Lenovo‘s ZUK brand seems to have been missing in action for a while especially since the launch of the edgy ZUK Edge. The brand is back in the news with a bang, as it announced the final push of the latest ZUI 2.5 stable version for the ZUK Z1 and the upgrade of the kernel to Android 7.0 Nougat.

If you’d recall very well that the Lenovo ZUK Edge which was announced in December last year was the first Lenovo smartphone to run on the new ZUI 2.5 based on Android Nougat. The company in January announced upgrades for the ZUK Z2, Z2 Pro, as well as the ZUK Z1 to the latest Android Nougat. While the Z2 and Z2 Pro seem to have gotten Android Nougat stable version, the ZUK Z1 only received an open beta version of the update only.

Now, the Snapdragon 801-powered Lenovo ZUK Z1, ZUK’s first flagship smartphone, has started getting the stable version of the Android Nougat-based ZUI 2.5. The new operating system comes with the version number 2.5.406 and the update package volume is a little above 1,000MB. The upgrade brings lots of new features to the interface which includes the ability to lock the phone’s gallery, split screen, screen recording, U-Touch fingerprint function and many others.

Read Also: Lenovo Announces Nougat Update for ZUK Z2 Pro and Z1

At the moment, some users have started receiving an update prompt but ZUK is yet to officially indicate it has started pushing the stable version to Z1 owners. Since the updates have started rolling in, we expect an official statement from ZUK any moment from now.

The post Lenovo ZUK Z1 Joins the Nougat Train, Gets Android Nougat-Based ZUI 2.5 Stable Version appeared first on Gizmochina.

If you are looking for a phone that has decent specs and performance, it is always worth checking out some older models since they are still pretty good but the prices have dropped significantly. We just came across the Lenovo ZUK Z1 that we have reviewed last year. Now Everbuying.net has it on sale and you can get even a better discount if you use our coupon code that you will find at the end of the article.

The ZUK Z1 is a pretty large (or just a normal phone according to today’s standards) phone due to its 5.5″ 1080p display. The highlights on the front are a super fast and accurate fingerprint sensor and a highly customisable notification LED light.

The backplate is made of matt plastic and it is nice to the touch. As far as optics, there is a 13MP Sony camera, which is also optically stabilised and it has a dual LED flash.

When it comes to the processing power, the ZUK Z1 uses a quad-core Snapdragon 801 with the 2.5Ghz clock speeds, 3GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage as a base model. Some may say Snapdragon 801 is already an old chip and yes, it has already shown its age due to the mainstream transition to the 64-bit chips. However, this is still a capable processor that can easily handle everyday tasks and even some of the 3D games. During our testing at the time of the review, Asphalt 8 ran like a champ even on the highest graphics settings.

In addition, we still remember the ZUK Z1 as one of the fastest phones we’ve ever tested when it comes to the daily use. Opening/closing apps, scrolling through the menus is just blazing fast.

Lastly, the phone is powered by a beefy 4100mAh battery. As it has been already revealed by our full review, you can reach almost 7 hours of screen-on time, which is a fantastic result.

We sure understand that the Lenovo ZUK Z1 is an old model already but given the respectable specs sheet, super-fast daily performance and the recent price drops, the phone is a pretty good deal. In fact, Everbuying.net has provided us with a significant discount code and thus you can get this phone for just 173.99$. Just for comparison, ZUK Z1 used to cost over $300 at the time of our review last year.

Buy Lenovo ZUK Z1 for just 173.99$ using a COUPON CODE EBZUKZ1 (White Model)

Buy Lenovo ZUK Z1 for just 173.99$ using a COUPON CODE EBZUKZ2 (Gray Model)

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Lenovo’s sub-brand ZUK has a one interesting device – the Z1. It has decent specs and performance for the price but you may be curious about its camera. Thus, I decided to put it against the slightly more expensive OnePlus 2, which is capable of capturing some impressive looking images.

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Lenovo ZUK Z1 vs OnePlus 2 Camera Comparison: VIDEO

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORaCkQsWrNI[/embedyt]

Lenovo ZUK Z1 uses a 13MP Sony IMX214 camera with IOS and this combo sounds pretty good on paper.

The OnePlus 2 has a 13MP OmniVision sensor with both IOS and laser-assisted auto-focus systems.

I’ve put these cameras head-to-head to see which one is better but this time around I ask you to be the judge and let me know what you think in the comments section below.

Please make sure to stay tuned for the full comparison review, where I’m going to tell my opinion.

Buy Chinese smartphones from Giztop

The post Lenovo ZUK Z1 vs OnePlus 2 Camera Comparison appeared first on Gizmochina.

ZUK is a new comer to the smartphone game – the affordable yet great ZUK Z1. If you haven’t heard of it, ZUK is a start-up, which is backed by the Chinese electronics giant Lenovo. Find out if it is a great smartphone in our full review.

We wanted to say thanks to Coolicool for sending Lenovo ZUK Z1 for a review. Gizmochina readers are getting a special $20 or $30 discount. Grab a discount code at the end of the article!

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: VIDEO

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFLyhVVaoyo[/embedyt]

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: UNBOXING

The phone comes in a neat quality packaging and all the contents, which include the neatly folded USB-Type C charging cable, USB brick and instruction manuals are packed in separate boxes.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: DESIGN

When it comes to the design, the ZUK Z1 is not a small phone as it sports a 5.5” display. However, the bezels on the top and bottom parts make this phone slightly taller than e.g. OnePlus 2.

Still, the phone is manageable with one hand due to rounded corners and it sits very comfortably in the hand.

I have both white and grey models and the differences are, of course in colours, which are different on all sides of the phone. A more significant difference is that the white model has a glossy plastic finish, which attracts smudges and I’m not a huge fan of it.

On the top we have a widely customisable LED light as you can choose any colour you want and assign it to different scenarios. Also, we have a generous 8MP selfie snapper.

On the bottom, there is a very tactile home button, which doubles as a fingerprint scanner and it is blazing fast. Literally, it is one of the faster fingerprint readers I’ve ever tested and it is super accurate. The setup process is very fast too. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work straight from the standby mode.

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Next to the home button we have two backlit capacitive keys and if you don’t like them, you can always choose the on-screen ones and you can customise them the way you want.

The backplate is made of matt plastic and it is nice to the touch. As far as optics, we have a 13MP Sony camera, which is also optically stabilised and it has a dual LED flash.

The phone is surrounded by a metal frame and on the right there is a volume rocker and a power key, on the left we have a dual nano SIM tray, on the bottom there is a speaker grill and the mic, and finally, on the top there is a headset jack.

Overall, the ZUK Z1 is a very well constructed device and I am completely satisfied with the build quality.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: DISPLAY

The 5.5” 1080 display is very pleasing to look at. It is bright, crispy and sharp, it has great colour reproduction and good viewing angles. Also, the visibility under direct sunlight is pretty good.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: UI

When it comes to the UI, the ZUK Z1 runs on the well-known Cyanogen Mod 12.1, which is built on top of Android 5.1.

In short, the UI just flies through everything. If you want a long story, let’s begin.

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Basically, the Cyanogen mod has preserved the looks of the stock Android but it has a lot of neat little features and plenty of tweaks and customisation options, which are very useful and it gives a lot of freedom to the user.

There are familiar gesture controls but we have only those we actually use and they work as advertised. Also, you can assign different tasks to particular buttons, customise LED light, tweak the display density and so on. There are just so many tweaks and just to name a few, you can double click on the notification bar to turn off the display or you can adjust the brightness without even going to the brightness settings.

Overall, despite having lots of tweaks and customisation options, the  UI on the ZUK Z1 is super fast, fluid and responsive, and to be honest, this is definitely on of the fastest UIs on any phone I’ve ever reviewed.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: BENCHMARKS

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Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: HARDWARE and PERFORMANCE

When it comes to the processing power, the ZUK Z1 is no slouch either as it uses a quad-core Snapdragon 801 with the 2.5Ghz clock speed, 3GB of RAM and whopping 64GB of internal storage as a base model.

Some may say Snapdragon 801 is already an old chip and yes, it has already shown its age due to the mainstream transition to the 64-bit chips. However, everyone will agree that this is still a very powerful processor that can easily handle almost anything you throw at it.

Asphalt 8 runs like a champ, there are no hiccucps whatsoever and even the graphics look almost identical to any of the newest top shelf processors.

Finally, there were no overheating issues.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: MULTIMEDIA

When it comes to the multimedia consumption, the HD content looks nice on a brilliant and vibrant display and you are also getting a pretty good loudspeaker. Well, it could have a bit more depth but still, the sound that is coming out is not bad at all considering the price category of this phone.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: CAMERA

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When it comes to the camera, we have a dedicated Cyanogen camera app, which has a fast shutter speed, nice clean design and it is very responsive.

You have some settings to play with and you can adjust some basic stuff or customise the app e.g. with button assignments.

Also, there are some shooting modes and they can be easily changed by swiping anywhere on the screen.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: IMAGE QUALITY

The 13MP camera on the back is capable of producing some nice looking images with a good amount of details, decent colour reproduction and contrast.

The dynamic range is usually good but it is not always accurate. Also, you may get a softer focus on the corners of some images.

When it comes to the night images, they are not very impressive but not bad overall. The level of details is significantly lower and there is plenty of noise.  Well, this is common to most of the phones in this price range anyway.

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As far as selfies go, the 8MP snapper is pretty good and it will definitely do the trick for social media but if there is not enough lighting, you may sometimes get a bit blurry image.

When it comes to the 1080P video recording, it is not bad but not great either. There is a decent amount of details but the footage looks shaky and a bit choppy despite the fact that the phone has OIS. See the video review for a video sample.

Full resolution camera samples coming soon (again…. technical issues).

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: CONNECTIVITY

As far as connectivity, everything works just fine as I had no issues with the call quality, signal reception, Wifi or GPS.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: BATTERY LIFE

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The battery life is one of my favourite parts of the ZUK Z1. The phone has a 4100mAh battery with fast charging capabilities and it performs very well.

I could get almost 7 hours of screen-on time with a light use and the stand-by time was just brilliant.

Naturally, the screen-on time reduces if you do some more intensive tasks but still, I am very happy with the overall battery performance.

Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: CONCLUSIONS

So, there you have it, the ZUK Z1 by Lenovo. It is a great phone for a lot of reasons, no matter if you look at it like at any other device or a phone that was built by a start-up.

It all starts with a plain yet good looking design and solid construction, and a vibrant display.

Also, you are getting a well implemented UI, which is blazing fast. In addition, the processing power lets you enjoying even the most demanding games, 64GB of internal storage is more than enough to store some good looking images shot by the camera or store lots of songs that sound pretty good via the loudspeaker. Lastly, a generous battery will keep the lights on for a long time.

However, if you are very serious about the night photography or a good video recording is a feature that you can’t live without, the ZUK Z1 is not the best performer out there.

All in all, despite a few shortcomings that can actually be fixed with the future software updates, the Lenovo ZUK Z1 is a really good device for the price of just above $300.

Gizmochina readers are getting some generous discounts for the ZUK Z1 when buying from both China and EU warehouses!

The post Lenovo ZUK Z1 Review: Ferrari Speeds? appeared first on Gizmochina.

Earlier this month, we reported that Lenovo had a new smartphone sub-brand called as ZUK which will primarily focus on developing software for its users. The company had said that it aims to release a new smartphone, the ZUK Z1 later this year, sometime around September. While at that time, it didn’t reveal any key specs of the device, recently, Lenovo’s Senior Vice President Chen Xudong released a few camera samples of the upcoming ZUK smartphone via his Weibo account.

You can check out all the samples from down below. The images look quite good, like the one at the time of sunset. Despite the low light surroundings, the phone managed to take quite focused and clear shots.

The other pictures are even better with natural colors and high level of detail. The image of the flower too came out quite well as we can see a lot of details in the colors too.

Unfortunately, the company has not yet revealed how powerful the sensor is on the camera. But after seeing these images, it looks like the camera on ZUK Z1 will be quite good.

Check out the samples from down below.

The post Here’s The First Camera Samples From Lenovo’s Sub-brand ZUK Z1 Smartphone appeared first on Gizmochina.