Lenovo has started competing with the local brands in Philippines like Cherry Mobile and Starmobile as well as international brands such as Asus Zenfone through offering a new budget Android portfolio starting with Lenovo A7000, and now the Lenovo K3 Note.
The Lenovo K3 Note is priced for P7990, a competitive price point accompanied with flagship features: large 5.5-inch FHD display, octacore processor and 13MP camera. The K3 Note is clearly a threat, but it should be considered a killer of its rivals too? Find out in our review below.
Table of Contents
Design and build
The K3 Note is not the best looking Android smartphone or phablet we have, but it certainly looks better than most smartphones from the market.
The front is all glass while the back is polycarbonate. The 5MP selfie cam, earpiece and sensors are found on top of the screen. Below the screen are the capacitive keys which don’t have back lighting, at least they are always responsive.
It has removable back cover where you can replace its battery and behind the cover you can find the dual microSIM and microSD card slots.
We received the yellow unit, perhaps a more appealing color aside from white. Its color blends with the logo in the back and with the side buttons. Sadly, it has no dedicated camera shutter with camera and speaker positions being cumbersome. We wish that Lenovo had considered placing the camera in the center and the speaker grill in bottom side.
Lenovo built a solid and slick device despite having a wide profile. The weight and thickness of the K3 Note is perfect, it is not too heavy nor too light for my hands. The overall design is good and distinct.
Display
One of the key features of the K3 Note is its 5.5-inch IPS Full HD or 1080 display. The display is bright and sharp, color saturation is good and sunlight legibility works very well.
We compared the display of K3 Note to Zenfone 2’s display, we found that the quality is very close although the K3 Note is slightly brighter. With this display quality, it is hard to find a match from local brands.
Camera
The 13MP camera of K3 Note takes mixed results. Daylight images and videos are too bright or over exposed thus it destroys the color accuracy. With close inspection, the camera over smoothens the details. Low light and night shots are opposite because the images are under exposed or too dark. We tried using night mode, sadly we didn’t see any change in results.
The 5MP front-facing camera takes decent images in well-lit environment. The beautify feature comes handy and effective that selfie lovers will surely like.
Buying a budget smartphone comes with few cost-cutting features. This is true with the Lenovo K3 Note as its camera is not the thing you will like best from it. But at least it considerably okay for a budget smartphone.
OS and users experience
Lenovo K3 Note runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with Lenovo Vibe 2.5 UX on top. The Lollipop experience is not visible but overall look is minimal and clean with no rooms for other customization options such as extra rows of icons and menu launcher.
The quick settings is the only area I like from the Vibe 2.5. Dragging the top screen reveals search shortcut and settings. Dragging further shows the quick settings with a handful of customizable shortcuts.
In my opinion, the Chinese company should consider an overhaul to the Vibe 2.5 or, at least, add some extra levels of customization and stock Android Lollipop UX for more updated users experience.
Performance and benchmarks
MediaTek’s MT6752 powers the K3 Note. The chipset includes an octacore 1.7GHz Cortex A53 processor and a Mali graphics that made K3 Note a snappy Android smartphone.
When paired with 2GB RAM, the K3 Note handles any games and high-res video playback easily. In fact, we tried playing 2K video and demanding tasks without experience lags.
Surprisingly for a budget smartphone, the K3 Note is one of the top contender in terms of benchmark numbers.
- Antutu: 45105
- Geekbench single core: 808
- Geekbench multi core: 3917
- Basemark OS II: 783
Speaker
Lenovo failed to deliver a proper speaker on the K3 Note. It is underpowered with very low sound level output, fortunately the vocals are clear and crisp.
Lenovo has obviously skimped on designing the K3 Note’s speaker. The position of the speaker is also not smart as the speaker would be covered by the surface when putting in a flat surface with its back. So the only choice when playing a song is putting the device face down or sideway.
Battery
With 3000mAh of battery, the Lenovo K3 Note could last more than a day with light use of internet and games while heavy in SMS. This rating is average and already enough for a typical user. The bonus part is the replaceable battery through the opening the back cover.
Lenovo K3 Note pros
- Sharp, bright full HD 5.5-inch IPS display
- Snappy performance
- Affordable price
Lenovo K3 Note cons
- Underpowered speaker
- Camera takes over and under exposed shots
- Out dated Lenovo Vibe 2.5 UX
Verdict
The Lenovo K3 Note is the phone to watch out. It is affordable with few caveats and the rest of it is a set of impressive features hard to find from its local competitors.
Definitely buying a Lenovo K3 Note puts more value to your money than settling with local Android brands. Not because Lenovo is a big name internationally, but because it is a tested and proven brand of quality.
| Lenovo K3 Note |
| 5.5-inch FHD IPS, 401 ppi |
| Scratch resistant glass |
| MediaTek MT6572 octacore |
| 2GB RAM |
| 16GB storage, microSD card slot up to 32GB |
| 13MP autofocus, 1080p or FHD video, dual-LED flash, HDR |
| 5MP selfie camera, 720p video |
| Dual SIM, 4G LTE, WiFi n, Bt 4.0, FM Radio, GPS |
| Android 5.0 Lollipop |
| 3000mAh battery |
| P7990 price |
Related posts and videos:
yeyeye. Like it!