This year, Lenovo launched the Fab 2 Plus as well as the Fab 2 and Fab 2 Pro at the company’s Tech World event. So far, only the Fab Plus variant has been launched in India and it is an upgraded variant of the Fab Plus. The biggest feature of this phone is the dual rear camera setup given in this phone. Priced at Rs. 14,999, the Lenovo Fab 2 Plus smartphone will compete with Xiaomi’s Mi Max (Review). The Mi Max is the only smartphone in this segment with similar features.
But the Mi Max smartphone is out of stock almost everywhere. So has Lenovo introduced an alternative for this smartphone? Let’s know in the review.
Lenovo Phab 2 Plus design and build
This Lenovo phone is made of metal unibody and has curved Gorilla Glass on the front. Fab 2 Plus is a big smartphone. Lenovo has tried its best to reduce its size by giving thin bezels and due to this there is no empty space below and above the display. But still both hands are needed to use the phone. The phone has a one-handed mode but it allows shifting the lockscreen numeric pin keypad and dialpad for better access. But the entire screen does not shrink.
The phone has a 6.4-inch Full HD IPS panel and the screen density is 344 ppi. Text looks sharp on the display and icons are clearly visible on all four edges. Color reproduction is very good and Lenovo Fab 2 Plus is clearly readable even in sunlight. However, the ambient light sensor works very slowly at times. Touch response is also sometimes low.
The Fab 2 Plus has backlit capacitive navigation buttons at the bottom while there is a notification LED at the top. There is a hybrid SIM tray on the left side, which means you will get support for two SIM cards or one SIM card and one microSD card. The volume and power buttons are easy to operate and are given on the right side. There is a mono speaker with a micro-USB port at the bottom while there is a headphone jack at the top.
The rear of Lenovo Fab 2 Plus is slightly curved so that it fits easily in the palm. There is a dual camera and fingerprint sensor on the rear. The fingerprint sensor works well and unlocks the phone quickly. We never had any problem with the fingerprint. However, it can only be used to unlock the phone and not to unlock apps and folders. Fab 2 Plus comes with a 10 watt charger, data cable, SIM ejector, instruction manual and JBL earphones. The quality of the accessories is good, however, we found the length of the cable to be short.
The Lenovo Fab 2 Plus has a great build quality. The design is a bit basic but the most awkward part is its size and weight. Weighing 218 grams, it is quite uncomfortable to carry in your pocket everyday. The size of the phone makes it a bit difficult to use. But if you keep the phone in a handbag or backpack then this is not a problem. But keeping the Fab 2 Plus in your trouser pocket seems to be a problem almost all the time.
Lenovo Phab 2 Plus specifications and features
Talking about the specifications, the Fab 2 Plus has everything that is expected from a smartphone in this segment. This phone has an octa-core MediaTek processor (MT8783), 3GB RAM and 32GB storage. It is worth noting that this is not a very well-known processor. And apart from this, due to eight ARM Cortex-A53 and 28nm fabrication process, it is not very different from other MediaTek chips.
The rest of the specifications of the phone include Bluetooth 4.0, dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n/ac, FM radio, GPS and USB OTG. The phone supports 4G for all Indian bands and is also equipped with VoLTE. The phone has an Android Marshmallow based custom interface.
There is a Smart Assist feature in the Settings app which gives you controls like one-handed mode and auto answering calls. Smart Shortcuts gives you a floating menu from which you can add app shortcuts. This Lenovo phone comes pre-loaded with apps like McAfee Security, Netflix and SwiftKey. Apart from this, just like Lenovo laptops, there are also apps like ShareKit, SyncIt which provide access to different cloud services at one place.
Lenovo Phab 2 Plus performance
Overall performance is good due to the near-stock Android version but as soon as you start switching apps, using the camera’s AR feature or anything CPU intensive, the performance starts to lag. We noticed shutter issues while using the camera and multitasking. Apart from this, the Lenovo Fab 2 Plus starts to heat up when you play video, use the camera or talk for a long time. This heat can be felt on the sides near the buttons and headphone jack and on the rear.
The benchmark makes the situation more clear. Due to the weak graphics performance in the phone, the full HD gaming experience is not good. Overall, this processor is weaker than the Snapdragon 620 given in smartphones of this price. Lenovo Fab 2 Plus should have been given a better processor.
Lenovo is touting the Dolby Atmos audio as the biggest feature of this smartphone. With an app, the phone’s sound profile can be customized according to different types of media. Atmos is 360-degree sound, which is not possible with a single speaker. However, the speaker on this phone is much louder than a smartphone with a single speaker and the sound is much better for games and other media. The audio from the bundled JBL earphones is not very good. Videos play well on the Fab 2 Plus and it also plays 1080p videos easily.
Lenovo Fab 2 Plus has a 13-megapixel camera sensor that comes with laser auto focus and phase detection auto focus. The secondary camera is used for depth but we did not feel that it affected the quality of the photos. We tried to take clean and sharp photos with the help of both the lenses but we did not see any difference. We would recommend you to use HDR mode for landscape photos in daylight. And without it, the photos look quite dull. Photos taken with Fab 2 Plus give good detailing in distant objects but macro shots are much better.
The camera focuses quickly and the autofocus is fast, even with videos. While we would have liked the tap-to-focus feature, once the phone starts to heat up, the focus speed slows down and the app starts lagging.
Focus manipulation doesn’t work well. There is also an AR mode that lets you add cats, dogs and other virtual elements to a photo. However, this feature is not new and Sony has been offering it in its Xperia smartphones for years.
The phone can record videos at a maximum resolution of 100p. However, the Fab 2 Plus also has an HDR recording option. We tested it on an HDRTV and noticed a slight difference that was clearly visible. Videos are recorded with Dolby 5.1 audio by default. The sound recorded is crisp thanks to the three microphones. The 8-megapixel front shooter takes good selfies in daylight but not very good in artificial light, although the front flash also helps a lot.
In our HD video loop test, the phone’s battery lasted 6 hours and 19 minutes. Under normal use, our review unit managed to last for 13 hours. However, we reset the device and tested it again and got 8 hours of video playback and around 16-18 hours of normal use. The 4050mAh battery offers average battery life. We noticed that the battery capacity is good when we are not using the phone at night but it starts draining fast when we use the camera or play games. The battery comes with fast charging but it takes more than 2 hours to charge the phone with a 10W charger.
Our verdict
The Phab 2 Plus is a good phone, with a big screen for great media viewing. But there are a few poor choices that we think make this phone fall a bit short of Xiaomi’s Mi Max smartphone.
The design, display, software and audio quality of the phone are good. The dual camera setup does not seem to be needed and other features also do not seem very good. But the pictures taken from the camera are not very bad, especially macro shots. Apart from this, we also liked the HDR video recording in the phone. But a phone like this should have a good processor and Lenovo has given a weak processor for augmented reality apps, graphics games and multitasking. Fab 2 Plus heats up very quickly which is quite strange. We expected a long battery life in the phone but the battery life was average in our test.
We would only recommend this heavy phone for users who consume a lot of data. Otherwise, the Xiaomi Mi Max is a better option as it is thinner and offers better battery life. If you don’t want a big screen and just need a good all-rounder phone, then the Moto G4 Plus (Review) and Lenovo Zuk Z1 (Review) are better options in this segment.