Lenovo Vibe P1 First Impression – Designed To Last Long, Really Long

After bringing-in a little something for offline buyers, Lenovo today was back in the online-exclusive domain where it has tasted quite a success recently. The company talked numbers (3 million 4G phones sold so far) at the event and even brought in Flipkart Sales Executive to attest its shining performance in recently held Big Billion Sales. But we digress.

At the forefront were Vibe P1 and Vibe P1m which the company has specifically designed for Indian youth, who apparently prioritize big batteries. The extent of profound dedication to this primary purpose is expressed by the presence of a dedicated hardware key to toggle into or out of power-saver mode on the fly. A cursory glance on hardware specs suggests that Lenovo did get the price right. But what about the rest? Let’s discuss.

Key Specifications of Vibe P1 

More premium of the two

The Vibe P1 is surprisingly light even though it comes with a massive battery and the weight listed is 189 grams. The side frame is metallic with chamfered edges, which imparts a premium feel to the device. The rest of the rear panel is plastic. You can peel off the strip above the camera module to plug in SIM and MicroSD card.

All buttons, including the Fingerprint scanner + Home button on the front give decent feedback. The fingerprint sensor was fast and accurate in our testing. You can directly wake and unlock the device using the sensor. It is flanked by capacitive keys which are backlit.

In spite of being a 5.5 Inch display phone, the Vibe P1 felt reasonably compact and was easily manageable. The display however was kind of a let-down. The display brightness wasn’t optimum which also took its toll on sunlight legibility. Colors and viewing angles were also average, though Vibe UI lets you play around with color temperature settings to an extent, and a SuperBright mode is also present. On the whole, the full HD panel wasn’t a deal breaker, but seemed to check P1’s march towards being a really fantastic phone.

Enduring Battery

Besides providing copious battery juice, Lenovo has focused on a set of features to effectively manage all that power. A dedicated key is present to facilitate switching to power-saver mode on the fly, and though we have heard whispers of this being an overkill, this is something which actually makes sense to us.

I, for one, rely on power saver mode way too often and its presence anywhere beyond quick settings is an inconvenience. No matter how much juice there is, you can conveniently switch to power saving mode during bouts of quick charge sessions or at critical times with ease. The battery supports rapid charging and can also be used as a Power-bank (Using USB OTG Support) to charge other gadgets.

Camera and Software

The 13MP Vibe P1 rear camera seems to a decent job in indoor lighting. We managed to grab a couple of camera samples, which you can check below. We will reserve our final verdict till we get to test it explicitly in different lighting conditions.

The Vibe UI in the handset is based on Android 5.1.1. While the iconography could have been better, settings menu is rich in options you could benefit from. Unlike other Vibe UI’s, Lenovo has provided with an App drawer this time. There weren’t many preloaded apps on the device and UI transitions were smooth and lag free.

Expectations

It comes with 1.5 GHz Snapdragon 615 processor with 2GB RAM (1.4 GB Free on user end) which sounds good enough to satisfy all classes of users. It’s still too soon to comment on the performance though. The Lenovo Vibe P1 has been designed to deliver long lasting battery backup without compromising on other aspects. On that count it succeeds.