Lenovo K3 Note Review

Practically the Lenovo K3 Note is a beefed up version of the Lenovo A7000. Ideally, it must have been named A7000 plus. Lenovo has been doing good with their A series mobiles in India and the K3 is nothing but an addition to the A Series family. Compared to the A7000, the K3 Note has a full HD display, 16 GB internal memory, 13 MP camera and a slightly bigger battery. Rest of the specification, including the size and design of the mobile is exactly same as the Lenovo A7000.

Design

The design is exactly the same as A7000.  The material used in the device is completely plastic. The back panel feels very flimsy when removed. But when fit back, it fits pretty snugly with the device. On the front you have the 5.5 inch IPS display with a Full HD resolution screen and a pixel density of ~401 ppi. The earpiece at the top has a 5 MP camera on its side. Below the display is the off screen which is still not back lit, though we have been complaining about it a lot. To your right you have the volume and power buttons with a hint of metal finish. The buttons have a good tactile feedback and are easily reachable with your thumb. To your left you find nothing and the bottom has a mic for telephony. The top has the 3.5 mm audio jack and USB socket. The back has the 13MP camera which is capable of 1080p videos. The camera is assisted by a dual LED flash. The back also has a mono speaker and a active noise cancelling mic. Under the back panel is the 3000 mAh battery, microSD card slot and dual micro SIM card slots. Unlike the A7000, both SIM 1 and 2 can take 4G LTE supported sim cards. The design does not scream premium but at the same time, it is design which you can call perfect for the price you pay.

Display

The K3 Note has a 5.5 inch IPS LCD display with 1080p resolution and that makes it the only mobile with Full HD under Rs 9999 so far. It has a whooping pixel density of 401 ppi which is a considerable upgrade from its predecessor the A7000. The display is really good. It has good viewing angles and the color reproduction is accurate. The high pixel density results in sharper images and test. The brightness and contrast calibration seems to be a bit off. Especially the outdoor readability is not good, because of the poor brightness and contrast calibration. The display is protected by Dragontrail glass which is not as good as Corning Gorilla, but still offers good first level protection.

Under the Hood

K3 Note is powered by octa-core 64-bit MediaTek MT6752 processor, clocked at 1.7 GHz and it has the Mali T760 GPU just like the Lenovo A7000. But the K3 has double the RAM and internal storage. The 16 GB internal memory can also be extended by upto 64 GB using the microSD card slot. It also supports USB OTG, provided you plug ina FAT32 formatted USB storage. The performance of this device is smooth. It handles intensive games and apps with ease. In the review unit we had, we did not face any heating issue. But one of my friend who got the K3 on my recommendation has heating issue and the temperature goes upto 50 degree. He is trying to get it resovled with the service center. His issue could be a one-off situation, because I never heard about any heating trouble with K3 or A7000 apart from him. Our review unit remained cool as a cucumber even after 20 min of intensive gaming. The benchmark scores are impressive. I never judge a device by its benchmark score, but only by its real world perfomance matters. The K3 Note get a solid thumbs up for its performance.

Camera

Lenovo K3 Note has a 13 MP primary camera with dual LED flash. The camera UI is the same we saw in the Lenovo A7000. It is very simple and yet functional. The quality of the images are also decent. The images are sharp and bring out a lot of detail. It is not a great choice for low light shots. HDR is not so pleasant and generally results in shaky images. Unlike the A7000, the flash does not mess with the auto focus mechanism. The front facing camera also gives similar results. Both the front and the primary camera are capable of shooting 1080p videos. The 16mp bump in the sensor gives a marginal improvement in the image quality and again I would always recommend the K3 Note over Lenovo A7000.

Check out the camera samples

Software UI

The device runs on Android 5.0 out of the box and is skinned with Lenovo’s Vibe UI 2.5 on top. The notification bar is a reminder that this mobile runs on Android 5.0. When the bar is pulled down, there is a button to open the notification log. This is a very useful feature and we have seen it with teh A700 earlier. In the system settings, under features, there are a bunch of tricks that the Lenovo A7000 and K3 can do. When enabled, the device can wake up on double tap. Also the volume button can be set to click a picture instantly when clicked twice when the screen is locked. The smart scene lets you change the system profile at preset time. The feature called “Wide Touch pane” put a ring on the screen. The screen opens a bunch of frequently used app and a some recently opened apps. On double tapping the ring, every app can be pushed to the background. The mobile comes preinstalled with a few apps and games and these programs can be uninstalled if needed. Yet, the K3 Note, just like the Lenovo A7000 has a few sensible features hidden under its cloak. The secure zone defines a secure login with your secret apps. The power consumption is separated in the UI by software and hardware consumption and this is really a neat feature. But the king of all the features is the permission control center. It gives you full control of the apps permissions and you can dictate which apps gets which feature and all that without having to root your mobile. Overall the UI is very snappy, responsive and functional.

Battery

The battery is user replaceable. On a day to day usage, it lasted a litter over a day (25 hours). The day to day usage would be a 10-15 min of calls, 15 min of browsing, on and off checking the mobile for twitter, facebook and whatsapp, about 30 minutes of gaming, 3-4 hours of music play and occasionally watching video clips from youtube or other social media. I am connected to WiFi for most of the day except while am driving. On intensive usage, the battery lasted for about 14 hours. The inbuilt power saving mode is useless. But then if any smartphone can take me through 1 day, I would be happy. So, I give a solid thumbs up for K3 Note’s battery performance.

Verdict

Just like its predecessor, the K3 is a work horse. The additional RAM and ROM gives it an edge over the prevailing competition. Also this is the only device with full HD display in this price range. The A7000 didn’t have enough internal memory and the K3 Note comes to the rescue. With a decent performance, excellent hardware, minimalist design and good battery, the Lenovo K3 Note is definitely a recommended device.

Buy it here