Lenovo IdeaPhone P700i: Smartphone-Long-Liver at a Reasonable Price

In November, Lenovo starts selling mobile phones in Russia. From the 20th (pre-order is available today), so far only two Lenovo smartphones on the Android platform will be presented in the MVideo store: IdeaPhone P700i with a four-inch display and IdeaPhone S880 with a five-inch. I got acquainted with the more compact and inexpensive (8990 rubles) dual-purpose P700i over the past three weeks, using it as the main phone, then as an additional one, and I am ready to share the test results with you.

In short, I, who are used to spending some large amounts of money on mobile devices, initially saw some downgrade when switching to the P700i. Well - the screen is smaller, lower performance, and so on. It is possible that the same thoughts will occur to many future buyers of this IdeaPhone. According to the results of the test, I have very different impressions.

Thanks to the 4-inch display, the phone is perfectly in the hand. The performance of a dual-core processor is more than enough for active use, with a lot of running programs and constant switching between them. And, most importantly, thanks to a capacious battery and a relatively economical platform, the P700i lives without charging longer than any other Android-based smartphone (and not only) from those that fell into my hands. And in some battery disciplines all-round, the Lenovo smartphone shows just phenomenal results.
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UPD. Lenovo smartphones can already be purchased on the MVideo network !



Specifications:
Processor : MTK6577 Platform - ARM Cortex A9 dual-core processor with a frequency of 1 GHz
Memory : 512 MB RAM, 4 GB ROM, microSD slot up to 32 GB
Graphics accelerator : PowerVR SGX531
Screen : IPS, 4 inches, 800x480, multi-touch up to five touches
Battery : 2500 mAh, talk time up to 22 hours
Radio modules: WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, FM Radio
Camera : 5 MP, front 0.3 MP
Android version : 4.0.4
Dimensions : 125x64x12 mm
Weight : 162g



Before talking about the smartphone, it should be noted that Lenovo is not new to the industry. The company has been producing phones under its own brand for more than 10 years, but until recently they were only available in China. There, Lenovo's mobile devices are among the most popular, and they are represented in a much larger range.

Why is Lenovo starting to sell smartphones outside of China just now? Everything is simple here: those who are familiar with the Chinese models imported here know that in this country almost all “smartphone” services are local, not represented outside of it. Own Facebook and VKontakte, its app stores, search services, messaging networks, and more. It is easy to adapt iron, which is the same for the whole world, but the situation with software is more complicated.

Sales in Russia do not start with flagship models, but with two very balanced in price and performance. In the foreseeable future, the line will expand - as they say, stay tuned.

Look and Feel, calls and SMS



The phone is available in two colors - coal black and completely white. I got exactly the white version. The case is sturdy, absolutely unmarked, with a grooved back cover surface. On the front panel, there are four touch buttons (settings menu, home, back, list of recent applications), a speaker in a small recess, closed by a silver grid.



On the sides - the power button, volume (on the right, which is not very popular with fans to scroll through the text in the reader with the buttons), a separate two-way camera key. The headphone jack is located on top, there is also a microUSB port.



The back cover is removed from the clips with a little effort, under it is a huge (by the standards of the phone) 2500 mAh battery and a single node for two SIM cards and a microSD card. Despite so much compact placement of holders for full-sized SIMs, they are inserted and removed without problems. Only one of the two slots provides work on 3G networks (the second one, the one on top is 2G Only), so it is recommended to insert SIM cards with unlimited Internet into it.



I use the phone mainly for access to the network, the proportion of calls and SMS is relatively small. According to the test results, I can say that working with two SIM cards is organized quite logically. For calls, sms and the Internet, you can set both the default SIM and the choice for each event. One of the two cards can be disabled in the settings menu. There is a useful option when working on the Internet via EDGE / GPRS: in this mode, by reducing the data transfer speed, you can ensure that the subscriber is available for incoming calls.



For SMS, next to each message is displayed, through which operator it was received or sent. You can receive a message from one number and send a response from another - if you are going, for example, to change the operator.

Interface, branded add-ins
This is what the main home screen of the IdeaPhone P700i looks like, with the Lenovo brand add-on (albeit slightly adjusted in favor of the programs I often use).



In principle, this add-on is the main difference from the “clean” Android interface. Lenovo used its own icons for applications, but in general all the main elements are in place. There are two important exceptions - WiFi Tethering mode is displayed in a separate application, as well as information about the discharge of the battery. If I have no complaints about the first one, then an additional utility for switching energy saving profiles is useful, but it is also the only one suffering from the quality of the translation into Russian. Another utility allows you to take notes and is equipped with a widget on the home screen:



Performance
I'll start with the results of the Quadrant synthetic test:



Such tests make it possible to evaluate phone performance in comparison with competitors, but for me the speed of daily work was more important - switching between applications, downloading data from the network and so on. For all the time of use, I have never encountered “brakes”. Is that the video in 720p resolution is not played as smoothly as we would like. The rest - dual core gigahertz processor is enough. Verdict: power is enough :)

Battery life
So I got to the most interesting. Autonomy, in principle, is almost the main problem of modern smartphones and, frankly, it’s not quite clear why the screen resolution increases, the cores of processors are added. As a fan of computer hardware, I have a legitimate desire to use all these features, which is called “to the fullest” - to keep Skype and IM + in the background with ICQ, update data from social networks in relevant applications, check email in Push mode, and Weather widget to install wherever possible. And for some reason, it turns out that most of the “flagships” in this “all inclusive” mode do not live up to dinner.

With the IdeaPhone P700i, the situation is different: it is in this mode (two SIM cards, account synchronization is on, two email accounts in Push mode, Facebook and Vkontakte clients, and so on from the standard set) live for an average of two days. Something like this (schedule from the Battery Monitor Widget Pro program from morning until evening):



I also tested the phone in two special modes:
Second phone One SIM card, data transmission and radio modules are turned off, one or two calls and the same SMS per day. Result: 9 days 16 hours with discharge up to 4%! During this time, the screen on the phone was turned on for a total of less than three hours, so this test is more likely on the performance of the standby mode. Verdict: such an Android-smartphone can be considered as the main device, and as a backup - to always stay in touch. Just a couple of years ago, I would consider non-smartphones as a second phone. Now you can purchase a very powerful device at a reasonable price that automatically picks up your contact database and at the same time will work even longer than a typical “unwise” mobile phone. Fine!



Access point. One SIM card in the “Only 3G” mode, Internet distribution via WiFi is enabled, the device is not used for other tasks. Result: 7 hours 26 minutes . For distribution of cellular Internet, there are specialized devices, except that they work for a maximum of 4 hours. The fact that the IdeaPhone P700i could almost double this figure is already excellent. But at once I want to clarify that I conducted the test in two modes. The first is the distribution of the Internet to the second smartphone and tablet. Both devices were used irregularly and did not constantly apply for data to the P700i. For two hours of work in this mode, I received a discharge from 100% to 89%.



Then it was decided to complicate the test, and a laptop was connected to the access point, on which the torrent client was running for accuracy. This is the only test in which the phone warmed up noticeably (up to 35 degrees according to the battery sensor), which did not prevent it from constantly sending data at a speed of about megabits per second for the entire time. Another 5.5 hours in such a hard mode - and the battery is discharged to 3%. Verdict: even with Internet distribution constantly, but in a sparing mode, the P700i will be able to provide access to the network to other devices throughout the day.

In the video playback mode (standard resolution, brightness 80%, one SIM card, data transfer is disabled). Result: 9 hours and 20 minutes .

Conclusion
With a cost of just under 9 thousand rubles, the IdeaPhone P700i smartphone turned out to be very balanced, quite powerful and very convenient to use the device. I personally wasn’t satisfied by the fact that the camera - although it is equipped with autofocus optics, it doesn’t have a flash and doesn’t stand out for its quality. The rest is a great mobile phone for the money, with outstanding battery life. For those who need a bigger screen, the S880 5-inch “ceiling light” will also be on sale:



It costs more (12990 rubles), is equipped with a single-core processor with a frequency of 1 GHz and has an identical screen resolution of 800x480 pixels with the P700i. A detailed review of the model can be found on the EnjoyIT website and on Hi-Tech.Mail.ru .

In this review, I tried to show the main features of the phone, first of all - decent battery life and sufficient performance. Naturally, during the acquaintance I used GPS navigation, listened to music (with decent quality headphones), watched videos and more. Any questions on IdeaPhone P700i are ready to be answered in the comments.