Lenovo K9 Talking about the main feature of the smartphone, this smartphone comes with four cameras. The most interesting thing is that after a long time Lenovo has launched the favorite K series phone in the market. Lenovo K3 Note, Samsung Galaxy A42 250 mAh Battery, K6 Power And Lenovo K8 Plus launched last year is part of the company’s K series. Let’s find out if Lenovo will be able to repeat its past successes or not.
Design of Lenovo K9
Usually, smartphones coming in this budget do not have a glass back panel, but the company’s Lenovo K9 smartphone comes with a glass back panel. The blue and black glass panel of the phone is reflective. Due to the glass panel, it slips easily in the hands, which is why users are advised to be careful while holding the phone in their hands. After using the review unit we had for a week, we found that there were scratches on the back panel of the phone.
There are two selfie cameras, sensors and earpiece on the front panel of the phone. This model of Lenovo brand is a budget smartphone. Being a budget smartphone, the front panel still has thick borders at the top and bottom. But at this price, the look of Lenovo K9 looks quite impressive. The glass on the front and back panel comes with curved edges. The rear camera setup has a slight bulge. Due to the curved frame, the grip of the phone is good. Fingerprint sensor is visible on the back panel for security. There is a 3.5 mm headphone jack at the bottom of the phone and a USB Type-C port for charging. The buttons on the right side are very small and are also very close to each other. It is possible that you may get confused many times in choosing the right button.
Lenovo K9 specifications and software
This Lenovo phone is equipped with the new MediaTek Helio P22 processor. The phone has eight ARM Cortex-A53 CPUs with a maximum speed of 2 GHz and also uses the PowerVR GE8320 GPU. Considering the price of the phone, we liked the 32 GB storage with 3 GB RAM. A 3000 mAh battery has been provided to power the phone.
It has a 5.7-inch HD+ (720×1440 pixels) display. It is quite crisp and bright. But due to reflection on the glass surface, it was difficult to use it outdoors. There is a 5-megapixel camera along with a 13-megapixel camera on the rear. The same setup is also on the front panel. Accelerometer, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor are part of the phone.
The presence of a USB Type-C port surprised us, as almost all budget phones and many premium phones still come with the standard Micro-USB. On the other hand, the hybrid dual SIM tray is disappointing, which means you can either put a SIM or a microSD card in the second slot. If you use two SIMs, LTE support will be available on both. Lenovo has also added some of its own features to the software, but it still feels like stock Android 8.1.
The first thing we noticed in Lenovo K9 is its UI elements, such as icons, text and status bar also look bigger. You will be able to take screenshots easily using three fingers. It will be possible to use customization with the help of gestures. Lenovo K9 has a DuraSpeed feature. We have also seen this feature in other phones equipped with MediaTek processors. This feature will completely close the current app, due to which the app will not run in the background after closing it. Note that after using this feature you will not receive notifications related to that app. The review unit we have runs on August 2018 security patch.
You will already get Gameloft Games and UC Browser pre-installed in the phone, the good thing is that you will be able to remove these apps. In Lenovo K9, you will get SyncIt app which will help in backup and restore your contacts, messages and call logs. Along with this, it will not be possible to uninstall Lenovo App Daily app store.
Lenovo K9 performance, battery life and camera
We had no complaints with the phone in normal use. But heavy apps did feel lag. At times, this problem was also faced while scrolling in the Google Play Store. Gaming experience was also not very good. Watching videos on this screen was fun. The speaker is suitable for conversation, but the sound becomes distorted in music. The fingerprint sensor works fast. The phone does not heat up too much.
Lenovo K9 has scored 78,460 on AnTuTu benchmark and 4,876 on PCMark Work 2.0. Lenovo K9’s performance in GFXBench T-Rex graphics test scene was 27fps. Battery life is good. According to our experience, Lenovo K9’s battery will last a whole day in normal use. In HD video loop test, the battery lasted for 11 hours and 22 minutes. At the same time, the battery takes one hour to charge from zero to 40 percent, which can be called slow.
Regarding the performance of the four cameras on this phone, we would say that the results were mixed. The focus of the 13-megapixel primary rear camera is soft. Some of our shots came out blurry, that too in sunlight. Lenovo K9 also had trouble in scenes where there was a lot of contrast between light and shadow areas. Colours also came out quite dull and washed out. A couple of shots in bokeh mode came out well, but the background was artificially distorted. You can also take portrait selfies using the two front cameras. The effect was good, but the overall quality of the image suffered.
The shots taken at night were a bit dark. But whatever detail was visible was fine. Noise and grain were clearly visible when zoomed in to full size. But considering the price, the quality cannot be called bad. The videos also came out grainy and dark. Apart from panorama mode and beautification, you will not find many features in the camera app.
Decision
The main feature of Lenovo K9 is its four cameras – two on the front and two on the rear. However, photo quality is not the phone’s strongest point. The camera setup gave us some shockingly weak shots even during the day. We hope the company improves it with software updates. Apart from that, it is a very attractive phone. We don’t think there is any pressing need for a notch or extremely thin borders. Lenovo has struck a good balance between features and portability with this phone.
The performance and battery life of this phone is good enough for the budget segment. Its biggest drawback is the hybrid slot present in the phone. We recommend using a protective cover to protect the phone. For security, if you like the look of Lenovo K9 and can compromise on its cameras, then this is a good alternative to Xiaomi Redmi 6.