Lenovo ‘Cameraphone’ Vibe Shot announced at MWC with 16 mega-pixel sensor


As we reported earlier, Lenovo went ahead to launch the Vibe Shot camera-centric phone at the ongoing MWC earlier today. Even if you haven’t read our previous reports about the phone, the name itself will tell you what the phone is going to be about.

The phone is targeted at hardcore shutterbugs than the everyday consumer, with a design that resembles a standalone camera. Lenovo will also be shipping the device with photo editing tools that are expected to be more powerful than what we usually see on phones. To top off the pro-camera look and feel, the device also offers a physical switch that shifts between automatic and manual modes — pretty clever, I say. The sensor itself takes photos upto 16 mega-pixel in resolution.

lenovo-vibe-shot-1-500x400

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Lets take a quick look at the specifications: there’s a 5-inch 1920 x 1080p full HD display upfront, an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 (same as the Yu Yureka), 3GB of RAM and 32GB of on-board storage. As mentioned previously, a 16 mega-pixel sensor sits on the very camera-like rear chassis of Vibe Shot, whereas an 8 mega-pixel snapper calls the device’s front its home.

Pricing is pretty impressive, with Lenovo slated to ship the Vibe Shot this June for US$349 globally. The closest contender (at least from China) has to be the critically acclaimed Vivo Xshot, which also happens to be a very camera-centric phone.

[Picture credits]
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20 Comments

  1. Igor Mishin
    March 2, 2015

    Cool Phone for a great price!

  2. Hbk
    March 2, 2015

    Sad to see no flagship lenovo phones launching. There were rumors of Vibe x3 and Vibe z3 pro. Niether was launched.

    Also Vibe shot would have been better with a MT6752 instead of crappy Snapdragon615.
    The old Snapdragon 801 or MT6595 would have been better too.

    I dont see any advantage of 64bit currently. Android 5 will run the same on a 32bit soc as well.

    Overall its a good phone just dissapointed by Snaodragon 615.

    • mf1gt3r
      March 2, 2015

      Totally agree with u on that. SD615 is like the odd thing in that spec list.

      • balcobomber25
        March 2, 2015

        They used that to keep the price down. If they used one of the 800 chips it would have pushed the price well over $400. Lenovo knows they would have a tough time competing with phones priced over $400.

        • mf1gt3r
          March 2, 2015

          I disagree with u on that. At that price they could have used the mtk6752. Better choice.

        • Hbk
          March 3, 2015

          Coming from a chinese company.
          At the same price you can get a Oneplus One, Xiaomi Mi4.
          Even the Lenovo Vibe X2 has a Mt6595m. And its still cheaper.

          They should have used the MT6595T version in this phone.

          Lastly, The lenovo A7000 has Mt6752m and is price below 200.
          They could have easily used MT6752 and brought the price down too.

          And anyways, A 50$-100$ more for a 801 or 805 which would have supported 4k, slow mo n all would have been a better option.

          The device is great but SD615 became a commplete Bottleneck for this.

          P.S – Not 100% sure about this but This device’s gpu performance on 1080p will be just a little better than Moto G 2ndGen.( Check Oppo R5 gpu benchmarks.)

    • seven7dust
      March 2, 2015

      midrange phones anyone ?

      • Hbk
        March 2, 2015

        Yes offcoz. But they could have used mt6752 which has beter performance than sd615.

        Or they should have used 720P screen.

        On 1080p
        Trex Hd onscreen = 15
        Manhattan Onscreen = 5

        IMO, GPU performance is too bad. even cpu is worse than mt6752. (Check the article of sd615 vs mt6752)

        + About camera performance, lets wait for results.
        On paper, This doesnt even support 4kUHD, 1080p 60fps, slow mo 720p 120fps.

        IMO, Vivo Xshot is way beter than this.

        This phone should have been priced 270-300.
        At this price, I would prefer a OnePlus One.
        Probably lower quality photography but performance and video recording will be way better.

        Zenfone zoom for 399 has flagship level intel soc. With better than iph6 GPU. Even that will better option.

        SD410 and SD615 are worst Soc of this year.

        But its only my opinion.

        • balcobomber25
          March 2, 2015

          “On paper, This doesnt even support 4kUHD, 1080p 60fps, slow mo 720p 120fps.”

          Where are you getting this from? It’s most likely an Omnivision Camera, they are the pioneers of the 16mp sensors. They support 4k. The 615 has an Adreno 405 which supports 4k.

  3. March 2, 2015

    Now this is just about perfect. 4.7-5.0″ 1080P? Check! (and I’ve tried 5.5″, it just wasn’t for me… but it feels like 5.5″ is the new standard for higher end devices, so if you want something smaller, you either not get 4G, 2500mAh+ or 1080P for example, it’s terrible! But the Vibe Shot luckily isn’t!) Cool design? Check! It looks the bizz!

    Hardware specs? Well, except for an IR blaster and NFC it kinda has a lot going on for it. Pretty good 64-bit octocore processor (I don’t need ultra gaming performance, besides, since it’s not MediaTek I’m hoping GPS (Glonass & Hokuto again?) will be more reliable) with LTE (yay!) and dualSIM (although 2x nano) support (I need a dualSIM phone, guys!). 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storgage, microSD slot expandable with 128GB (awesome blossum)! 2900mAh battery, still keeping the design rather slim (although in turn, not removable).

    And then… to me very important. Camera-centric phone! 16MP, Optical image stabilization (like the new Samsung S6). Pro manual control! And did I already mention I think the design is cool? I mean, it’s like they’ve seen me criticizing the Vibe X2 and met my demands. Cool cool cool.

  4. Faux-News
    March 2, 2015

    Lenova still needs to refine their UI.

    • Simon
      March 2, 2015

      Hopefully it will be free from snapfish virus too. I might go for this instead of Jiayu S3, as people are reporting random reboots alot.

    • balcobomber25
      March 2, 2015

      I love Lenovo’s designs for their phones and they are always very competitive with specs but they have one of the worst UI’s .

  5. iKosh
    March 2, 2015

    I’ve never seen the front of this phone.

  6. Muhammad Yasir
    March 2, 2015

    i never really am a fan of high-end phones but this kinda sways me a bit!
    thankfully we have a xshot competitor!

  7. jauling
    March 3, 2015

    this phone is basically perfect. if I had to be a whiner, I’d complain that it isnt waterproof lol. this is quite possibly the best alternative to upgrading my mi2s, i’m excited!

    anyone know if lenovo has a good track record in releasing kernel source code?

  8. to
    March 3, 2015
  9. stan
    March 3, 2015

    Since lenovo shipped their PC with malware (superfish) preinstalled I will not even consider their phones even more. Trust is easy to lose and hard to regain and I don’t trust them any more …

    • Hbk
      March 3, 2015

      Agree with that.
      They need to earn trust again.