Lenovo s850 Review

The Lenovo s850 is a brand new smartphone which is built with class and quality. It's classy design will definitely attract consumers while its 5-inch HD display, 13 megapixel rear camera, MediaTek quad-core CPU and Android KitKat makes it a really powerful device that can compete with other top notch smartphones which is out now on the market. You can check out what we can say with Lenovo s850 below but first, check out the key features of this smartphone:

Just like what we've said earlier, Lenovo s850 is built with great design. We can compare its classy look to a mix iPhone 5 and Xperia phone. It may look like plastic but its built in solid form, and its metallic brushed finish on its side makes it more elegant. 

Aside from its design, Lenovo s850 is constructed well. The earpiece, 5 megapixel front camera, and light sensor is place on top of the screen while the usual capacitive buttons are below. The dual-sim tray which is capable of accommodating two micro-sims are place on the left side while the power/lock button and as well as the volume rocker is on the right side. You can see the microUSB port and head jack which is perfectly placed on the top while the microphone is in its usual place at the bottom.
Lastly, at the back you'll notice a criss-cross design and in here, the 13 MP camera and as well as the Lenovo logo which lights up when you lock your phone or charge it is placed.

When we talk about its display, we can say that you'll notice that images and icons looks like they are popping out of the screen because Lenovo s850's screen is close to the glass. Adding to that, it has a 5 inch screen with HD resolution equal to 294ppi which makes the colors more vibrant and clearer. To top that, the Lenovo s850 has IPS features wherein you can recognize images on the screen at any given angles.

Performance-wise, Lenovo s850 is really competent to other smartphone devices out there. As we said awhile ago, its built with Android 4.2.2 Kitkat OS and MediaTek quadcore CPU, making it perform faster. The device can run basic tasks and over-the-top games with good visuals, without lags and crashes. When we've tested the device in Antutu Benchmarking, its rating is 17,637 which is basically good for mid-range smartphones.

Lenovo s850 comes with the usual Google apps we see on other smartphones but just like any other brand, it has some pre-installed Lenovo apps on it. Third party apps like UC Browser, Scoop and Gameloft app is also pre-installed in the smartphone. And, if you love Gameloft games, there's three pre-installed Gameloft games on it- Asphalt 7, Wonder Zoo and Green Farm 3. Anyway, if you're not a fan of these games, you can uninstall it giving you more room for your files and favorite apps. 

We guess that this uninstalling those games is a smart move as Lenovo s850 is kind of limited in terms of memory. We don't know if this is a trend on latest smartphones nowadays, but the non-support of microSD is really annoying for some people, including us here in The Mobile Blog. We tend to store many files in our smartphones- some are videos, important files and other useful apps- and having a mediocre storage is not good. Unless if your not one of us, then this phone is not for you.

Now, let's move on to multimedia. The Lenovo s850 is superb in terms of multimedia. Its 13 MP BSI rear camera with LED flash can take vibrant and crisp photos. The pre-installed camera of Lenovo s850 has features like Beauty Face, Panorama, HDR, EV Bracket Shot, Macro and other camera effects which will cater your creativity.  But the biggest news for photo lovers is its 5 MP front camera. A camera this excellent is really an attention catcher for those people who like to take selfie photos. Video quality is really great too. It can take record clear videos smoothly and we don't experience any problem recording a video using this phone at all. Check out the video sample below recorded with Lenovo s850 camera below.

Furthermore, the phone speaker is really great. It's loud and clear even in a surrounding with average noises competing with each other. The only problem however is its lack of sufficient bass. Treble is more dominant and if you're a person who loves to listen to musics with lots of bass on it, then we suggest that you use high end earphones or speakers.

With all these features mentioned above, Lenovo s850 is expected to have enough battery life to withstand all those processes and tasks. In terms of battery, we can assess that Lenovo s850 has the standard battery life for mid-range smartphones with its 2,000 mAH battery. We've run a simple test on this device by streaming videos on youtube with brightness and sounds at max level and power saving mode is turn off, and the results were pretty satisfying as it lasted roughly 4 hours (Note that we've run the test with a brand new Lenovo s850). The only thing we notice is that once, we charge it up, the device heats up faster. This did not only happened one time, but a couple of times when we tried to charge the device.

Lastly we go to pricing. The Lenovo s850 is priced at $269. In local PH market, the price of Lenovo s850 is PhP13,999. We think that's too pricey for a mid-range smartphone.

Overall, Lenovo s850 is an average smartphone which is built with great design and construction and, it has the features that average smartphones has but, it does have unique capabilities like high-end multimedia features. The problem is, it's not a good phone for consumers who install tons of apps, insert tons of files and power hags as the phone don't have microUSB card slot support and it will definitely drain its battery faster for those users who uses their smartphone in extreme manner.