Lenovo Vibe Z (K910) Review and Conclusion!

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China phone review, Lenovo, Recent, Snapdragon

GPS

Qualcomm have a good reputation in regards to their GPS performance and it is well earned.

I put the Vibe Z into airplane mode to eliminate any data assistance and got a cold lock in 21 seconds! Warm locks were achieved in less than a couple of seconds. When I took it for a drive I used Google maps and it performed flawlessly. There was no lag, the voice prompts were timely and in sync with the visuals. Often when using a GPS attached to a phone I quickly lose confidence in its accuracy and ability to get me to my location. This was not one of those times. The Vibe Z instantly gained my trust and kept it the entire trip.

Battery

I’ve heard mixed things about the Snapdragon 800 in regards to battery life. Many people claim it is very hard on the battery yet the LG G2 gets extraordinary battery life. The only way to find out was to test it. I tested the phone with the Wi-Fi on, a SIM card in, and the display brightness set on auto.

What I found was the phone can easily make it through a 16 hour day with moderate use. While the general use testing went well and the standby times were pretty good, the video loop test was a completely different story. The Lenovo Vibe Z managed just 5 hours of video playback! For a 3000 mAh battery that is a miserable result and I have to believe it can be improved with some optimization on Lenovo’s part.

Benchmarks

This is the section most techies have no doubt been waiting for. How does the hardware perform?To answer that question I ran several tests.

The first test was Antutu which gave a result of 34,870. According to the Antutu rankings that puts it slightly ahead of the Samsung Note 3.

Nenamark 2 is designed to test the GPU and the Vibe Z scored an impressive 60 fps thanks to the Adreno 330. This just shows us that the Mali 450 in the Mediatek MT6592 is just not up to task of a 1080p display like the competition is.

The results in CPU Prime were also good with a score of 6457, placing it ahead of the LG G2.

Vellamo is probably the most detailed of the tests and the phone did just fine with it. In the HTML5 section it scored 2863 which is second only to the Sony Xperia Z Ultra. The Metal portion was equally impressive as the Vibe Z placed second, slightly behind the Note 3.

I also tested the boot time at 20 seconds.

Long story short, this phone is an animal.

conclusion k910 lenovo review vibe

Comments

33 responses to “Lenovo Vibe Z (K910) Review and Conclusion!”

April 8, 2014

matteo

HEllo have exampandable memory micro sd?
how is music quality using headset?

Reply
1. April 8, 2014
  
  Paul Koutras
  
  No expansion slot for more memory which is too bad. Headphone audio is fantastic.
  
  Reply
  1. August 25, 2014
    
    Silviu
    
    What’s with the issue with the lack of (micro)SD card for this device (and others)?
    As there’s a lot of space on DropBox and Google Drive (for free), I see no reason to be concerned for the lack of the SD slot, as you can upload your pictures and music and whatever you want to cloud.
    And 16Gb of memory is quite good. I have a 16Gb micro SD with a lot of pictures, movies, recordings and I still have enough space on it.
    Of course, 64Gb would be great :)
    
    Reply
April 8, 2014

Twotems

Paul, thanks for the review. There are a few things you ought to have clarified for readers in my opinion.
1) The dual sim version is exclusively for the Chinese market and therefore compatibility issues in certain areas are to be expected. The k910L (lte version) doesn’t have these issues.
2) Google drive serves as my expandable memory, sync and back up. So the Lenovo Suite isn’t missed on my part. What I really need it for is to root my phone again since I messed up my root.

I have found some very interesting functions in SECURit that make third party apps unnecessary: the vault ( with it’s ability to hide contacts, calls, sms’, contacts, videos and pictures), the aforementioned firewall, spam guard, ad blocker and anti-theft. The battery app is excellent too and I had a “wait a minute, I already have that on my K910” moment when the reviews for the HTC one M8 talked about the super saver mode.

That brings me to the most amazing thing about the phone, the price. Especially when compared to the new htc. You can’t buy an active dual sim phone for $400 that also gives you pentaband wcdma, a 3000mah battery, full hd 5.5 inch screen and a Snapdragon 800. I got 35,331on antutu and then tried antutu x and got 34,486. Those numbers match and surpass the Note 3. By comparison the HTC m8 (which I’m buying my wife by the way) scores about 36,000 on antutu but drops below 29,000 on antutu x. What makes this phone stand out is value for money and it’s quite good looking, light and thin.

Reply
1. April 8, 2014
  
  Paul Koutras
  
  Hey Twotems,
  All very good points. I try to jam as much as i can into the reviews, but with this one it was tough. It has a lot of unique features. The more i use this phone the more it grows on me,and i liked it to begin with.
  It’s definitey a lot of phone for $400.
  
  Reply
  1. April 8, 2014
    
    Twotems
    
    Thanks Paul. May I suggest you do an occasional update to hear your opinion on how it performs for you over an extended period? Battery, camera, speed, software etc. Meanwhile I’ll post my antutu screenshots (another built in app along with a flashlight) on the forum. Cheers.
    
    Reply
April 8, 2014

matteo

I wanna again say thank u for this review! for me is not important the lte, but is import world coverage.. i saw the tech spech and seams that Its working everywhere… asia europe usa…..can u confirm? OTG wrok great? how the touch screen is working using gloves?

Reply
1. April 9, 2014
  
  matteo
  
  can u give me suggestion between this and honor 3x?
  is honor 3x waterproff?
  
  Reply
  1. April 9, 2014
    
    Paul
    
    I’ve never tried the Honor X but it seems like it gets good reviews. Huawei make good phones but it depends on what is important in a phone to you. If you are looking for lots of processing power, strong GPS, and awesome camera’s, then the Lenovo is a tough act to beat, especially for around $400.
    
    Reply
2. April 9, 2014
  
  Paul
  
  As far as I know the phone has the needed GSM and WCDMA bands to work anywhere, but double checking is never a bad idea when it comes to supported frequencies.
  GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
  WCDMA 850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100
  
  Reply
April 9, 2014

Nikolay

Great review! If I hawe to write one, it would be 99% the same. Very accurate.
For transfering files I use for now Lenovo ShareIt – it comes with the phone. Someone suggested to use SnapPea for transfering, but haven’t tried it yet.

What ROM are you using? Mine phone came form pandawill and the ROM is: k910_ss_s_2_040_0039_131101 – it’s multilangual, but I don’t like it, it’s buggy sometimes, I think they messed up when trying to delete some chinese apps…

Reply
1. April 9, 2014
  
  Paul Koutras
  
  The version on mine is 109_13_12_26 which I haven’t found any noticeable bugs on.
  There is a much newer version butI haven’t bothered upgrading. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
  
  Reply
  1. April 12, 2014
    
    matteo
    
    Gizbeat wich version of Android have on it? do have it the bug that u cant see who is callling you or texting you?
    
    Reply
    1. April 12, 2014
      
      Paul
      
      I’m on K910_ss_s_2_040_0109_11226 which is still Android 4.2.2. No real issues with it, so I never bothered to upgrade.
      I had the problem that I could make calls or texts with the persons info, but when they called or texted back it would start a seperate thread with just the persons cell number.
      The fix is to put the contacts number in like this. .. I’m in Canada so
      +1xxxxxxxxxx
      That is the only way the Vibe Z likes the number. It fixed the problem instantly after I changed all my contacts numbers to this format.
      
      Reply
      1. April 14, 2014
        
        Matteo
        
        Great! Sorry for lot questions:) does have the function in firmware to power on/off automatically at precise time ….? Dou have in plane to review honor 3x?
April 14, 2014

Paul

The more I play with the phone the more I realize that Lenovo have packed a lot of apps already into the ROM. Yes it does support automatic power on and power off.
I won’t be reviewing the Honor X because it is 900/2100 WCDMA and I need the 850 mhz band. I do plan on reviewing the Huawei Mediapad X1 though.

Reply
1. April 14, 2014
  
  matteo
  
  who you think could be nice replace for the vibe z?
  
  Reply
  1. April 14, 2014
    
    matteo
    
    More u using the phone more u maybe like? personally i think for spec is a great phonr is off course different from other, it phone or u love or u hate…
    
    Reply
    1. April 14, 2014
      
      Paul Koutras
      
      I was very frustrated with the phone initially, trying to figure it the software, and workarounds. I guess it just took me this long to forgive it.
      : )
      
      I think a good alternative will be the oneplus one
      
      Reply
      1. April 14, 2014
        
        matteo
        
        onplus one it ll be dual sim?
April 15, 2014

Paul Koutras

No, It’s going to be single SIM.

Reply
1. April 15, 2014
  
  matteo
  
  that problem need good dual sim
  
  Reply
  1. April 15, 2014
    
    matteo
    
    the vibe z update his firmware by the phone? not need pc? im looking at firmware on needrom and seams there are some vibeui version, with 4.4. kitkat but i guess not official? how u can check last official firmware for the phone?
    
    Reply
April 16, 2014

Twotems

Matteo, until someone comes out with a pentaband dual sim with these kind of specs for less than $300 this is the best around for the money. Htc, Samsung and a few others will make dual sim versions of their top of the range phones but they’ll all cost twice as much.

Reply
April 16, 2014

matteo

ok guys i will give a shot i will uy the vibe z…
do u know where i can buy at good price? some discount available maybe?
my residence is in italy…

Reply
April 17, 2014

Nikolay

Finally, there is a KitKat update “VIBEUI_V1.5_1416_3_DEV” – works very good, better, faster and smoother than Jelly Bean ones…Still trying all the features though, but the UI is much improved.

Reply
1. April 17, 2014
  
  Paul
  
  I’d heard about this ROM, glad to hear it works well.
  
  Reply
2. June 26, 2014
  
  ng
  
  Hi, possible to shoe me how to do the upgrade. I am a naive in this. Tq
  
  Reply
April 17, 2014

Paul

That’s a great deal.

Reply
April 25, 2014

Shankar Rivankar

Does it have GLONASS?(dual sim version)
Bluetooth 4.0 with or without Bluetooth smart?
Ant+ to sync with Garmine heart rate monitor?
NFC?

Reply
June 27, 2014

Sen88

Hi, cool review! I just bought the lenovo k910 and my computer (macbook pro) doesn’t reconizes the phone at all! Do you perhaps know how to resolve this problem? I do want music and stuff on my phone, so this is a big problem for me. Also I’m kind of like a newbie when it comes to “flashing or rooting”. I think the phone itself has been rooted already (google play and multilanguage is already on it, altough the multilanguage sometimes switches to chines – like with the multi-tasking thingy). I really need so help (simple explanation if its possible, as I said I am not technical at all!) Thanks in advance!

Reply
August 27, 2014

Brian

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the review.
Not sure if anyone covered this but
What is the expected total talk time on this phone?

Reply
November 8, 2014

Arian

salve ragazzi, ho comprato il LENOVO VIBE Z K910 ad agosto, va tutto bene a parte il google play che non mi fa aggiornamenti e non riesco a scaricare il programma nel pc,qualquno mi puo aiutare, Grazie in anticipo!

Reply