Last year a Lenovo-backed company released a ZUK Z2 – a phone that had a great design and killers specs. Right now you can get this phone for just about $180 and it seems to be one of the best phones for the price since it has a Snapdragon 820 chip, 4GB of RAM and a lot more! Learn more in our ZUK Z2 review after 1 year.

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ZUK Z2 Review: UNBOXING

The phone ships with all the usual stuff that includes the USB C cable, a fast charger, SIM ejector pin and some paperwork.

ZUK Z2 Review: SPECS

ZUK Z2 Review: DESIGN and DISPLAY

As far as design goes, it has changed quite a bit if we compare it to the ZUK Z1.

Now we have a rather compact phone, which uses a very high quality and sturdy metal frame around the device. I love the fact that all the buttons and a dual SIM card tray are on the right and all other stuff is on the bottom. Thus, other sides of the phone look clean.

The sound quality from the loudspeaker is pretty good but nothing we haven’t heard from similarly priced phones.

Also, we have Gorilla Glass 4 on the front and rear. A great thing is that the phone has some sort of anti-fingerprint coating and it does its job very well.

We have a 5” 1080p display, which is nice and sharp but it could be slightly brighter for a better sunlight legibility.

An 8MP shooter is here for selfies along with a notification LED light on the top.

On the bottom, we have just one physical home button but it has tons of features. First of all, you can physically press it and it takes you home. Also, you can tap it and it acts as a back button or swipe it from left to right if you e.g. want to access your recent apps. Also, the button is highly customizable and you can assign different tasks. I have to say that this is one of the best home button implementations I’ve ever seen.

Last but not least we have a fingerprint scanner, which is accurate and it reads a fingerprint straight from the standby mode.

On the back, we have a 13MP shooter with f/2.2 aperture and a single LED flash.

Overall, the phone is well-built, it feels nice in the hand and it sports some flagship-worthy materials in the construction.

ZUK Z2 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

ZUK Z2 still sports some flagship-grade specs. It has a Snapdragon 820 chip, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of on-board storage without the microSD card slot.

As you may have guessed, the phone can handle anything you throw at it without a sweat. All the games ran almost perfectly on the highest graphics. However, the phone does quite warm on the top portion of the device but there are no overheating warnings or anything that could impair the performance.

ZUK Z2 Review: USER INTERFACE

When it comes to the user interface, there are two different versions. The one I reviewed like 8 months ago shipped with the Chinese ROM that had quite a bit of bloatware and no Google services. The one I have ships with the fully de-bloated ZUI rom, that is built on top of Android 6.0.

First of all, I love that the UI looks clean and it is fast and fluid. Also, there are some extra features and customization options. Besides the ability to do a lot of stuff just by swiping on the home button, you can swipe from the bottom to open up quick settings toggles, which are highly customizable too.

It would be great to have the Android 7 on this ROM but honestly, I really love it and so far it looks a lot better than the Chinese ROM.

ZUK Z2 Review: CAMERA

When it comes to the camera, we have a few shooting modes but there is no manual mode to take a full control of the images you take. Also, there are some basic settings to play with. In addition, the phone can take pictures very fast, which is probably the most important aspect for most users. Finally, the device triggers HDR mode automatically.

ZUK Z2 Review: IMAGE QUALITY

ZUK Z2 can take some nice looking daylight images with a good amount of detail, accurate looking colors and sharpness.

The camera starts struggling in lower-lit situations as the images have quite a lot of noise and less detail. Still, you can get some usable images out of this phone.

The 4k video looks really good for a $180 phone. However, the footage could have less noise and compression, and the green color of the grass looks oversaturated. See a video review for a video sample.

An 8MP selfie snapper can take some decent looking selfies for social media needs.

Overall, ZUK Z2 does not have a perfect camera but it is definitely one of the better cameras in a $300 phone.

ZUK Z2 Review: CONNECTIVITY

I didn’t have any connectivity issues with the phone as the signal reception was good and the call quality was decent. Also, the Wifi worked fine and the GPS was accurate.

ZUK Z2 Review: BATTERY LIFE

The ZUK Z2 ships with 3500mAh built-in battery and it performs great.

I could constantly get over 5 hours of screen-on time on a mixed use, which involved using the camera, browsing the web, a bit of gaming and so on.

The phone ships with a fast charger and I was able to fully charge the phone in 1 hour and 30 mins.

ZUK Z2 Review: CONCLUSIONS

So, there you have it, ZUK Z2 after the buzz. With the recent price drops, I honestly believe that this is one of the best phones you can buy. Sure, it has a few shortcomings to consider but given the fact that it has really powerful internals, great and compact design, the ZUK Z2 is a fantastic offering for about $180.

The post ZUK Z2 Review after 1 year – The Best Budget Smartphone for $180? appeared first on Gizmochina.

Moto G series has been widely successful over the years and the G5 is the new iteration of the Lenovo’s budget smartphones lineup. The Moto G5 sports pretty good specs, almost stock Android 7 and a lot more other features. Learn more in the full review.

VIDEO REVIEW

UNBOXING

The Moto G5 ships with all the usual stuff, no extras included.

DESIGN and DISPLAY

As far as design goes, I love that the phone is well-built, it sits comfortably in the hand and the buttons are tactile.

Also, I can manage the device in one hand due to its sharp and vibrant 5” 1080p LCD display. However, the direct sunlight legibility could be slightly better.

Even though the Moto G5 is well-built, the choice of materials does not really impress. Well, yes, we have a metal backplate, which is nice but the entire frame and buttons are made of plastic.

Also, that fake chrome plastic trim on the front looks kinds of cheap to me.

We have a 5MP camera for selfies along with the earpiece, which doubles as a front-facing loudspeaker. The sound quality is actually pretty good for a cheap phone. There is no LED notification light because the display lights on every time you pick it up to show you the essentials at a glance.

You can use either on-screen navigation keys or control the phone with just one button, which is one of my favorite features of this phone.

Firstly, you can unlock the device with the help of embedded fingerprint scanner, which is accurate and fast and you can use it straight from the standby mode. Secondly, you can lock the phone by tapping and holding the home key. If you hold the button longer, you will open up Google Assistant. If you swipe left, you will go back. Swiping to the right, opens up your recent apps and finally, tapping the button takes you home.

As for optics, we have a 13MP shooter with f/2.0 aperture lens and a single LED flash.

HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to hardware, the Moto G5 is kind of a low-end phone but Snapdragon 430 chip coupled with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of storage assures a great all-around performance.

There is also a 2GB RAM model but it costs just $20 less, so I recommend you getting a 3GB RAM option. However, you may want to buy a microSD card since the phone has just 10GB of user-accessible storage.

Once you start playing some 3D games, you realize that software is optimized to make the best out of the Snapdragon 430 processor. In fact, games like Asphalt 8 run smoothly even on the highest graphics setting, which is really impressive. Finally, the phone does not overheat.

BENCHMARKS

USER INTERFACE

The software is what makes me love the Moto G5. The phone ships with almost stock-looking Android 7 out of the box, meaning that the device is really snappy and fluid all the time.

I love some added features like gesture and motion controls that work just great. My favorites include chopping the phone twice to turn on the flashlight and twisting the phone to turn on the camera. Even after installing quite a few apps, the Moto G5 has been running fast and this is the most important thing for any phone.

CAMERAS

The camera app allows you to take pictures quite fast and the app is easy to use. I love that there is an auto-HDR mode, which is kind of rare on budget devices.

When it comes to the image quality, the pictures are one of the best in any sub-$200 phone. Most of the images looks sharp, detailed and the dynamic range adjustment is pretty good. The only complaint would be that the colours may look a bit washed out in some of the shots.

Most of the budget phones’ cameras are terrible in low-light but the Moto G5 is one of the best I’ve seen in this price range as the camera does a decent job with noise reduction.

The selfies look pretty good too and there is plenty of image quality for social media needs.

The 1080p video quality is good. There is plenty of detail, the video stabilization is decent and the continuous auto-focus works fine. However, there are quite a few video artifacts and the sound recording quality is quite terrible. The selfie video quality is decent but again, the sound recording quality does not impress.

CONNECTIVITY

You can remove the backplate to access your two SIM slots and the microSD card slot.

When it comes to connectivity, I have no complaints at all. Wifi and Bluetooth work fine, GPS is very accurate and finally, the signal reception and call quality are great as on most of the Moto phones.

BATTERY LIFE

The replaceable 2800 mAh battery performs great. With my usage, I could constantly get over 5 hours of screen on time while using the phone for taking pictures, browsing the web, checking emails and a little bit of gaming.

The supplied Rapid Charger can fully charge the phone in just about 1:15 h, which is awesome.

What is not so awesome, is that the Moto G5 still uses the micro USB charging port. I believe all manufacturers should start using the USB-C port even on budget phones, to make the transition to the new standard faster.

CONCLUSIONS

The Moto G series has been one of the most popular in the budget phones category and the G5 is another solid budget smartphone.

While it is not perfect like most of the affordable phones, it is an easy buying recommendation for those who want to spend just about $200 for a new phone. Just remember to consider if the previously mentioned shortcomings are important to you or not.

The post Lenovo Moto G5 Review – The Budget Smartphone King is Back? appeared first on Gizmochina.