Review of the ZUK Z1. Mysterious phablet from Lenovo with a capacious battery. ZUK Z2 • Compare Prices - Buy Greatly! Lenovo zuk z2 camera review

Packaging and equipment

In the ZUK Z1, the Chinese demonstrated a strange symbiosis of a kind of premium with ostentatious savings on packaging and packaging. The box is made of thin, unpainted cardboard, reminiscent of the one used for toilet paper rolls.

In addition to the smartphone, the delivery set includes: a power adapter, a sync cable, the simplest instruction and a paper clip to open the SIM card tray.

Appearance and ergonomics

The design of the ZUK Z1 is as balanced and restrained as possible, the smartphone cannot be called beautiful, but there is nothing to complain about. There are also no complaints about the materials, the case is based on an aluminum frame, the entire front surface is occupied by a protective glass, the back of the smartphone is covered by a thin polycarbonate cover with a glossy finish for the white version and a matte finish for the Space Gray color.

The smartphone for its diagonal of the screen turned out to be quite heavy, its weight is 175 grams, and overall - the frames around the screen are wide by modern standards. On the other hand, due to the large weight, dimensions and rounded shape of the case, ZUK Z1 lies confidently in the hand, and the quantity accidental clicks minimal.

All controls are in their places, only the headset connector would be moved to the bottom end. In addition to the standard volume rocker, power button and three control buttons, the ZUK Z1 has a fingerprint scanner combined with a mechanical Home button. There are no complaints about the work of the scanner, it works accurately and quickly.

Screen

ZUK Z1 is equipped with a 5.5-inch screen based on a matrix with a resolution of 1920 * 1080 pixels. The manufacturer claims 100% coverage of the NTSC field, high contrast up to 1500: 1 and brightness that can reach 450 cd / m2. In real life, the screen feels very good, and a decent margin of brightness and an effective anti-reflective coating allow you to work with your smartphone outdoors in sunny weather.

It was unpleasantly surprised that touch screen can recognize a maximum of 5 touches at a time, although in everyday use this limitation is not noticed. In the system settings, it is possible to adjust the white balance by choosing one of the preset options or manually adjusting each of the three colors.

Hardware platform and performance

The ZUK Z1 hardware platform is based on Qualcomm's two-year-old flagship SoC, the MSM8974AC. The system-on-a-chip is 32-bit, it includes four Krait 400 cores operating at frequencies up to 2.5 GHz and an Adreno 330 video core operating at frequencies up to 578 MHz. RAM in the device is 3 GB (LPDDR3 @ 933MHz), permanent memory of eMMC5.0 type is 64 GB, of which 54.6 GB is available to the user. There is no memory card slot in the ZUK Z1.

Testing in benchmarks showed quite expected results, in AnTuTu the smartphone scored 44033 points, in the Geekbench 3 singlecore test - 983 "parrots". The practical performance of Snapdragon 801 is still sufficient for solving any problems, and the average user will be satisfied with the speed of the device. The operating experience was also positively affected by the work of the Cyanogen team to optimize the software part. I was sincerely surprised by the stability of the graphical shell and the smoothness of the animations. Funnily enough, the "legendary" scrolling in the Twitter app is twitching even on the latest flagship Galaxy smartphones, ZUK Z1 does not slow down at all.

Cellular and interfaces

The smartphone can work in networks of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th generations. From LTE frequencies supported by Russian operators cellular ZUK Z1 contains: B3, B7 and B38, the rather common 20th band is not supported by a smartphone. Within St. Petersburg, the smartphone found LTE towers almost everywhere, the download speed in both directions is enough with a margin.

The ZUK Z1 has wireless interfaces: dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac and Bluetooth 4.1. The wired interface complies with the USB 3.0 standard, and the connector on the case is of type C. OTG technology is supported.

Battery and autonomy

The smartphone has a non-removable 4100 mAh battery, Qualcomm's Quick Charge technology is supported. Complete Charger provides a current of 5.3 V and 2.5 A, with the help of it the ZUK Z1 battery is charged from 0% to 100% in just 1 hour and 45 minutes (!), Up to 75% in 75 minutes.

In a mixed mode of operation, the smartphone turned out to be tenacious, the battery lasts for a day and a half of work and up to 7 hours of screen activity. The test results in typical operating modes are good, but without revelations.

Note. Testing is carried out in the appropriate modes according to the methodology: - listening to music with headphones on maximum volume with the screen off; - viewing 1080p video from the device memory at 50% brightness of the backlight and maximum sound volume in the headphones; - active browsing (constant opening of new tabs, active scrolling of pages, etc.) via Wi-Fi at 50% brightness of the backlight; - 3D games (Real Racing 3) with 50% backlight brightness.

Cameras, photo and video quality

The main camera of the ZUK Z1 is a standard module for Chinese middle-end smartphones with a 13 megapixel sensor from Sony - IMX214 Exmor RS. The sensor is covered by a lens consisting of 5 lenses with an aperture of F2.2 and an equivalent focal length of approximately 28 mm. Surprisingly, the camera is equipped with an optical stabilization system.

In good lighting conditions, the ZUK Z1 is able to take photos with good details and accurate color reproduction. In some shots, you can see the programmed sharpening, but this is not striking. CLICKABLE! Left ZUK Z1, right -:

In HDR mode, processing algorithms neatly compress tones without increasing saturation. CLICKABLE! Left ZUK Z1, right -:

The ZUK Z1 camera copes with the conditions of insufficient and / or artificial lighting with dignity. Although the photos may sometimes appear unnecessarily yellow when viewed on a computer screen, the white balance appears to be accurate when viewed on a computer screen. CLICKABLE! Left ZUK Z1, right -:

The panoramic shooting mode in the ZUK Z1, unlike most smartphones on the market, is well implemented. The resolution of the final image can reach 50 megapixels, the shooting process is not complicated, seams and gluing artifacts are not visible in the image. The only thing you can find fault with is the low sharpness of the photopanel. CLICKABLE! Top ZUK Z1, bottom -:

The front camera is 8 megapixel, the lens has an aperture of F2.2 and an equivalent focal length of 26 mm. The camera can capture video in 1080p resolution. Photos taken on the front are quite sharp and with correct color rendition. CLICKABLE!

The smartphone records video in a maximum resolution of 1920 * 1080 pixels at 30 fps with stereo sound, there is a shooting mode in the same resolution, but at 60 fps. The quality of the footage received is average: nothing outstanding, but there is nothing to complain about.

There is a slow-motion mode in FullHD resolution, when video is captured at 60 fps, and encoded at 30 fps without sound; and a mode of several times accelerated shooting - the so-called timelapse - also in FullHD resolution and without sound.

Sound quality

Speaker speakerphone there is only one in the smartphone, it is located at the bottom of the device, so that the call sound will not be muffled in most situations. The sound quality is excellent, the speaker has a large volume margin.

The sound in the headphones is also of high quality, according to this parameter, the ZUK Z1 is on par with most of the top smartphones of this year. There is enough volume margin for any situation. The system has an application for modifying the sound called AudioFX, it allows you to configure the equalizer separately for the ringing speaker and headphones by selecting one of the preset options or manually adjusting the frequencies. In addition, the application provides two controls for the bass and virtualizer. There is no FM radio in the smartphone.

When a hieromonk sings better than most of the laity, he becomes even more popular than the bored sugary pop stars. When a smartphone is created with obvious hints "we are not half-basement scoundrels for you - we are a special unit of Lenovo!" - from him and the demand becomes greater.

Let's just not get hung up on the image component - today you cannot brag to your friends, they say, “I bought myself a Zuk!”, But recently, Lenovo laptops, for example, caused the same sympathetic smiles. Will endure, fall in love, as it was with other brands.

And in general - everything that is good in this smartphone has nothing to do with Lenovo. Its high-quality display, a rare thoroughbred Qualcomm processor instead of the consumer goods MediaTek, really cool autonomy (without the "eating up" charge Intel processor or the hot-blooded Helio X10), and a reasonable price, by the way. Because Lenovo and Huawei have long been dizzy from their steepness, and with it they have lost their adequacy and price tags.

You will still laugh, but the main disadvantages of the smartphone also stem from the fact that it is not directly related to Lenovo. That is where the Chinese engineers were when the ZUK developers implemented the Cyanogen OS firmware, in which taking photos and videos does not work in an optimal way? Why in the international version of the smartphone cyrillic font by default they will be stretched wide - was it really impossible to make sure of the normal localization of a single smartphone by default during the long-term practice of supplying mobile phones to Russia?

The guys from ZUK will rightly be indignant and say that all the achievements and shortcomings of the new model lie only on their conscience. And with the approach “we have a powerful inexpensive mobile phone - and the grass won't grow, fix its glitches yourself”, an army of manufacturers has proliferated in the Chinese and Russian markets, which even we, reviewers, are unable to remember.

Once again, for clarity - in the triangle "display quality / power / endurance", the smartphone is surprisingly good and only the one mentioned above can compete with it Redmi note 3. But the firmware needs to be "polished", and the ugly behavior of the rear camera - to correct at least to the level

Lenovo ZUK Z2 is the first smartphone that you should pay attention to if you want to buy a powerful top-end smartphone in terms of characteristics, but are not ready to pay a large sum. ZUK Z2 is a kind of "budget flagship", so to speak. Of the closest competitors, only Xiaomi Mi5 comes to mind, but it has already been discontinued and for the most part what they sell are remanufactured and refurbished models (according to at least the risk of buying one is extremely high). There are two versions of ZUK 2 in total: the 3Gb / 32Gb version, which is the most an affordable smartphone on the Snapdragon 820 processor and the 4Gb / 64Gb version, which I will review in detail today ..

I propose to evaluate main technical characteristics:

Screen: 5 inches, 1920 x 1080, LTPS IPS
CPU: Qualcomm MSM8996 Snapdragon 820, 2.15GHz
Graphics accelerator: Adreno 530
RAM: 4 Gb
Built-in memory: 64 Gb
Communications:
2G: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
3G: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz
4G: 850/900/1700/1800/1900/2100/2300/2500/2600 MHz
WiFi 802.11 a / b / g / n / ac, dual-band (2.4Ghz and 5Ghz),
Bluetooth v4.1
GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU

Other functions: Digital compass, fingerprint scanner, OTG
Battery: 3500 mAh
Operating system: Android 6.0.1, Android 7.0
Dimensions (edit): 68.9mm x 141.7mm x 8.5mm
Weight: 149g

Having studied the characteristics, the question arises - why is it so cheap and where is the catch? The same Xiaomi Mi5S or Meizu MX6 now cost around $ 300 with similar performance. But miracles do not happen, and of course the manufacturer had to save some money. Let's try to find out what.

Equipment. Appearance.

The packaging is unpretentious, the corners were slightly damaged in New Year's congestion, but in general there were no damages. The entire surface is replete with hieroglyphs, support for 4G + LTE is separately highlighted.

The package is standard - a smartphone, a charger, a cable and a clip for extracting SIM cards. The store removed the documentation in Chinese for something and put its manual on English language.

The design of the smartphone is clearly not massive. In the abundance of identical "remnants", an absolutely flat black brick, covered with glass on both sides, looks very interesting. Such design may or may not be liked, but it will not leave anyone indifferent. A kind of male, even a little brutal smartphone, a real classic.

Screen sizes continue to grow, and against this background, the 5 "ZUK Z2 seems almost compact. Fans of small diagonals will be pleased, because recently the size of 5.5 inches has already become almost standard and it is quite difficult to find something smaller with good characteristics.

With its small size, it cannot be called thin. The 8.5mm thickness is distinctly felt in the hand, yet comfortable to hold. The decision to make the frame plastic rather than metal looks a bit strange. This is what you expect to feel when you pick up the ZUK. This was clearly done to reduce the cost of production. Although plastic was not used simple, but with the addition of fiberglass, which, according to the manufacturer, makes it 25% stronger than ordinary plastic.

The screen is covered with scratch-resistant glass. Some sources talk about Gorilla Glass 4, but I have not found an official confirmation of this information. Most likely a cheaper analogue. The company itself does not specify what kind of glass is used in the ZUK 2, but during use, not a single scratch appeared on the screen. I also note the high-quality oleophobic coating, the finger glides perfectly on the surface of the screen without leaving any traces. The situation is somewhat different with the glass used on the rear. It is very easily soiled - it quickly collects fingerprints, and there is no protection from scratches - the first micro-scratches appear quickly even with careful use.

You can, of course, not take a steam bath and when it becomes unsightly, just replace it. On Ali, a new back cover costs $ 8 - $ 10. And you can glue protective film... Film "carbon look", which additionally solves the problem of soiling, costs less than $ 1. Well, no one canceled the use of covers and bumpers, there are a lot of various accessories on sale for the model.

For those who like to drop the device, buying a protective cover or bumper is a must. Think for yourself what can happen to a glass smartphone if you drop it on the pavement. And if the back cover is inexpensive and changes in a minute, then the screen is more and more complicated. But the device cannot be called absolutely fragile either, it can withstand small falls without consequences. I had such a case: after talking on the phone, I put it on the table and worked at the computer. Suddenly - bang! Due to the oleophobic coating, he slowly slipped onto the edge of the table and fell from a height of about 80 cm onto the wooden floor. The fall had to be exactly at the corner - a piece of varnish from the parquet remained between the frame and the glass from the impact. With trembling hands, I examined the case and glass for damage, but nothing happened ...

The smartphone is completely flat on both sides. There is something attractive about it, perfection in simplicity.

The main camera is recessed into the body by a fraction of a millimeter, and there is a protective ring around the perimeter. This will protect the lens glass from scratches. Nearby is an LED that acts as a flash. Although he is one, he shines brighter than many double ones. The shade is shifted to warm colors. Slightly to the right is an additional microphone that acts as a noise suppressor.

The connectors are located on the bottom: USB type-C for charging and connecting to a PC (supports OTG) and a standard headphone jack. An audio speaker was also placed here. I liked its sound very much - it is loud, rich in mids, with some volume, the sound is suitable not only for ringtones, but also for watching videos or games. The sound is at the level of flagships. On the front, under the screen, there is a single button. It is both touch-sensitive and mechanical, with a fingerprint scanner built into it.

Absolutely all actions are assigned to one button. For example, a single tap replaces the back action, and a single tap replaces the back action. I'm not a fan of mechanics, so I reassigned some actions to control only the sensor. Now, to go to the desktop, I need to press a button, I just do a long tap. In the settings, you can assign various actions, up to launching a specific application.

You can also use the button to make swipes, just like on the screen. With swipes, you can switch running applications. The solution is original, I have not seen this before, but how convenient it will be for people with large fingers is unknown. In extreme cases, you can simply not use it. A fingerprint scanner is built into the same button. There is nothing to say about it, except that it works perfectly. I can only remember such trouble-free operation of the sensor in Redmi Note 4, but in ZUK 2, the sensor is located on the front, which is more practical and convenient.

The lock and volume control buttons are located on the right side. The pressure is soft, with a distinct click. There is also a tray for SIM cards.

The tray is very difficult to remove, you need to apply a certain amount of force with a paper clip. After several checkouts, it is being developed and already opens normally. The smartphone supports two SIM cards, both nano format. There is no memory expansion at all, but considering that it has 64 Gb of its own, this cannot be called a problem.

Display

The screen is good, but no more. IPS matrix made using LTPS technology. High maximum brightness, contrast, rich, but not oversaturated colors. The resolution is 1920 × 1080, the pixel density is 441 ppi. At the corners, the colors are not distorted, diagonally black goes to gray, which is typical for conventional IPS.

The backlighting is uniform, without glare - this is clearly visible in the dark, if you turn on the black background.

There are frames, but they are not frightening with their size and look normal. On the black case, they are not at all striking.

Outdoors, even in sunny weather, the screen remains readable at maximum brightness. Despite the fact that the anti-reflective coating is declared, it is quite difficult to see the contents in the open air, everything is strongly reflected on the screen.

In general, the screen can be described as good, but it does not hold up to the flagship one.

In the settings, you can select the color temperature, the default is neutral. At will, you can switch to both colder and warmer shades. There is a night mode, which includes a special filter so as not to spoil your eyesight. I liked the range of brightness adjustment: from the minimum, which is convenient to use in the dark, to a very bright maximum. Auto brightness works correctly, setting the value at 70% with automatic adjustment enabled, I never returned to the screen settings.

System. Firmware.

It should be said right away that the Russian language is absent in the official firmware and may never appear. The official firmware contains only Chinese and English languages, after the official start of sales in India, a version with Indian and English... In any case, if you do not want to use a smartphone in English, and the words "firmware" and "recovery" cause fear and panic - the smartphone is not for you. Although I don't see anything complicated here either, w3bsit3-dns.com has a detailed step-by-step instruction in pictures. However, some computer skills and basic knowledge of the English language will not hurt. By the way, the store puts its firmware with Russification and if you want you can use it, I did not notice anything criminal about it. However, the store translation is not complete and you can often find words and even whole menu items in English, which annoys me personally. Therefore, for myself, I decided to flash quickly. At the time of receiving the smartphone, the best firmware was considered ZUI 2.3.042 ST Captainemo "s mod V3, in fact it is just a high-quality translation of the official, carried out at 99.9%. The firmware is based on Android 6.0.1. I was flashing through QFIL: for this no need unlock the bootloader, install a modified recovery and perform other complex actions. The firmware is rolled through the computer special program and takes no more than 15 minutes, most of which is downloaded. Later appeared official firmware on Android 7.0, but I have not yet installed it, considering that at first there may be some minor flaws. Let them run it a little, and then you can put it on. Nemo is currently working on its translation. For those who like to experiment, there are a huge number of different custom firmwares based on both Android 6 and Android 7. There is even MIUI and CyanogenMod, although they are still in beta testing. The community is rather big and very active, which is undoubtedly a plus. Let's look at our firmware in more detail, let me remind you that it is based on the official ZUI 2.3.042. The shell is fundamentally different from the stock android. First of all, this is noticeable in the launcher - shortcuts, icons, various menus - everything is redrawn and stylized. There are also more functional changes - by pressing the volume button, a menu drops out, where you can separately adjust the volume of applications or ringtone.

Only notifications are displayed in the top curtain. The familiar curtain with quick access to the main functions is called at the bottom of the display. There are two screens here that can be flipped. In the settings, you can independently choose which icons will be displayed and on which screen.

In the settings, everything is familiar, some items were moved to the "advanced settings". An unusual thing is the overclocking mode, when enabled, the processor increases the clock frequency up to 2.3 Ghz. It's hard for me to imagine why this might be needed, especially judging by the tests carried out, the performance increases slightly, but the smartphone starts to warm up more strongly. And even now there are simply no games that a smartphone would not pull "at maximum speed".

A similar function appeared in the shell back in the summer, but before the release it was promised that the user would be able to choose one of the processor operating modes: 1.8 GHz / 2.15 GHz / 2.3 GHz. There is no power reduction yet, although, as for me, this function would be much more useful, to save power, you could keep the processor at 1.8 GHz, increasing the frequency only for demanding games.

Communications. Connection. Main functions.

Here they definitely did not save. The earpiece is worth it High Quality, the interlocutor is heard clearly, loudly, without extraneous sounds. The microphone is sensitive, the interlocutor hears well. The noise reduction works correctly, the hole for the second microphone can be seen on back cover, to the right of the flash. Even in a noisy place, you can be sure that you will be heard. 3G works great, the sensitivity is high - where other smartphones jump from 3G to 2G due to a weak signal, ZUK confidently continues to catch 3G. With good coverage, it easily gives out 17 - 20 megabits for downloading. But the difference is especially noticeable with poor coverage. A small example: we were sitting with a friend in a cafe, talking about smartphones and 3G. We decided to conduct a test and compare: on his smartphone it gave out about 1 megabit, on the ZUK Z2 - 5 megabits. For 4G, the situation is similar, at least the reviews of users who have LTE say this. When choosing a device, one should take into account the lack of support for Вand 20 (800 Mhz). WiFi supports dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz. The antenna is sensitive, the signal is stable within the apartment.

In the back room, through 2 walls, the download speed is over 50 megabits. Inexpensive smartphones in this place they issue no more than 30.

In navigation, qualcomm chips are second to none. First commit time without enabled mobile internet was only 2 seconds. The maximum number of satellites was found within 15 seconds. On a cloudy winter day with dense clouds, the smartphone saw 31 satellites, 21 of which had an active connection. Positioning accuracy 1 - 3 meters. ZUK can work with GPS, GLONASS, BEIDOU and GALILEO. GALILEO is a European navigation system that has recently been introduced. There are now 18 satellites, but they are still in operation. According to the system, owners of Snapdragon smartphones (400th, 600th and 800th series) will be able to count on the use of the system. Checking with the tracker showed the stability of the signal, the path was exactly the same as in reality. No breaks in communication, "throwing" on the map and other byaki were found.

Performance. Synthetic tests.

The strongest and most noticeable side of the smartphone. He works very quickly, not the slightest hint of thoughtfulness, he performs all actions instantly. With such hardware, it is not surprising, quite recently only the most advanced models and flagships could boast of it. But even now this processor has not lost its relevance. Having bought such a smartphone, you can be sure that its performance will last at least 3-4 years. Now he copes with absolutely any task, all games work on maximum settings graphics with good textures and high FPS. The same tanks, at maximum graphics settings with the highest details and effects, show 55-60 FPS most of the time. And yet, let's see what kind of hardware provides such performance.

The presence of built-in sensors is surprising. Among the main ones: magnetic compass, gyroscope, accelerometer, light sensor, proximity sensor, hall sensor, fingerprint scanner, pedometer.

For the sake of interest, the result will be compared with my personal Xiaomi Mi5S, which I bought 3 months ago for $ 320. MI5S scored 147470 points, which is 15995 points more or 10.85%. The difference is not very big. And if you look in more detail? In the graph, the result of the Mi5s is 57800, and the CPU is 32700. That is, the results are essentially the same and in terms of performance, Snapdragon 820 and Snapdragon 821 are almost equal. In general, the difference in the Antutu result is only in the UX clause, which means ease of use and is calculated in an incomprehensible way. Perhaps this indicator is generally put by Antutu in its own interests, in order to promote the "necessary" models. In general, in terms of speed and performance, ZUK is at the level of expensive flagships.

Zuk Z2 in Geekbench 4 also showed a good result: single-core - 1670, multi-core - 3478.

The PC Mark benchmark in the Work 2.0 test passed perfectly. As they wrote in the application itself - “This is one of the most powerful devices and everything works fine. " The smartphone scored 5271 points, which is even slightly higher than the reference result. This speaks of a well-optimized firmware. During the test, the temperature did not rise, passive cooling copes completely.

In the 3D Mark game test, the most resource-demanding test was chosen - Sling Shot Extreme, which uses OpenGL ES 3.1 and runs at 2560x1440. And here the result is very high - 2405 points. The temperature did not exceed 40 degrees.

If you look at the leaderboard and compare the result, we will see that the smartphone is on par with flagships such as OnePlus3 or Samsung Galaxy S7, which are more than 2 times more expensive in terms of cost.

Epic citadel produces about 60 FPS on any graphics settings

Other benchmarks:

Besides powerful processor and graphics, the speed of RAM and built-in memory is no less important. And for performance in simple tasks, it even comes to the fore. RAM here from the heart is 4Gb. It is enough to open a dozen heavy tabs in the browser, run several resource-intensive applications or games and they will not be unloaded, providing instant access to the desired task if necessary. Appetites for applications are growing and the reality is such that today, the minimum required volume random access memory is equal to 2Gb. And 4Gb will allow you to comfortably use your smartphone and not think about replacing it for several more years. A dual-channel LPDDR 4 memory is used, operating at a frequency of 1866 megahertz. Copying speed is very high - 12500 Mb / s, again - at the level of flagship models. Built-in memory of the eMMC format, with a capacity of 64 Gb. Reading speed - over 200 Mb / s, write speed, about 100 Mb / s.

Sound
I decided to highlight him separately, because I think he deserves it. From the first track, I noticed a high-quality sound for myself, but nowhere in the description is the presence of any dedicated audio chips or drivers indicated. High detail, minimal distortion - voluminous and powerful low frequencies and sonorous highs. The sound is really good! I found out that the processor uses a built-in DAC - Qualcomm WCD9335, which is responsible for the sound. I think a similar sound will be on all smartphones with Snapdragon 820. I am sure that ordinary listeners (not audiophiles heating copper wires) will be more than satisfied.
Camera

Until now, it may seem that the smartphone is just the ultimate dream. But the manufacturer had to save on something in order to set such an attractive price tag. It turned out to be a camera. I can't say that there is a complete slag here, but it removes at the level of smartphones for $ 150 and clearly does not fit with the rest of the "stuffing". If a camera in a smartphone is a very important component for you and you plan to use it instead of a digital camera, it is better to look at something else. The sensor in the main camera from Samsung, model S5K2M8. This sensor is used exclusively in ZUK smartphones and is not found anywhere else. Sensor type - ISOSELL, aperture f / 2.2. The maximum image resolution is 4160x3120, 13 megapixels. First of all, I didn't like the stock camera. Weak functionality, minimum settings. All you can do is turn on flash, HDR, and panorama. For video, there is also fast and slow motion.

You can, of course, change the resolution of the picture. By default, the camera shoots in 4: 3 format, if you take pictures in 16: 9, then the actual resolution of the pictures drops to 10 megapixels.

By using a different camera application, you can access more advanced settings. The Moto Z camera shoots very well, and there are much more settings in it than in the stock one. V new firmware, which on Android 7 - the stock camera has been significantly improved: appeared manual settings, the quality of the pictures has improved. Below are examples of pictures. On the site - for an approximate assessment of the quality (for filling it was necessary to squeeze), the originals can be downloaded. With sufficient lighting, the pictures come out good, detailed. Sharpness throughout the image, even along the edges, small details are not smeared. Focusing is fast and the camera shoots instantly, you can click dozens of frames. I did not like the HDR mode - it weakly lightens the dark areas, the difference between HDR and non-HDR images is almost negligible.

Indoors, under artificial lighting, the result can be different. If there is enough light, then everything is very decent. In low light, detail drops and autofocus begins to "dull". The chance of getting a frame out of focus increases.

More shots in artificial and low light

As you can see for yourself, the camera shoots averagely and it all depends on which price segment to compare it in. If we take the version with 3Gb RAM, which costs $ 160, the camera shoots very well, at least not worse than other smartphones in this price category. But for $ 200, I would like a little more detail and sensitivity in the evening. I have no complaints about the video. I can even praise. It can write as much as possible in 4K quality at 30 frames per second, Full HD on the drain also writes 30 frames per second, on third-party cameras (for example, Moto Z) a 60 frames per second mode appears. There is stabilization, it is not aggressive, soft and sometimes unobtrusive. The microphone is very sensitive, it captures every rustle. A small example of shooting in Full HD:

There is a very interesting item in the video camera settings - you can select slow motion in different modes: 120fps, 240fps and 960fps.

In this case, the resolution of the recorded clip is reduced to HD (720p). And if 120 fps can now write everything modern smartphones then 240fps and 960fps are incredible. I recorded several videos and watched them on the screen, everything was really very slow. A handful of coins that I scattered on the table in front of the camera effectively and slowly fell, stretching from a few seconds to several minutes. But when I downloaded the video to my computer, it played back at a recording speed of 120fps. That is, the camera actually writes all the same 120fps, and everything that is more artificially slows down programmatically and you can watch it only on a smartphone.

Battery. Autonomy.

First, I want to put an end to the issue with fast charging, because some reviewers claim in their videos that it is here. And this rumor went due to an incorrect description in some stores and resources. There was some confusion. So, at home I have a charger from Aukey with Quick Charhe 2.0 function and there is an original Quick Charge 3.0 charger for my MI5S. The ZUK Z2 did not react to any charge, continuing to issue the usual 5V. Making things even more confusing is the fact that the ZUK Z2 Pro supports fast charging. It is believed that in the usual Z2, fast charging is locked at the software level to make the Pro version more attractive. But these are all rumors, but the facts remain as follows: the smartphone is charged with a maximum current of 2.5A at a voltage of 5V. Charging to 95% takes less than 2 hours, so Quick Charge is simply not needed here. A completely discharged and disconnected smartphone is poured into 17.47 Wh or 3414 mAh.

Further to autonomy. The 3400 mAh capacity is enough for a 5-inch diagonal. The operating time of course will be different for everyone, depending on the scenario of use. With my use (few calls, a lot of Internet via WiFi, about 30 minutes of games a day, sometimes photos and music "the smartphone lasts for 2 days. By the evening of the second day, the indicator shows about 20% of the remaining charge. At the same time, the screen time for one cycle varies from 6 to 7 hours. Sometimes, I charge once a day if I used it very actively and by the evening less than 40% is left. Tests with video are more indicative. I always use the same HD movie to test the autonomy of smartphones. At half brightness, playback lasted 18 hours and 41 minutes.

At maximum brightness - 9 hours 12 minutes.

For comparison - the results of tests of other smartphones, for convenience, combined into one plate.

If you wish, you can even calculate how much each of the smartphones spends mAh for 1 minute of video playback. For the sake of interest, I did this to play video at a brightness of 50% and Xiaomi MI5S turned out to be the leader, which, in principle, is not surprising, given its price and flagship status. For every minute of HD video playback at medium brightness, it spends 2.85 mA. But the second place was taken by Lenovo ZUK Z2, which spends 3.03 mA during the same time. The results of other smartphones are much worse, that is, the consumption is higher. Of course, this method is not entirely accurate, rather a pampering for fans of statistics, but nevertheless, such a method gives some kind of concept. Other tests include demonstration mode in Epic Citadel at maximum brightness with sound on. Essentially an imitation of a demanding game. Test result - 5 hours 16 minutes.

Antutu Battery Test at maximum screen brightness.

And the battery test in geekbench 3. For some reason, the result here is not as good as in other tests. Possibly related to the minimum brightness of the screen, which differs from different models smartphones (here it is not the lowest of those that I have seen).

In conclusion, I propose to watch the video version of the review

Let's summarize? I consider the smartphone to be the best in the price category under $ 200. Undoubtedly, this is the most balanced offer on the market in the price-performance category. In terms of build quality, the feeling of use, it is felt at the level of smartphones from Meizu, Xiaomi and the like. Of course, it does not reach the flagships of A brands, but at the same time it costs more than 2 times cheaper.

What did you save on and what disadvantages can be noted?:

$ 150 Smartphone-Level Camera

No NFC (not a minus for me, but there are always disputes in the comments about this)

A soiled body that instantly becomes covered with prints

Lack of support for band 20 (because the smartphone was released for the Chinese market)

The need for self-flashing to get the Russian language. (or you can not flash it, because there is English)

What did not save and what are the main advantages:

High-performance Snapdragon 820 processor with top-end Adreno 530 graphics

4Gb of RAM + Stable and fast work, no bugs

High quality conversational and audio speaker

Communication modules (Internet, WiFi, GPS - work perfectly)

Decent autonomy

Large community, many custom firmwares

The official update to Android 7.0 has already been released

Good headphone sound.

Perfectly working fingerprint scanner.

In early August 2015, after several months of announcements and "leaks", the first smartphone from ZUK, a newly created division of Lenovo, was presented to the world. The device is interesting for its pleasant appearance and unusual multifunctional U-Touch button, which is designed to facilitate navigation on the device.

Equipment

The package bundle is quite common. In the box with the smartphone you will find a user manual, charger, cable (standard USB Type-C) and a "key" to open the SIM card slot.

Specifications

The device has a 4-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with a clock speed of 2.5 GHz, 3 GB of RAM and 64 GB of internal memory. There is no expansion port for microSD memory cards.

The display of the ZUK Z1 is 5.5 inches with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

There are two cameras in the device: the front one is 8 MP and the main one is 13 MP.

The dimensions of the device are 155.7 x 77.3 x 8.9 mm, and the weight is 175 grams.

The telephone module supports the simultaneous operation of two SIM cards and is capable of working in the following standards:

2G: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, CDMA2000: 800 MHz
3G: WCDMA: 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, CDMA: 800 MHz, TD-SCDMA: B34 / B39
4G: FDD-LTE: 1800/2100/2600 MHz, TDD-LTE: b38 / b39 / b40 / b41

The capacity of the rechargeable battery is 4100 mAh. Thanks to the USB Type-C port, the device has the ability to charge ultra-fast.

Operates a smartphone based on the operating room Android systems 5.1 with proprietary ZUI shell. The main feature of the ZUK Z1 is the presence on the front panel of a special multifunctional touch button U-Touch, which will allow you to quickly control your smartphone.

The sensor is capable of detecting: press, double press, touch and slide. In addition, U-Touch acts as a fingerprint scanner.

Vizheo: appearance smartphone

The Z1 is ZUK's first attempt at launching a smartphone, and it features some of the same elements that other manufacturers of similar devices can see. Visually this model- this is something in between the iPhone and Samsung, but this device does not become less interesting.

The front of the smartphone has 8 MP cameras, sensors, a 5.5-inch screen and a multifunction touch button U-touch.

On the back there is a 13 MP camera with flash and the ZUK logo.

Power and volume buttons are standardly located on the right side of the smartphone, and the SIM card slot is on the left.

On the lower edge there is a microphone, a grill of the main speaker and USB port Type-C.

Do you want a smartphone with top-end characteristics, small size, and even for modest money? Lenovo Zuk Z2 fits these parameters. In the review, we will tell you whether it is true that the Chinese decided to work at a loss or there is still a catch.

Equipment

Looking at the huge Chinese inscriptions on the box, doubt should creep in, but is this phone really supposed to leave the celestial Empire? Inside, in addition to the smartphone, there is a charger, USB cable Type-C, paper clip to open the SIM slot, and paper documentation.

Appearance

The smartphone looks simple and strict at the same time. Available in two colors - white and black. We got a black version. The appearance cannot be called attractive - an ordinary rectangular smartphone without any design elements. Some people will love this, but I find this design boring.

The front side is covered protective glass with rounding. For two weeks of testing, no scratches appeared. At the top is the lens front camera, sensors, earpiece and LED. There is only one mechanical key under the screen with a fingerprint scanner.

The frame is made of fiberglass. The manufacturer indicates that it is 25% stronger than conventional plastic. Tactilely, the frame looks more like metal.

The volume rocker, power button and a slot for two SIM-cards of the nanoSIM format are located on the right side. Multimedia speaker, USB Type-C port, microphone and 3.5mm audio jack at the bottom.

The back cover is covered with some kind of plastic. It is glossy and scratches easily, even with careful use. The main camera does not protrude above back panel... Next to it is a single flash LED and an additional microphone.

When you hold the phone in your hands, one gets the impression that it is thick and heavy, but in fact its dimensions are quite compact, as for a five-inch phone. The dimensions are 68.9 x 141.7 x 8.5 mm and the weight is 149 grams. This is comparable to the size and weight of the Xiaomi mi4c (69.59 x 138.1 x 7.8 mm, 132 grams).

In terms of usability, the only complaint about the phone is that it is slippery. If you put it on a flat surface, thenZuk Z2 will definitely crawl out of there. In order not to drop the phone, it's still better to look for at least some kind of cover for it. Otherwise, there are no comments. The fingerprint scanner works fine. Indeed, you only need to touch it for a split second and the phone is already unlocked.

Display

Zuk Z2 is equipped with a five-inch IPS screen with Full resolution HD. There is an oleophobic coating. Automatic brightness control on this firmware works strange and unstable. In the sun, the image fades only slightly, but remains readable.

The screen brightness ranges from 2.6 to 398 cd / m². At minimum brightness, you can happily read your favorite book before bed, while exerting minimal pressure on your eyes. Contrast 1 to 600.

The color gamut is much wider than the sRGB triangle, and the temperature is close to the reference. The gamma curve is also nearly equal to the reference value of 2.1.

It is worth noting that we obtained all of the above values using the "Standard" color profile. The screen settings are made according to the same principle as in MIUI 8. You can choose one of three color presets, as well as enable night mode.

They did not save on the screen of this smartphone - a high-quality matrix was installed. In terms of display quality, the Zuk Z2 will give odds to many smartphones, even with a much higher price tag, if only the auto brightness would be corrected and in general everything would be at the highest level.

Phone firmware

After getting acquainted with the appearance and colorful screen, it's time to get acquainted with the shell of the smartphone. Unlike the Zuk Z1, which had an international version with some digestible firmware, our hero is deprived of this.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, Chinese stores will send you a phone with a "Russified" firmware, but you shouldn't be happy. This firmware can hardly be called stable, because there is a lot of Chinese software in it, the translation is clumsy and not complete, but Play Store and doesn't work at all. This kind of "translation" is often found on Xiaomi smartphones. They are installed by "good sellers" so that the buyer has to read the forums a little and understand the intricacies of the firmware of his new, beloved smartphone. The same situation is with the Zuk Z2. In order to make it work more or less adequately, you need to read w3bsit3-dns.com, and postponing things to do a phone flashing. It is advisable to do this not looking at night, otherwise you may not have time to blink an eye as the night ends and it will already be morning on the street.

Although I dealt with flashing smartphones, I still managed to "turn it around" by installing the wrong version of the software. After that, I decided to ask the experts from the forum who helped me to resurrect the phone. As a result, I installed the extreme firmware with the ZUI 2.0 shell, which is in English and Chinese, but has no google apps.

You could go ahead and try to unlock the bootloader by an official unlock request, but at the same time I would lose the warranty on the device, but would be able to install custom recovery, which would allow installing the translated native firmware ZUI, or CyanogenMod.

I decided not to do this, but for normal operation I had to put google apps... At first I thought it was easy, because there is a built-in App Center, in which I installed all the necessary services using the search. I installed everything, but not everything. Apps on the Play Store did not want to be updated or downloaded. After that I again turned to the forum for help and there they answered that it was worth downloading apk separately and installing it by hand. So that there is no conflict with the previously installed ones, it is better to reflash the phone to the same firmware again and install the apk of Google applications.

As you can see, Zuk Z2 is not a phone that you can get out of the box to use. This is a real constructor. You need to buy it for someone who knows exactly what a flashing is. I, being the owner smartphone Xiaomi, figured out the intricacies of the firmware not the first time. Yes, there are Zuk users on the specialized forums, instructions on how to do everything, but still no one denies the possibility that at one moment something may go wrong.

Shell

The smartphone is running operating system Android 6.0 and ZUI 2.0 shells. The latter changes the appearance of the system so deeply that it's hard to find at least something from Android 6.0.

Externally, ZUI 2.0 is similar to MIUI 7. There is no application menu, everything is on the desktops.

The phone controls are designed for one mechanical key. Tap - back, press - home, two clicks - task menu. In this case, if you swipe the key from left to right and from right to left, you can switch between applications without going into the dispatcher.

Pulling the curtain from the top, we find only the notification bar. To find the shutter of switches, you need to pull the bottom edge up (as in iOS). This solution looks unusual, but at the same time it is convenient in practice - there is no need to reach for the upper edge.

The settings menu is almost the same as MIUI 7. It can be seen that they were inspired by this particular shell, but at the same time they tried to do it a little in their own way. There is a choice of one of four skins. Of all the skins, I liked the black one the most. Many people lack this even on pure Android.

As in MIUI, there is a problem with notifications from installed applications... Yes, you can set the priority in the application settings, which in most cases helps, but notifications from Gmail mail came every other time. The rest of the shell is interesting and not bad.

Hardware platform

Zuk Z1 at one time came out with the top-end Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Zuk Z2 could not have been different. Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 (MSM8996) is used as a platform. It is equipped with four cores, built on the Kryo architecture, which are organized in two blocks of two cores. The first two are for performing resource-intensive tasks with frequencies up to 2.2 GHz, and the other two are for energy saving with frequencies up to 1.6 GHz. Video coreAdreno 530 is 40% more productive than the Adreno 430 used inSnapdragon 810. The amount of RAM is 4 GB LPDDR4 (after switching on, a little more than 2 GB is available). The built-in memory is 64 GB, while the user has 53 GB.

The high-performance platform Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 in synthetic tests shows results at the level of the flagships of 2016. The Zuk Z2 is perfect as a gaming smartphone.

For some reason, the new Asphalt Xtreme slowed down at maximum settings. I hope this will be fixed in next update games. With the rest of the games like N.O.V.A. 3 and Space Marshals 2 had no problems.

In games, the phone heats up, which is felt on the back of the camera. At the same time, the heating is not strong, but the sensor data can argue with me.

The operation of the wireless interfaces did not raise any questions. Searching for satellites even without using the mobile Internet takes a few seconds.

There are no complaints about the earpiece and microphone. The multimedia speaker is loud, but it is one, and it is located so that during the game it is easily blocked by the hand.

Autonomy

The built-in battery capacity is 3500 mAh. For some unknown reason, the PCMark Battery test failed even on the third try.

During normal use without games, but with social media and average brightness, the smartphone lasted 1.5 days. In this case, the screen was active for almost 5 hours, and the talk time was 1.5 hours. The battery life is not bad, but it largely depends on how long you play on your smartphone.

Cameras

The Zuk Z2 is equipped with two cameras - the main one is 13 megapixels and the front one is 8 megapixels. The aperture of the main camera is f / 2.2, and the front camera is f / 2.0. The interface of the application has not been significantly redesigned.

On the start screen, you can turn on the flash, select the HDR mode (on, off, automatic), go into the settings and go to video recording.

The quality of pictures in good lighting conditions is not bad - above average, but at night everything is not so good - the frames are noisy. It is impossible to compare the Zuk Z2 camera with the current flagships of Samsung and LG, but the non-demanding user will like the photos.

The front-facing camera roused no complaints.

Video recording is possible in 4K resolution at 30 frames / sec.