A new smartphone adds to Lenovo's Vibe series, aimed at the young and the hip. The focus in this series is to give enough importance to design and of course other things that young people like -- such as selfies. Not that they're the only ones anymore. Lenovo's Vibe S1 is really a selfie phone before it's anything else. Here's how:
The Vibe S1 has two front cameras. An 8MP and a 2MP. These two can be used separately or in combnination. Either way, you get a good light-filled selfie. But with the double camera, you can also play with the background. You can cut yourself out of it for separation and then change the background, using some of the photos and overlays provided. You can also choose instead to blur out the background in three different effects. Apart from that there are other filters etc in what is a simple enough camera app.
The main 13MP camera is what I'll call the usual. Grainy and noisy in low light; pretty decent in daylight and nothing more special about it.
Swinging back to the design: it's quite a neat phone, with tidy lines and a gentle curve to the back panel. In white, it's quite pearly and clean. In midnight blue, it also looks good though I have only seen that version in photographs. The back can't be opened up and is glossy with a nice habit of not picking up fingerprints. That is a strong plus as you won't have to keep wiping it. On the side is an aluminium skirting. On the front -- it could be any phone on earth. It's quite nice overall, except Lenovo should have gone the extra mile with details like its logo and some other tiny info which on the unit I have, is crooked.
The specs on the Vibe S1 are not to be sneezed at. First of all it has a nice 1920x1080 pixels LCD screen with a 440ppi desntiy. It's got great, deep colours and is quite crisp. If you like large text though, the maximum possible on this device is still not particularly big. That could rule it out for some older people. But otherwise, it's a great display.
The others specs include a MT6752 64-bit 1.7 GHz Octa-Core processor with 3GB RAM. That makes it quite fast and at the initial stage I found no lag. Lenovo's own interface on top of Android 5.0 is not a heavy one and doesn't have so many bells and whistles that it gets in the way of usage. It's a simple set up and there isn't even a surfeit of pre-loaded apps. You have 32GB of internal storage plus the option of adding a memory card that will allow for 128GB more to store all those selfies. It's a dual nano SIM phone and supports 4G. It has pretty loud and clear sound.
The battery on the Vibe S1 is a 2,420mAh. It's a little underpowered for a phone that is meant to be used for lots of camera work and a powerful processor.
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
