In the entry level smartphone market, there is always demand for a larger display while maintaining great performance, features and pricing. Lenovo has certainly seen such demand arising in the smartphone market and has therefore introduced the Lenovo A850, which has a huge 5.5-inch display that will appeal to users wanting a huge display without paying too much.
Video Review
Simple and Beautiful Hardware
The A850’s form factor can be easily found in many competing Chinese and Korean smartphones, although we are not fans of phones made of plastic, you can’t deny that the A850 has a very simple and minimalistic design, and for a phone that costs below RM1000, the phone feels really solid on hand and doesn’t creak like a cheap plastic phone.
The huge display on the front doesn’t dominate the whole bezel, making the phone slightly larger than phones with similar screen size, and we wished the capacitive buttons can be replaced by on screen ones. The hyper glaze coating on the back feels really nice and to our surprise, it doesn’t slip easily off our hands and we weren’t really careful as well when we use the phone.
Surprisingly Capable Hardware Specifications
Judging by its price tag, it’s really hard to believe that cheap smartphones have come this long to offer some decent hardware specs on paper. The Lenovo A850 has entry-mid level specifications: –
Lenovo A850 Hardware Specifications
Processor: Mediatek MT6582M 1.3GHz Quad Core
RAM: 1GB RAM
Storage: 4GB ROM with MicroSD Expansion up to 32GB
Display: 5.5-inch IPS QHD (960×540) Display
Camera: 5MP AF Main, VGA Front
Connectivity: WiFi B/G/N, Bluetooth 4.0 LE, Dual SIM
Networks: HSPA+ 21Mbps/GSM
Battery: 2250mAh
A Great but Disappointing Display
Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean and Lenovo Launcher
The phone comes preloaded with Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, which isn’t the best built but definitely one of the most stable Android release out there that works well with many current apps. Additionally, we once again see Lenovo’s familiar launcher running on top of the OS, which we haven’t been really enjoying a lot while reviewing the K900 last time.
Lenovo’s software experience is as clunky and funky as ever, there are various animated transitions for you to configure for the home screen and app drawer. While everything is very “iPhonish”, the user experience isn’t consistent, you can simply feel that some features are integrated within an app, but the next moment you find that you are able to access them in another app. This happens on the Phone and Messaging app, and we simply prefer Lenovo to have these apps used separately. You’ll know what we mean if you come from a more polished launcher.
Although the OS is heavily skinned, the phone doesn’t feel slow at all although there’s visible lag in animated transitions at times. We also faced fewer language issues on Lenovo’s skin this time, which we ranted about it on our first encounter with Lenovo’s skin on the K900. Despite having a mere gigabyte of RAM, the phone is a champ in executing and switching apps with very little to no slowdowns, of course there can be times that the phone tends to refresh itself to clear memory.
Overall, the Lenovo A850’s user experience is pretty good in our tests, we hoped for a better and polished launcher from Lenovo in the next iteration.
Storage Issues
Expandable storage is available for the A850 up to 32GB, and the phone has a gigabyte of user storage for apps and everything else. Unfortunately, the A850 faced storage issues when we attempted to install games and apps that require a huge chunk of memory. For example, Asphalt 8 simply couldn’t be downloaded due to the limited amount of internal storage and Real Racing 3’s asset files couldn’t be automatically downloaded to theMicroSD card.
The A850’s Camera
Benchmarks and Battery Life
In real world usage, the Lenovo A850 performs reliably and fast in our usage. If you are the one who determines a smartphone’s performance by benchmark figures, the A850 isn’t going to impress you with high numbers.
The Lenovo A850 scores 17053 and 5858 in Antutu and Quadrant respectively, at least it wins the HTC One X on that aspect.
Battery life on the A850 impressed us, it lasts a full day of usage around 18-22 hours on a single charge with lots of messaging, some phone calls, web browsing, streaming over Spotify and 80% of the time on a cellular data connection. The battery life is also very consistent throughout our tests and we have to give Lenovo’s power management app a thumbs up on this.
Verdict
