There comes a point in the life of a smartphone that it begins to stutter and blackout; it gets increasingly absorbed by a reverie and is unable to process orders. My Samsung Galaxy S3 was dawdling in such a phase. As much as I didn’t want to part with it, I knew that telegrams functioned faster than my poor S3. Something had to be done. Quick. Before it ate up all my data and burped in my face. So, my parents set out to explore options, throwing suggestions like Samsung Note and Sony Xperia at me. Now, I didn’t want to go for any pricey phone because let’s face it, I don’t have much of a use for it, except the occasional call and a few Instagram snaps. Moreover, I wanted a change, as I always do. I decided to set aside Samsung and look for other brands. That’s when Lenovo caught my eye. To be frank, I knew little about the brand but I’d had a Lenovo laptop for years and that never gave me any trouble.
After days of scouring the internet, I came up with a list. Little did I know I was volunteering for days worth of confusion and vexation. Every e-commerce website had something new to say about the phones. Reviews were all over the place. I had about 20 tabs open, analyzing the features and longevity of the Lenovo Vibe K4 Note, Lenovo Vibe S1, Samsung J5-6, Moto G4 Play, Redmi 3 etc. While some customers said that a particular phone had no heating/hanging issues, others complained about its lowlight camera. Some others left a three star rating with a simple, “Ok” adding to my bewilderment. What is an “Ok” supposed to mean? It is a mobile phone, for God’s sake, not a review for Popsicles! And there resumed my search for a reasonably good phone.
Finally I narrowed it down between the Samsung J5-6 and Lenovo Vibe K5 Note. Countless Youtube videos later, I was no closer to understanding which one would be more apt. You see, that’s the problem. Even though I was extremely extremely grateful for having the choices, I wanted to pull my hair out. Days passed, same routine – open multiple tabs, read reviews, get annoyed, close them all. Then, I took a chance and bough the Lenovo Vibe K5 Note from Flipkart, anxious as to whether I made the right choice or not. It was a change from Samsung and I was excited about that. The phone arrived soon after, looking all slick in its blue-white box. Although, headphones were not part of the deal, I was happy to see a transparent back cover included.
It’s been three months now. I am not facing any problems with over-heating or the phone freezing up. Then again I don’t game. I only use the phone for music, Instagram, Whatsapp and such other apps. The first month, charging took very little time – in the sense, within two hours or so, it would be at 90%. Now that I’ve downloaded more apps, it takes more time for charging. But I don’t mind that. The user interface is nice, not complicated. I am still using one of the themes that are inbuilt. Front (selfie) camera is good and takes decent pictures. The back camera is wonderful! I don’t know if its better than the Redmi Note 3, but it is definitely better than the Samsung phones that I have used.
However, the photo gallery app in this phone is that of Google Photos. So when you take a picture it gets saved in Google Photos and you need to get familiarized between saving a photo on the device and saving it online, in order to work around with it. This phone has some new features like taking a long screenshot, taking a picture when the phone is in off mode etc. I haven’t experienced any lagging while opening apps. So far, I am entirely pleased with my decision to buy the Lenovo Vibe K5 Note. How the phone functions a year down the line is yet to be seen. I shall keep updating my views, as and when required. So if you’re looking forward to buying a phone within the 20k price range, don’t play a lot of games and only want a phone with a good camera, then you could look out for this one. Let me know what you think..
Hopefully, my Lenovo will fare a lot better than the S3 and not give me trouble anytime soon 🙂
– Meera
The Life Stories 