Introduction
How times have changed - it was not that long ago that you could hardly get a feature phone for $150, and these days this amount gets you a ridiculously good smartphone like the Lenovo K3 Note. It's an affordable large-screen phablet with little compromise on the important stuff.
Starting with the 5.5-inch FullHD display, the K3 Note doesn't sacrifice resolution for display diagonal. It's the diagonal that makes the buzz, but you're staring at those pixels all day, so there better be enough of them, that you can't see individual ones.
A Mediatek chipset in the Snapdragon 615 class, 2GB of RAM, and Lollipop have you well-covered and future-proofed for a while. Add to that a 13MP primary camera with a dual LED flash and a 5MP front snapper, and there's nothing to leave you wanting.
Build isn't top-shelf grade, but the plastics used are soft and pleasant to touch, and the Laser Yellow color scheme is as fresh as they come. The best part is that the battery is removable, a feature we're still trying to advocate, though manufacturers see things differently.
Key features
- Dual SIM (Micro-SIM, dual stand-by)
- 5.5-inch FullHD IPS LCD display, 401ppi density, 5-point multi-touch support
- Mediatek MT6752 chipset: Octa-core 1.7GHz Cortex-A53 CPU, Mali-T760 MP2 GPU, 2GB of RAM
- 16GB of built-in storage, dedicated microSD slot
- 13MP primary camera with f/2.0 lens, dual-LED flash; 1080p@30fps video recording
- 5MP front-facing camera, 1080p video recording
- Android 5.0 Lollipop with Vibe UI 2.0
- Cat. 4 LTE, Wi-Fi b/g/n with hotspot, Bluetooth v4.1, GPS with A-GPA and GLONASS, FM radio
- 3,000mAh user-replaceable battery
It's a very competitive segment the Lenovo K3 Note is forced to fight in. The large-screen device on a budget has turned into a lucrative niche for many manufacturers and solid offerings with increasingly better hardware have been put out by big-name Chinese manufacturers, not to mention the countless other makers most of us haven't heard of.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note was among the pioneers in the category and was recently inherited by the Redmi Note 2 with even more powerful innards. Meanwhile, the m2 note is Meizu's second iteration on the subject of the affordable phablet and it too poses philosophical questions as to what is the point of owning a flagship smartphone costing hundreds of dollars.
Lenovo K3 press images
Those two are the K3 Note's main rivals, though admittedly it does have a head start on them by a couple of months. The established players outside of China are hard pressed to offer true competitors at this price point and are forced to sacrifice a thing or two (or several), be it display resolution, processing power, camera, or build.
But let's not get ahead of ourselves and leave comparisons for when we've acquainted ourselves better with the Lenovo K3 Note. Join us on the next page for the unboxing and hardware overview.
Sharp and high-contrast 5.5-inch LCD, a bit dim though
A key feature for the K3 Note's breed is the FullHD 5.5-inch display. Sure, there are plenty of inexpensive large-screen smartphones, but resolution is typically the first victim to budget cuts. The K3 Note, along with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 and Meizu m2 note (the m1 note, too) are the most prominent of the select few, which prove that it doesn't have to be so.
It's an IPS panel with 401ppi density and a standard RGB arrangement, as our microscope shot reveals.
Color rendering is fairly accurate (Avg deltaE 6.2 for the primary colors plus black and white), with white being not as accurate as we would expect. With a deltaE of 11.4, it's on the colder bluish side, but you would hardly notice that unless you get some sort of a reference to compare it side by side.
As usual, display colors are a matter of personal taste and perception so if you don't need calibrated color output, you will probably be quite happy with the color rendition on the Lenovo K3 Note.
There are no options for fine tuning the color rendering or the white point temperature.
The maximum display brightness of the Lenovo K3 Note may not turn any heads (432nits), but you'd be surprised that when it comes to contrast ratio, it scored the second highest contrast ratio we've ever measured on a phone (1793:1). In case you're curious, the highest contrast ratio belongs to the Sony Xperia Z1 Compact (1819:1). The amazing result can be attributed to the deep black levels, which are frankly, class leading for an LCD unit.
Connectivity
The Lenovo K3 Note is not particularly rich in connectivity options, but it has all the basics covered. It's a dual-SIM dual-standby device, and one card gets the complete 2G/3G/4G treatment, while the other is limited to 2G. Both slots take microSIM cards.
There's Wi-Fi b/g/n in the 2.4GHz spectrum only, with hotspot support. Bluetooth comes in version 4.1, where LTE interference issues have been dealt with. There's also GPS with A-GPS and GLONASS support. An FM radio receiver is also on board, though it lacks RDS.
Wired connectivity is handled by the microUSB 2.0 port, and USB OTG is supported so you can attach storage or peripherals.
The standard 3.5mm jack lets you attach headphones of your choice (which you'd need to buy separately anyway, in most cases).
Lenovo K3 Note battery life
The Lenovo K3 Note comes with a 3,000mAh battery, and as we've already established it's removable. The capacity is marginally smaller than what the m2 note (3,100mAh) and Redmi Note 2 (3,060mAh) are packing, but the difference is too small to really matter.
What does matter is test results and the unfortunate reality is that the K3 Note's aren't impressive. Around 6 hours of web browsing is a mediocre result, and an hour more of video playback doesn't help. The 17 hours of 3G calls are an okay result, but with such an ample battery, you'd expect more.
All that adds up to an endurance rating of 53 hours, which is on the short side. At least with the K3 Note you can have a spare battery on hand for instant 100%, if that's any consolation.
For comparison sake, the Meizu m2 note does 21 hours of calls and 10 full hours on the web, though it does score poorly in the video playback department.
Our proprietary score also includes a standby battery draw test, which is not featured in our test scorecard but is calculated in the total endurance rating.
The battery testing procedure is described in detail in case you're interested in the nitty-gritties. You can also check out our complete battery test table, where you can see how all of the smartphones we've tested will compare under your own typical use.
