After launching A6000, A6000 Plus and A7000, this is the fourth budget smartphone by Lenovo that is so feature rich. K3 Note sports a 5.5 inch full HD display and has 4G connectivity, just at the price of Rs 10,000.
We did manage to get our hands on it, and here is what we experienced while we tried to find out if K3 Note is a good buy or not.
Build and design
Lenovo K3 Note doesn't look much different from other Android phones. It is rectangular in shape coupled with rounded corners and a plastic body that has a matte finish. As far as the looks go, the smartphone is very average.
A plus point of K3 Note is that it is considerably light in weight when compared to devices with similar dimensions.
The front panel of the phone is dominated by the 5.5-inch display with the 5MP front camera placed right next to the earpiece.
The volume rocker button and the power button are placed on the right edge of the phone whereas the micro-USB port and the 3.5mm jack are placed at the top.
The back panel of the phone, which covers a 3000mAh removable battery, dual sim card slots and microSD card slot, features Lenovo branding. A 13MP camera and LED flash are at the top left and the speaker is towards the right side.
Overall, we found that the Lenovo K3 Note is a well-built smartphone though the company could have been more creative in designing it.
Display
Lenovo K3 Note is the only smartphone to offer a full-HD display in this price range. As a result, graphics and text appeared crisp and sharp, and watching multimedia content was a pleasant experience.
The 5.5-inch IPS HD (1080x1920p) display impressed us with vibrant colours and good touch response.
However, the display screen was very reflective which made it difficult to use under direct sunlight. Viewing angles were also decently wide. We also observed that the screen was a little prone to smudging.
Software
The K3 Note runs Android 5.0 (Lollipop) skinned with Lenovo Vibe 2.0 skin that customizes various features in the phone.
As we have covered in reviews of other Lenovo smartphones (A7000, A6000, Vibe X2 etc), the software comes without an app drawer and instead has all the apps on the homescreen itself. This feature was also seen in other smartphones like the Coolpad Dazen 1 and Huawei Honor 6, and may take users a while to get used to it.
In the phone's Theme Centre app are 6 themes and 12 wallpapers to choose from. Further, users can also select from 7 lockscreen types. But there is no way of downloading new themes.
There were also a number of third party apps that were pre-installed in the smartphone, like UC Browser, Route 66, Dolby Atmos, etc. Luckily, these can be uninstalled to free up some space.
The software has some custom Lenovo features that are switched off by default and have to be turned on by the user. The features, Quick Snap, Knock to light, and Screen off gestures, can be found in Settings of the phone.
With Quick Snap, users can click pictures while the phone is asleep by double clicking any volume key, whereas Knock lights up the screen when it was off when we tapped on it twice.
When screen off gestures were turned on, we could slide left or right on the screen to turn it on, unlock the screen and go straight to the camera just by drawing a 'V' on the display and lastly, go straight to Chrome by drawing an 'O' on the display.
Overall, the software is user friendly, but it may take some time getting used to it.
Camera
Lenovo K3 Note sports a 13MP rear camera (with auto focus and LED flash) and a 5MP front facing camera.
Lenovo's camera app offers users a variety of filters to choose from, and also has features like Panorama and HDR.
Performance
Lenovo K3 Note is powered by the 1.7GHz Cortex-A53 Mediatek MT6572 octa-core processor, backed by 2GB RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Those who want extra storage space can also use microSD cards of up to 32GB.
We recently saw the MT6752m chipset in Lenovo A7000 that we reviewed recently and found it to be an able performer. The MT6752 processor takes the performance levels a notch up and delivers a smooth user experience across various use cases.
We experienced no lag while navigating through the homescreen and menus. Launching and switching between apps was also a smooth experience. Opening multiple apps together also did not make the phone slow. The phone also does not heat up while we used GPS.
While we encountered no problem playing games like Temple Run 2, we did experience a minor lag while playing heavier games like Asphalt 8.
The call quality and signal reception of K3 Note was fine, and we did not face any problem when we made calls in areas with low signal reception like basements and elevators. The phone also offers FM radio.
Compared to Lenovo A7000's 720p display, the new K3 Note has a higher-resolution screen; however, it seems the company did not increase the battery capacity sufficiently, as we could get barely one day of charge from the device even with moderate usage. On heavy use, the battery was depleted in approximately 6-7 hours.
Though Lenovo K3 Note's 3,000mAh battery has to power a lot more pixels, we would not put the blame for the rather low battery life. The smartphone's software does not seem to be optimized, as we have seen smartphones with smaller battery capacities deliver more battery life despite higher resolution displays (for example, Samsung Galaxy S6). We expect Lenovo to push software updates to fix this battery bug soon.
Also, the phone's battery also takes exceptionally long to charge.
We also performed some key benchmark tests on the phone: it scored 42331 in Antutu Benchmark test, 805 and 3944 in Geekbench 3 and 61.6fps in Nenamark 2.
Price:- 9999/- only
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