Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus: 5 Best and 5 Boring Features Against Rivals Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and LeEco Le 1S

Lenovo created ripples in the budget smartphone market with its budget 'K' series smartphones last year. The company is all set to break the price barrier yet again with its new addition to the killer smartphone series. The company is launching the Vibe K5 Plus in India on March 15.

The Vibe K5 Plus smartphone is the company's latest offering that was recently unveiled at the MWC 2016. The phone packs in top-of-the-line specifications and is expected to be priced aggressively, Around Rs 10,000, to take on its rivals like Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, LeEco Le 1S and more in India.

The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus smartphone is a feature packed device that boasts of high-end specifications to take on its counterparts. The phone is targeted at emerging markets, thus is priced accordingly. Here we take a look at the 5 best features of the K5 Plus smartphone, which make it a highly competitive offering, and 5 features that it lacks or misses.

Top 5 Features that make it an Awesome Flagship Smartphone:

1. An Apple-lookalike:

Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus flaunts a sleek finish aluminum casing but it is not all-metal build. Lenovo tried to pick design cues from Apple to give the K5 Plus an iPhone like looks from the outside, especially back side. The phone measures 8.2mm thin and weighs in at 142g, which make it light on hand. The metal casing and smooth finish design is good to go against the Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 and LeEco Le 1S. It is available in silver, grey or champagne gold metal colour options.

2. Display:

The Vibe K5 Plus has a 5-inch IPS display with FHD resolution (1920x1080p). The display has a peak brightness of 450 nits, which should make it bright enough to offer great visibility even under bright sun. Ergonomically, the 5-inch display size should make the phone comfortable to be used single handedly. The full HD resolution is an advantage, and the phone's screen should offer crisp and bright visuals with good viewing angles.

LG G5: 10 Features that make it an Awesome Flagship Smartphone

3. Powerhub:

The K5 Plus boasts a Snapdragon 616 octa-core chipset with 64-bit processing and uses a cluster of four Cortex A53 ticking at 1.2GHz each, and another four Cortex A53 cores at 1.5GHz. It is supported by an Adreno 405 GPU. The hardware specifications look powerful for a phone in this price range, and should work well without glitches.

4. Photography:

For the photography enthusiasts, the new Vibe K5 smartphone offers a 13MP rear camera with autofocus and LED flash, and a 5MP fixed-focus front-facing snapper. Lenovo has also added various editing tools and features to support camera app and result in better imaging. And going by the photography results of the K4 Plus smartphone, we expect the imaging quality to be only better.

5. Swappable battery:

The good part is that Lenovo this time opted for a removable back panel than keeping the batter intact. The back cover can be removed to place a 2750mAh battery, dual-SIM cards and a microSD card. Removable battery is an advantage as it lets users swap battery in times of need.

SEE ALSO: LeEco Le 1s: 5 Best And Worst Features Of The Smartphone

Bonus point:

6. Audio delight:

Additionally, the phone features Dolby Atmos surround sound for better audio experience. The presence of Dolby Atmost sound systme should enhance the audio experience even on using any headphones.

5 Features that we miss on the phone:

1. Lower RAM than competitors

The Lenovo Vibe K5 Plus offers storage capacity of 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage that can be expanded using microSD card. Well, 2GB RAM is certainly not at par with the competition, considering that its competitors pack in higher RAM. For instance, LeEco Le 1S boasts 3GB of RAM, which has somewhat become standard to the phones in this price range.

2. USB Type C:

Considering that its rival smartphone, the LeEco Le 1s features a USB Type C reversible port, we expected the Vibe K5 Plus to offer similar connectivity option. However, the phone misses this feature.

The phone runs Android 5.1 Lollipop software with Lenovo skin on top, which has now become standard to the phones in this price range. However, the company could have made a difference by introducing this phone with Android Marshmallow pre-loaded. Otherwise, the UI on the phone should be neat and fluid, considering our previous smartphone experience with the company's K series smartphones. Rest can be said once we have our hands on the devices.

Xiaomi Mi5 Hands on and first impressions: 7 reasons why we think it will rule the mid-range segment

4. Lacks 4k video recording support:

Another feature that is missing from the phone is the support for 4K video in terms of cameras. The Lenovo K5 Plus's 13MP rear camera with LED Flash does look nice but isn't capable of shooting 4K videos unlike the LeEco Le 1S and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3, which is a disadvantage of the phone and may disappoint camera enthusiast consumers.

5. Smaller battery:

This full HD display smartphone is powered by a 2750mAh battery, which is smaller than the battery of its competitor - the LeEco Le 1S and Xiaomi Redmi Note 3. Considering that battery is an important part, we think a bigger battery was required on this smartphone.