Lenovo P780 Android is a new generation mobile device from the "long-livers" line from Lenovo.
A little bit about the "R" category
In Lenovo's smartphone classifier, there is one very curious category of mobile devices, which is designated by the letter "P". Under this letter, devices are hidden that, in terms of popularity among users, can not only argue, but also give odds to their flagship counterparts. This category includes mobile devices that are aimed at a business audience. This does not mean the cost of a class “P” device, but the reliability of gadgets, the daily conduct of important matters, the uninterrupted performance of various tasks. In order for smartphones to perform their functions safely, the manufacturer supplied the series we are considering with very capacious batteries - this is their main “trick”. In addition, they have the ability to use two SIM-cards - also one of the main requirements for a modern mobile device for business people.
Now let's go directly to the model we are interested in. The new Lenovo P780 smartphone differs from its predecessors (P700i and P700) in literally everything: a large number of processor cores, a new operating system, a large screen, a capacious battery, a better camera, etc. Consider these parametersmore details.
Key Features
The phone has a MediaTekMT6589 SoC (1.2GHz), ARMCortex-A7 and 1GB RAM. The internal memory of Lenovo P780 is 8Gb. The smartphone supports microSD memory cards. The device works in the standard of modern networks GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) and 3G WCDMA (900/2100 MHz). The touch screen (IPS) of the device has a diagonal of five inches (1280 × 720, 293 ppi). But that's not all! The phone has a standard set of features: Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Wi-Fi Direct, Wi-Fi hotspot, A-GPS, GPS, gyroscope, electronic compass, light and proximity sensors. The front camera is 0.3 MP, and the main camera is 8 MP with autofocus and LED flash.
High-resolution cameras are installed on all P devices, and Lenovo's P780 is no exception. Smartphone firmware - Android 4.2.1 Jelly Bean. Overall dimensions of the device - 143 × 73 × 9.95 mm, weight - 176 g. The main feature of the phone is a lithium-ion battery with a capacity of 4000 mAh.
Package set
Smartphone Lenovo P780 goes on sale in a spacious cardboard box pasted over with light paper. The packaging looks very simple, but quite neat and practical. The set includes a powerful (respectively, not very compact) charger, a Micro-USB connection cable, headphones, and an OTG adapter for connecting external peripherals and flash drives to the smartphone. Case for Lenovo P780 not included.
Appearance
Lenovo P780 has a discreet appearance. Although the device does not look expensive, however, it exudes some clear alignment of all lines and contours, thoughtful conciseness, unshakable solidity and, one might even say, slight brutality.
It can be unequivocally stated that this phone is a male device. Its external structure reflects minimalism - the absence of window dressing and tinsel. The weight and overall dimensions are quite large, so it is not suitable for every hand, especially for women. The considerable weight of the smartphone is due to the presence of a metal back cover and a huge capacity battery, which is the hallmark of the Lenovo P780.
The characteristics of the phone speak for themselves, and its incredible "survivability" will be discussed below. So it’s hard to attribute a lot of weight to shortcomings; rather, this is a plus for this model. Now about the back cover: it is made of a thick metal profile. This is rare for modern phones, but not for Lenovo devices. Naturally, this gives the device additional weight, but also a fortress too: when you take the Lenovo P780 in your hand, you immediately feel its monolithic reliability.
Remove the back panel, and a standard picture for mobile devices opens up to our eyes: there are three slots in a row above the battery (one for a memory card and two for SIM cards), which have a slotted structure, that is, the contents are held in them exclusively due to the force of friction. In addition, here isa small red button to force reboot the device.
With the rear cover on, the rear surface of the device looks standard: in its upper part there is a video camera window framed by a metal rim, and next to it is an LED flash eye that can be used as a flashlight.
The entire front panel of the phone is covered with protective glass. Hidden under it is the front camera, touch sensors, earpiece grille, and three application and system control buttons. A chrome-plated metal rim is put along the perimeter of the body of the device - a thin strip recessed into the plastic so that it does not cause inconvenience with its slippery and smooth surface. The rest of the phone is rough and matte, thanks to which the device is firmly held in the palm of your hand, while not being covered with fingerprints. A rather practical case is undoubtedly a plus for Lenovo P780 Black.
Disadvantages of control functionality
Despite its numerous advantages, the smartphone is far from ideal. Let's consider what shortcomings were revealed by the owners of the Lenovo P780 model. User reviews report that the device has a significant drawback - this is an unfortunate location of the power / lock key. It, like most smartphones, is located in the upper end of the case. However, the designers did not take into account the fact that the device has very impressive overall dimensions, so it is very inconvenient to reach this button with your finger. Often, developers will implement an alternativeoption to wake up the device: unlocking is done by tapping on the screen. However, this feature was not provided by the designers of Lenovo P780.
Reviews of the owners point out another drawback of the model - it is also located in the upper end of the case, the universal connector for the Micro-USB interface. For some reason, it is closed with a rubber stopper, and the device has no protection against moisture and dust, and the adjacent audio output jack is not equipped with any plugs. This solution is not only strange, but also inconvenient: the user constantly has to pick off a very hard cover with his nails, and then it also needs to be held, as it prevents the cable from being connected to the connector. Some owners prefer to tear off this plug and do without it in the future.
Besides the elements listed above, there is one more key on the body of the device - this is a paired volume control button, which is located on the right side of the device. It is quite large, well pressed, made of metal, but its location is also inconvenient. It is located too high, and it is still difficult for the finger to reach it. This is where the owners' complaints about the functionality of the smartphone end.
Screen
This item is the pride of Lenovo P780. The screen of this model is a 62 x 110 mm IPS-matrix, the diagonal of which is 127 mm (5 inches) with a resolution of 1280 × 720 pixels. Display brightness can be adjusted both manually and automatically.the latter is based on the operation of light sensors. The multi-touch technology implemented in the smartphone allows processing up to ten simultaneous touches. In addition, the device has a proximity sensor that blocks the screen when you bring the device to your ear. The front surface of the monitor is made in the form of a plate with a mirror-smooth surface, which is highly resistant to scratches. It is equipped with effective anti-glare protection, which is not inferior to Google Nexus 7 in terms of brightness reduction.
The screen has a good viewing angle without significant color shift even with a large deviation of the view from the perpendicular to the monitor and without inverting shades. Color rendition is good, colors are saturated. The balance of shades on the gray scale is medium. This is explained by the fact that the color temperature exceeds the standard 6500 K, and the deviation from the ideal black body spectrum is noticeably higher than 12, which is considered not the best indicator for a consumer device. But with all this, the mentioned parameters slightly deviate from the norm, and this has a positive effect on the visual perception of the color balance.
Summing up, it can be noted that the screen has a high level of maximum brightness and effective anti-glare protection, so the smartphone can be comfortably used on a sunny summer day. In the absence of natural light, the brightness level can be reduced. It is permissible to use the automatic adjustment mode, it works quite adequately. The advantages of the Lenovo P780 model (reviews from the owners confirm this) include an excellent oleophobic coating,sRGB coverage, high contrast ratio, no flicker and no air gap between screen layers, good black color stability against deviation from perpendicular to the display plane. It is difficult to call the color balance ideal, but without a standard for comparison, it is not easy to notice. The main disadvantage of the screen is the low uniformity of color and brightness parameters over the display area. In general, we get a high-quality monitor on an IPS matrix.
Sound capabilities
The Lenovo P780 smartphone (owner reviews are direct confirmation of this) cannot boast of sound capabilities. People note that the ringing speaker bursts into a very loud and very unpleasant shrill sound, which is dominated by ringing high frequencies - there is absolutely no bass. In the headphones that come with the kit, the situation is the opposite. The sounds are overly saturated with low frequencies, so much so that sometimes it is impossible to even make out the words of the song (however, this minus is partially eliminated by adjusting with the equalizer), and the maximum level is not high enough. So we can make an unambiguous conclusion that Lenovo P780 is not a musical solution. Even in terms of software, manufacturers have limited themselves to installing just a standard application.
The smartphone has an FM receiver that works only with connected headphones, and a voice recorder designed to create audio notes. Consumers are pleased with the ability to record a telephone conversation directly from the line, which is very convenient. Here is access toan entry created in this way can only be accessed using a special file manager, since it is not displayed next to the completed call in the call list, as in other smartphones.
Camera
The smartphone is equipped with two digital cameras. The front camera has a resolution of 0.3 megapixels without flash and autofocus - the maximum size of the resulting image is 1280 x 720. The rear camera has an 8-megapixel module with LED flash. The possibility of manual and automatic focusing is provided. The maximum size of the resulting image is 3264 x 2448. The sharpness decreases smoothly when the plan is removed, although in some places there are fuzzy fragments. Software processing acts quite moderately and reasonably, does not try to spoil the details of the background. In low light and high photosensitivity, color noise may appear that cannot be processed. But the camera does its job well in normal lighting conditions (including cloudy weather). In this case, a little software processing becomes an advantage - it does not spoil the natural sharpness. In general, the camera can hardly be called outstanding, however, as evidenced by the responses of the owners of such a device, it is quite suitable for high-quality documentary shooting in good lighting conditions. Smartphone can shoot video. The user is given a choice of various modes, up to FullHD. The rollers arrive in a special 3GP container. Video - in MPEG4 Video format 1920 × 1088 30 fps 24.6 Mbps. Audio - AAC 48 kHz, stereo 128 kbps.
The camera is controlled by Lenovo's proprietary software called "Super Camera". Of course, it is difficult to call it the most convenient of all possible interfaces: there are a lot of different icons around the entire perimeter of the screen. Users emphasize that these symbols, as well as the settings menu itself, are too finely drawn. In addition, the menu has only a horizontal position, which is not very convenient. Another drawback is the lack of a dedicated hardware camera release key, but its function is performed by the volume button. Photographs can be taken during video recording.
Communications and telephone part
The smartphone works in 2G GSM and 3G WCDMA networks, but there is no support for the fourth generation LTE network. Also, 5GHz Wi-Fi and NFC are not supported. Lenovo P780 allows you to organize a wireless point via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi channels, there are Wi-Fi Direct and Wi-Fi Display modes that communicate with a wireless projector. The navigation module supports only GPS / A-GPS standards, the smartphone will not work with the Glonass system.
The layout and placement of the keys are standard. Users note that there is no dedicated upper digital row here. Therefore, you need to constantly switch the layout. Changing languages is done by clicking on the globe icon. Drawing numbers and letters on the virtual keyboard is quite comfortable to control. Phone apps support Smart Dial– during dialing, a simultaneous search is performed on existing contacts. In general, according to the reviews of the owners, the smartphone has very convenient functionality, which you quickly get used to.
The work of two SIM-cards is organized on the Dual SIM Dual Standby standard, that is, both cards are in active mode, but do not work at the same time, since there is only one radio module in the phone. The smartphone does not have the ability to switch the operating modes of 2G / 3G slots. The SIM card installed in the first compartment always works in 3G mode, the second, respectively, in 2G. The Lenovo P780 smartphone (the manual describes this in detail) allows you to configure various conditions for SIM cards in a special section. For example, assign any of them as the main one for data transfer, voice communication or sending SMS messages. If necessary, the user, when dialing a number, can always choose which card to call from. This moment also draws well-deserved praise.
P780 Lenovo Firmware and OS
The operating system in the smartphone is Google's Android software platform with Lenovo's proprietary interface. The default version is 4.2.1. However, updates are currently available, such as Lenovo P780 Kitkat Android 4.4. In general, the graphic component of the software shell is quite nice: there is little color, there is no riot of colors, support for predominantly white tones - everything is serious and modest, as befits business-class devices. In appearance, the graphics are more similar to the Lenovo K900 interface than toK910.
Performance
The hardware platform of this phone is based on the MediaTekMT6589 single-chip system. The CPU has four Cortex-A7 cores that run at 1.2GHz. In fact, this is a basic modification of the 4-core platform of Taiwanese manufacturers. The processor is assisted in processing graphics tasks by the Power VR SGX544MP video accelerator.
The phone's RAM is 1 GB, which is considered insufficient by today's standards. As for the built-in memory, the owners of the Lenovo P780 8Gb smartphone note the following: 2.8 GB of free array is available to the user to write their own files; 4.3 GB is allocated for the needs of the OS and various applications. The phone supports the ability to increase this parameter using a microSD card, in addition, external devices are connected via the USB port - both keyboards and mice, and flash cards, from which the device directly reads files.
According to the results of testing the performance of the platform, the smartphone showed average performance, which corresponds to all representatives of the Taiwanese MediaTek 4-core platform, as well as its modifications.
Lenovo P780 smartphone: price and summing up
In general, as the reviews of the owners show, the phone not only justifies, but even exceeds expectations in some respects: the device is quite decent, well-cut, nice, with two SIM cards and a large (five-inch) screen, while relatively inexpensive. WhatAs for the battery, in terms of battery life, the device showed record results for smartphones, which makes this purchase justified in the eyes of the buyer and fully corresponds to the main focus of the model on the business segment. At the moment, the cost of Lenovo P780 (the price may change) in the stores of our country has been set at the level of 12 thousand rubles, non-certified devices can be purchased for 9 thousand rubles.
It should be understood that this phone is valuable primarily not for the multimedia component, but for the ability to become a reliable assistant in organizing daily affairs. Experienced consumers emphasize that the device has average performance and modest video / photo quality, it is not suitable for gaming entertainment, although it can help pass the free time. But the owner of this device certainly should not worry about whether the battery is enough, even if a large number of long connections are made during the day. For business people, this model is a unique find, and this is confirmed by the high demand for this device.
The advantages of the smartphone, judging by the reviews of people who have already tested the device in operation, include a nice design, high-quality assembly, good equipment, support for OTG, memory cards, and, of course, a record battery life. The disadvantages are a weak camera and sound quality, low performance.
