Lenovo S5

Lenovo S5 arrives with a lot of promise to set the mid-range market in its favour. Priced at Rs. 13,999, Lenovo S5 must tackle with the likes of Redmi to achieve the enviable position of a mid-range marvel.

However, Lenovo S5 turns out to be a mediocre handset with average internals. It has an eye-catching design which is mismatched with the poor internals and stays behind when you place it with other flagship models. It is just a decent model, which will please you if you are going for a phone without much spunk in it.

Lenovo S5 has a design which looks inspired by the OnePlus 5T. Hence, the construction seems like a higher-level phone compared to the market range that the S5 comes in. It seems solid, and it is quite ergonomic as well. The edges are blunt which gives a good grip for your hand. The weight is about 155g which is not quite heavy to make your hands feel tired. On the front, there is a thin frame between the panel and the rear body which does not look impressive. The back cover is a satin aluminium which prevents it from becoming a fingerprint magnet. It can also be easily wiped clean. The dual camera on the back is slightly protruding which does not create a problem. There is also a fingerprint scanner, which while accurate, can be a bit slow. The phone arrives with a headphone jack and a USB Type-C – two favourites of any average phone user.

The Lenovo S5 has an IPS display of 5.7 inches and a FullHD+ resolution of 2160×1080 and a pixel density of 424ppi. The aspect ratio used is the modern 18:9. It has excellent colour reproduction and is quite bright, but it does not stand out and resembles the quality provided by the models in the similar price range. The colours appear washed out, and deep blacks do not appear properly. While the reason might be because of the lack of the more superior AMOLED screen, however, when the phone is tilted, the blacks become grey which shows poor viewing angles. The touch screen is also not very reactive, as it does not respond to light touches which can be frustrating, especially during gaming.

Lenovo S5 has a decent Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 chipset, which is an octa-core processor clocked at 2.0 GHz and it is partnered with a satisfying GPU Adreno 506. However, it does not provide any exceptional performance, and it is quite probable that the UI tends to strain the processor. There can be random freezing when you are working with the app, which can be infuriating as you have to close the app and start all over again. Light games can play smoothly, but if you push heavy games like PUBG, then this phone might start to stutter even while running the game at low settings. The software is clearly not optimised and affects the overall performance of the phone.

On the back, Lenovo S5 has a dual camera set, two 13MP cameras with phase detection autofocus and an f/2.2 aperture. The camera shots were not impressive and resemble the kind of photos that you could expect at this price range. The colours appear a bit kneaded and the details captured is not high. There is also a bokeh mode, but the software is not precise, and the faulty edge detection causes the edges of the subject to get blurred.

In a low-light situation, the quality drops drastically, with images capturing a lot of visual noise. If firm hands do not hold the camera, then the motion can even cause jerky subjects.

There is a 16MP selfie camera on the front, which produces similar results as the rear camera. The colours appear washed out, and the selfies have very little definition to it. If there are strong lights, then the sensor captures overexposed images.

Videos can be captured up to a max of 4K, and the video stabilisation helps a lot in this case. However, autofocus falters while shooting videos.

Lenovo S5 has a 3000 mAh battery from 3000 mAh which, paired with the FullHD+ display, guarantees a full day of runtime. S5 delivers on the guarantee and does continue to run for a whole day, with light or moderate tasks. However, if the phone is pushed into intensive tasks, it might start to falter, and you might have a low battery by dinner time. However, charging is quite fast on this phone and take about 2 hours to go from 0% to 100%.

Lenovo S5 arrives with a beautiful design that will catch your eyes. However, it does not have striking features that can be pointed out. The performance is subpar due to the clunky software. The camera does not capture many details either. A good mention would be the battery, which though small, delivers on the one-day runtime promise. It is a generic phone and could be brought by people with a tight budget, but they would not find anything spectacular in it. However, Redmi 5 Plus is a much better phone regarding technical specification and could be a worthy phone to consider.