Ever since Lenovo launched A6000 smartphone, the Chinese electronic giant stayed as a strong brand in budget smartphone category. It has been a while since Lenovo got a new model to replace aging A6000. Lenovo VIBE P1M is the new budget smartphone that does just this. Priced close to 8000/-INR, the Vibe P1m is available on Flipkart through flash sale that happens once every week. Is this phone as good as the super hit A6000? Or is it better? Here is our take on the new budget smartphone.

Key Features of Lenovo VIBE P1m

• Android v5.1 (Lollipop) OS
• 8 MP Primary Camera
• 5 MP Secondary Camera
• Dual Sim (LTE + LTE)
• 5 inch HD IPS Capacitive Touchscreen
• 1 GHz MediaTek MT6735P 64-bit Quad Core Processor
• Expandable Storage Capacity of 32 GB

Specification

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Package

Unlike other phones, Lenovo has provided full package with the Vibe P1m. The content is:

• Vibe P1m phone
• USB data cable
• Fast charger (5.2V ; 2.0A output)
• Basic headset
• Screen guard
• Protective case

 Design

Lenovo VIBE P1m feels sturdy in hand, thanks to the metal frame. Advantage of metal frame is that it makes the phone strong and also gives clean look. The removable back panel is made of thin plastic that flexes a lot and reminds of Samsung Galaxy S3’s back panel. For a phone that costs below 10,000/-, the build quality is excellent. When you hold the phone in hand, you can feel the sturdiness. The removable back panel is a bit too soft and this results in not so ideal grip. The rear protective case that was included in the box is absolutely useless. It makes the phone very slippery and also makes it difficult to use the phone’s controls on either side.

The back panel is extremely thin (a bit more like Galaxy S3 back cover), has VIBE and Lenovo branding and need to be detached with care else you may end up breaking it. The battery seems to be removable but is sealed by two stickers (probably for the review units only). There are two micro-SIM card slots above the battery and a micro-SD card slot.

The capacitive touch buttons are placed below the 5″ display and the usual array of sensors and the front camera are placed above the display. On the left side, there is a power saver toggle.

The right side of the phone has volume rocker and power button. The 3.5mm audio port and USB port are at the top and the bottom of the phone houses speaker grille and microphone. Though it looks like the phone has dual speakers, the speaker is inside the left grill and we guess the right grill hides the microphone and that Lenovo added the grill for uniformity. While watching movies or playing games, you have to be careful with your finger positioning as the sound gets completely blocked if you keep your finger over the grill.

One thing that I felt very uncomfortable with, are the keys. The notification key cannot be operated using finger. I have to use my nails to toggle the switch.  The volume rocker and power keys on the other hand are only slightly raised above the frame and until one gets used to them, it is hard to access them without looking at the side. It gets worse if you use a back cover provided with the phone as it does not provide any reference point for the keys. It is all flat! If you are planning to buy the phone, we suggest you to get a better after market case that does not hinder side button usage.

Overall, for a phone that costs 8,000/-, the build quality is very good and while it is not at the level of Mi 4c or Mi 4i or Mi4, its definitely better than that of countless other phones available inside 10,000/-.

Display

The display is a 5” 720p display. The top layer of glass is not 2.5D and the bezel is raised above the display and this will protect the display from cracking when the phone slips out of hand and falls on floor, well, unless it falls on a sharp object. The display exhibits decent amount of brightness and contrast but the automatic brightness mode is pretty bad. The sensor always sets the display to lower than optimum brightness and many times, I had to switch to manual brightness to read the content on display. I guess this is something that a small software patch can fix. Touch sensitivity is good so it the text sharpness. Thanks to the IPS panel, the viewing angles are perfect. Even from near 180 degree angle, the text and colors look accurate.

Hardware and performance

Lenovo P1m is powered by Mediatek MT6735P, there is 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage onboard. There is no lag at all while switching between applications, while going through the UI, thanks to the minimalist Vibe UI. Played a few games and there was no visible lag. The ARM Mali-T720 is a good. GPU, racing in Asphalt showed no lag at all, the game’s load time was also good.

Thanks to the MT6735P chip, there was only a little bit of heating while playing games, mostly below the camera module.

Here is the list of benchmarks that we ran

Software

Vibe P1m runs on Android 5.1 out of the box with Vibe UI skin on top. Apart from the limited customization for the look and feel, the P1m offers extensive feature level customization. The notification bar has notifications features are extensively customizable The UI offers permission control on app level, power management for improved battery life and a secure zone in case you needed a private area to keep personal apps and data. The UI offers the right mix of customization features and does not go overboard just for the sake of it. Similar to phones from other Chinese brands, there is no application drawer and all applications are added to the home screens. If you do not like this, all you need to do is go to Google Play Store and install launcher like ‘Nova Launcher’ or ‘Apex launcher’.

We did not add too much of detail w.r.t user interface as we believe there is no need to do a full fledged overview of UI. The UI is very similar to the UI used by most Chinese OEMs (by Chinese, we mean that Chinese brands, not the generic ‘China made’ phase).

Battery

The battery is humongous. Rated at 4000mAh, P1m can easily go on for more than a day. In our battery tests, the phone easily lasted more than a day, all when Wi-Fi was disabled and when 3G and 4G connections were fluctuating a lot. This is the kind of network coverage that drains the battery very fast. Lenovo did mention in the specification that the P1M supports fast charging but in reality it took about two and a half hours to fully charge the phone.

Conclusion

ASUS ZenFone 2 Laser is the only budget smartphone that has overall better specs when compared to the P1M but not every one is a fan of 5.5” display. Xiaomi  Redmi 2 Prime is another great phone but is hampered by laggy MIUI. Lenovo P1m has impressive feature set and if you are looking for a sub-10,000 rupee phone with clean user interface and amazing battery life even when on 4G LTE network, this is the one you should check. The design is bland and there are other phones that look good and work well too but there is none that offers this kind of battery life and smoothness inside 10k.  Moreover, unlike other brands that omit charger or headphones, Lenovo has included all standard accessories with the Vibe P1m.