s mind—is it really worth the price keeping its competitors in mind?

Pros:

• Good battery performance- K8 note equipped with a 4000 mAh battery with a turbocharger—something that you didn’t get in the older cousins of this phone, the K6 note series—that offers more than a decent battery performance.

• Runs on stock android- Waving goodbye to its Vibe Pure UI, K8 note runs on the Android 7.1.1 Nougat and shows a significant upgrade in the speed—making the UI less complex and better functioning 
• Separate SD card tray: Another slight change that users would notice is the fact how Lenovo decided to ditch the hybrid slot from the SIM tray and made two separate slots for SIM cards and the memory card.
• Splash resistant: It does come with water repellent coating but keep in mind that the company doesn’t cover the water damage in its warranty.

Cons:

• Heating problem: Half an hour or so of gaming, or running multiple apps at the same time could warm a phone a little.
• Underwhelming design: It’s safe to say that Lenovo doesn’t give enough attention to the design of its phones, so, this shouldn’t come as a shock to you—just in case you were expecting a premium design.

After a noticeable hiatus that the company took after rolling out the K6 series, Lenovo decided to delve into the market with better offerings in the similar price bracket as the aforementioned phones—not to mention K7 note wasn’t really the success they hoped it would be. Priced at Rs 12,999 (3GB RAM + 32GB storage) and Rs 13,999 (4GB RAM + 64GB storage), it goes without saying that the phone offers straight competition to Xiaomi’s one of highest selling phones, Redmi Note 4. 

Moto E4 sports a deca-core MediaTek Helio X23 (MT6797)—which you’d rarely see in the phones in the same price bracket—VR enabled feature that runs as smooth as silk, a dual camera setup and plenty of other features that’d attract a handsome share of interest—not to mention a little surprise for the lovers of music.

Okay, on the brighter side we have a neat 2.5D Gorilla Glass spread across all the edges, a fingerprint-sensor at the back and splash resistant coating on the phone. As mentioned above, the ‘surprise’ for the lovers of music is the dedicated music button that could play a paused song. Not to mention you have the luxury of using the button for other purposes like toggling the camera, opening an app of your choice or taking a screenshot.

Now, time for the bitter truth. In case design aesthetics make a massive difference in your choice of buying, your hands might tremble before you land them on this 5.5-inch device. But hey, it has a good grip and the aluminium body wouldn’t let the phone slip from your hands even if your palms are sweaty.

Not really much to say about the display. The 5.5-inch screen comes with a resolution of 1080×1980 pixels and gives a fair performance as per its price. Be it the almost unwavering display from acute angles or the sunlight trying to make vision difficult for you, K8 wouldn’t disappoint you in that department. It’s decent for watching HD videos but don’t expect it to play 4k ones.

As stated earlier, finding a deca-core MediaTek processor is a rarity in the smartphones of this range, Lenovo k8 would be fancied by the people falling under the label of “performance-over-the-visuals breed”. The x SoC powered cores come in the combination of four clocked at 1.4 GHz, another four cores at 1.85GHZ and the remaining two at 2.3 GHz. The two variants come with 4 GB of Ram with 64 GB of storage and 3 GB of RAM along with 32 GB of storage. Moreover, you could expand the storage to 128 GB with an SD card.

It would play the majority of the games without any glitches or disruptions but at the cost of a slight heating issue which won’t go unnoticed. The highly talked about theatre max feature runs seamlessly with VR headset and if this feature entices you on the paper, it would do the same damage (obviously in a good way) to you when you get your hands on it.

An upsurge Lenovo takes a lot of pride in—the series received a massive upgrade in its camera department with a dual camera setup in the K8 note. At the rear, there’s a 13 MP Purecel sensor and a 5 MP Samsung BSI sensor. While the former is used to capture the images, the latter focuses on the depth of the picture. 

The outdoor shots would work superbly well and with a slight smudginess around the edges which isn’t much visible. Although the idea of capturing a perfect bokeh image might become elusive sometimes. The camera performance could be underwhelming on a few occasions as the blur effect doesn’t function as good as it is supposed to be.

The battery life is more than decent—yet not as good as its competitor, Redmi Note 4. Although, that doesn’t discredit the battery performance that K8 has at its disposal. Another glittery thing that went missing in the boxes of its predecessors was a turbocharger that you’d find in this one. The 4000 mAh non-removable battery would easily keep the phone awake with you in case you’re not a hardcore mobile user.

All in all, Lenovo did a splendid job in offering a significant update on its predecessors and managed to stock the phone with pretty solid features at a competitive price. Lenovo has thrown a lot of candies with the phone—the Stock android, the dual camera setup, water repellent coating, deca-core MediaTek, Dolby Atmos, VR, TheaterMax—more than good enough to lure buyers. The only thing that could elicit double thoughts in a customer’s mind is the underwhelming design and the heating problem. Otherwise, the phone is a pretty great buy.