Lenovo PHAB Plus Review

Introduction

When we sat down with Lenovo way back during MWC 2015 earlier in the year, they managed to pique our attention when they teased to us an early prototype of this phablet-esque device they were developing. Despite it being non-functional, the chassis alone got us intrigued because of its premium construction and svelte footprint. That prototype, nevertheless, turned out to be the Lenovo PHAB Plus – a 6.8-inch phablet monster that’s priced inexpensively. Now that it’s here in the flesh, can it still deliver the same level of intrigue?

The package contains:

• Lenovo PHAB Plus
• microUSB cable
• Wall charger

Design

You’d think it’s an iPhone 6 Plus clone based on its uncanny resemblance.

Using it as a daily driver, its size is what draws the most attention when we’re using it deliberately or inconspicuously in public. It certainly doesn’t have any issue commanding attention, primarily because of its sturdy metal chassis, skinny profile, and relatively substantial build quality. For a phone with a 6.8-inch screen, Lenovo does reasonably to trim off as much of the fat as they can – though, it’s still wide in the hand.

Another thing worth pointing out is just its uncanny resemblance to the iPhone 6 Plus. From the two screws flanking the microUSB port, to the positioning of the antenna bands on the back, and just the overall resemblance of the phone, there’s no denying it’s almost a clone! Regardless of that, it’s just incredible how much attention it’s able to stir up with its design. Undoubtedly, it’s the kind of thing that’s always a conversation starter when you’re with a group of friends and decide to whip it out.

Looking around the PHAB Plus, the power and volume controls are placed on the right edge of the phone, offering good feedback when they’re pressed. Their positioning is standard, but we feel it might have been smarter if Lenovo moved them a bit lower down the edge, making it easier to reach them on such a large phone. The 3.5mm headphone jack is positioned on the top left corner, while the microUSB port and microphone are found on the bottom. As for the speaker, it occupies a good chunk of space along the top section of the back.

Display

The punchy color tones of the display make it striking, but it’s the vast size that normally accrues more of the attention.

In true phablet fashion, the Lenovo PHAB Plus draws a lot of attention for its 6.8-inch 1080 x 1920 IPS-LCD display. While its 324 ppi pixel density isn’t ground breaking, it’s more than enough to comfortably visualize sharp details on the screen from a normal distance. Without question, though, its vast size lends its usefulness for multimedia consumption.

Visually speaking, our eyes fancy the punchy colors it produces; it just has that polarizing glow to catch our attention. And even though it doesn’t necessarily hit all the target values in the sRGB color spectrum chart, its color reproduction is well within the threshold of making it perceived as accurate. Its ~7200K color temperature gives the panel a slight cold tone, but it's not such a big deviation from the standard. The biggest challenge for the display is its weak peak luminance of 255 nits, which makes it unusable outdoors.

Quickly glancing on the specs, there’s nothing that really jumps out, but at the end of the day, it’s the generous 6.8-inches of real estate that gives it more precedence over the typical phablet.

Interface and Functionality

Going with a mostly stock Lollipop experience, there’s a useful one-handed mode for easier interaction.

One cursory run-through with the software, it’s somewhat of a surprise to find that Lenovo has kept things mostly stock with the experience. Running on top of Android 5.0.2 Lollipop, it has all the functionality we’d get with stock Android – and that’s a good thing! From the rich personalization of the homescreen, to Material Design’s presence in the native apps, we’re content to see Lenovo going with this route.

In making it easier to navigate, especially with its generous screen size, there’s a handy one-handed mode that can be accessed by drawing a letter “C” at any time, which then shrinks the layout to a more thumb friendly size. Better yet, it’ll position automatically to either the left or right side of the display based on how the PHAB Plus is tilted in our hand. The only thing missing with the experience, however, is support for multi-users, which is a shame seeing that it can double as a tablet at home.

Processor and Memory

The Snapdragon 615 performs as expected for a mid-range chip; it handles the easy stuff, but is challenged on the graphics side.

The Lenovo PHAB Plus leverages the power of the octa-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 chipset, which is accompanied with 2GB of RAM and the Adreno 405 GPU. While it possesses the snappy response to handle trivial stuff, it struggles on the graphics processing side with its choppier frame rates. At the very least, it puts up better marks in various benchmark tests than many of the entry-level phones out there (as it should), but it’s hardly considered in the high-end space – so it acts very well in being a mid-range performer.

Advertised with 32GB of storage, that tally in reality is nearly cut almost in half to 19.42GB out of the box. That’s a considerable drop off there, but there’s at least a microSD card slot on its side to supplement it.

Internet and Connectivity

Naturally, the Lenovo PHAB Plus is adept when it comes to surfing the web, thanks primarily to its roomy screen size. Most pages look big enough on the screen without having the need to zoom, but if that’s still necessary, it greets us with all of the smooth controls and responses to make the experience a good one.

As an unlocked dual-SIM GSM smartphone, the PHAB Plus does offer LTE support – albeit, in limited support. However, it doesn’t come with the necessary radios to work with the CDMA-based carriers here in the US. And of course, its other connectivity features include aGPS with Glonass, Bluetooth 4.0, and dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. Sorry folks, there’s no NFC here.

Camera

You probably don’t want to use this much for its camera.

The PHAB Plus is outfitted with a 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front combination. The camera interface, though, is definitely not the stock Android one, but instead, it comes with a wide degree of shooting modes that consist of HDR, Smart Reader, Action, Night, and Panorama. There’s no true manual mode here, however, but we’re still given access to adjusting the ISO, exposure, and white balance. All told, it has enough of the goodies to keep most shutterbugs content.


Don’t raise your hopes now with this one, just because the photos produced with this camera exhibit some rather strange characteristics – even when it’s exposed to the most ideal shooting conditions. Even when it’s sunny outside, details are pretty splotchy looking and it exhibits a very cold tone with colors, which doesn’t help either when it’s also under-exposed most of the time. Its HDR mode delivers eye-catchy visuals, but doesn't help much with all the issues we have with the photos. There’s also heavy noise and grainier looking details under low light.



Moving onto its 1080p video recording quality, it also turns out to be a disappointment with its soft tone, its unpredictable auto-focus, and pitchy audio recording.

Multimedia

Dolby Atmos adds more substance to its audio power, delivering a wider audio range.

Needless to say, it suffices enough when it comes to watching all sorts of videos files and codecs. Combining its screen size, the punchy colors it’s able to produce, and Dolby Atmos audio support, it’s a fabulous time enjoying a long movie session with the PHAB Plus.

Weirdly enough, the music player looks like the old-school Android one prior to when El Goog decided to for all-in with Google Play Music – so it looks terribly outdated at this point. Volume is certainly not an issue with the rear-firing speaker, more so when it pumps out 77.7 dB of audio power. Although it’s sharp in tone at times, the overall quality favors a wider balance that has strong emphasis, especially when its Dolby Atmos audio is set to the music mode.

Call Quality

Phone call conversations are handled with sufficient fidelity.

Offering acceptable quality, we’re able to use the Lenovo PHAB Plus for all phone call conversations. Even though we prefer a slightly stronger tone through the earpiece, voices have enough fidelity for us to comprehend effortlessly – and the same applies on the other end of the line too. Switching over to the speaker, it’s best to use it with the display facing down, so that audio is dispersed properly, as opposed to being muffled if it were place the other way around.

Battery

They could’ve stuffed a larger battery in this, but at the very least, it achieves average results.

Lenovo has managed to incorporate a 3500 mAh battery into the PHAB Plus's frame. Indeed, it’s a hefty capacity when we think about it, but we feel that it could’ve been greater considering its larger footprint over most smartphones. The result is rather unsurprising, given that we’re able to get an easy one-day of normal usage. Alternatively, its average performing attachment is made even more poignant in our battery benchmark test – where it achieves an average performer mark of 6 hours and 41 minutes. And lastly, it takes 188 minutes to recharge the battery, which is okay for its capacity.

Conclusion

Currently, Lenovo doesn’t have any plans on selling the PHAB Plus through official channels here in the US, but it’s still an option to import for something that costs around $300 for an unlocked, dual-SIMed device. With a nice metal construction, along with a satisfying specs sheet that's worthy of the upper mid-range category, we do have to say that the Lenovo PHAB Plus is decently priced. However, at the same time, this gigantic phablet suffers from a number of major issues, such as terrible camera performance and a tragically dim display.

Although it’s not a home run, its inexpensive cost might be enough to attract prospective buyers who are looking to consolidate, as it blends enough of the desirable qualities from a large smartphone and a compact sized tablet.

Software version of the review unit:
Android Version: 5.0.2
Build Number: PB1-770M_S000148_150814_R0W
Kernel Version: 3.10.49