I finally finished the Lenovo Vibe X3 review. How does this feature packed, quality made smartphone stand up to to the competition?
This is a review a lot of you have been waiting for, so I’m sorry for the delay and I hope that the final details were worth the wait.
So first of all why the wait? Well as you all know I received the Chinese version of the Lenovo Vibe X3 and this means that it has no Google services, but unlike other phones (Vivo, Xiaomi etc) Lenovo have looked down the Vibe X3 as tight as possible to prevent Google services from being installed through the usual methods.
As the phone launched in India recently I hoped that if I waited Lenovo would release the international ROM and I could simply flash the phone, but this hasn’t happened yet. So with time running out and the desire to try a new phone I just went ahead and reviewed the phone without any Google services at all.
Lenovo Vibe X3 review – Design
Lenovo have used a few styling details that we have said were a no no on other phones in the past. For example that is a black border all around the display, and there are wide bezels, but somehow (at least in my eyes) the Vibe X3 actually looks pretty good.
I know not all of you are going to agree with me on the looks of the phone, but actually having it and physically using it I quite like the design.
Even if you don’t like the look of the phone, I think you can agree that the added bonus of having hardware buttons and dual front facing speakers are features enough to look past the look. Even if then you can’t agree, then the quality build and materials are still there to win you over.
Those materials are glass plastic a metal. Glass across most of the front of the phone, metal for the frame and plastic for all the while parts. It’s a good quality plastic though, with a similar soft touch feel as the original OnePlus, and funnily enough the build quality reminds me of an Oppo.
So now you know that this is a well made and solid device let’s take a tour around the phone to take in the features.
At the very top of the face of the phone we have one of the front speaker grills, the curved design is cloned on the chin where the second front facing speaker grill is located.
In between the two Dolby Atmos speakers are the is a 5.5-inch FHD display protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3. Just above the screen is a front facing 8 mega-pixel camera, while below we have hardware controls with no back lights.
Around the sides of the Lenovo Vibe X3 is a CNC machined alloy frame. A dual SIM slot is located on the left, 3.5mm headphone jack and IR remote in the top, power and volume buttons on the right and a micro USB (not Type C) in the base.
The curved metal frame is finished with a non removable plastic rear panel. As already mentioned it’s a good quality plastic with a soft to the touch finish.
In the top center there is an extended alloy oval where the 20 mega-pixel rear camera, dual tone LED flash and fingerprint scanner are located. We also have a Lenovo logo, and some other markings at the base of the phone.
Dimensions are 154 x 76.5 x 9.3, which you will see add up to a phone that is a little bigger than most other 5.5-inch phones, but remember that the Lenovo Vibe X3 has those dual front speakers and also have a ton of hardware features while maintaining a sensible price point.
Lenovo Vibe X3 Review – Hardware
Remember while reading this section of the review that my version of the Lenovo Vibe X3 is from China so I am following the specifications laid out on the Chinese Lenovo website. I am pretty confident that these are the same specs as the model that launched in India, but I suggest you double check them for yourselves.
In China there are 3 versions of the Lenovo Vibe X3, the model I chose is the XC50, which has all the features of the top end model but with only 32GB memory, but that’s fine as the Lenovo has an option to run a micro SD card in place of one of its SIM cards.
Again I’ll start at the front and with the screen, which is a superb piece of kit. Although this isn’t an AMOLED display the colours are bright and everything just seems to pop off the panel. It’s a very responsive display too, just the lightest touch will be noticed, but Lenovo have been careful with the coding so that it won’t register accidental swipes and bumps.
Next we have those dual front facing speakers which are just perfect for filling a room (or car) with music. This past weekend I used the Vibe X3 and its front speakers as our car radio and GPS, and even on half volume you could easily hear the audio over the growl of my ageing boxer engine.
There is a Dolby Atmos setting on the phone (you can easily toggle it on or off in the notification area) so if you have a movie with Atmos you can experience the 3D surround sound from the phone. I was sceptical at first, but it does work amazingly well and offers a better audio experience to my home TV. If you get a chance to demo the Vibe X3 there are some sample Atmos videos on YouTube which will let you experience rain and storms in the forest or a helicopter flying right over you.
Plug in a set of earphones and you will be treated with impeccable audio quality. From the built in music application you have access to the Atmos settings, and HIFi settings. From the HIFI options you can chose either standard HIFI or Turbo HIFI. We’re looking at a Vivo rival here people.
Also on the front is the 8 mega-pixel front camera. It s simple fixed focus sensor with no LED flash, but the default SNAPit camera application has a ton of features from face beautification, to a very good selfie panoramic mode (good for getting a group of people in to a photo).
Moving through the Lenovo Vibe X3 and on to the inside of the phone we uncover the guts of the device, a Snapdragon 808 Hexacore, with 3GB LP DDR3 RAM and 32GB eMMC internal memory. The dual SIM tray allows for use of either a nano and micro SIM or a nano SIM plus SD card of up to 128GB.
Also internally there is a 3600mAh battery, and some serious audio hardware including a ESS ES9018K2M DAC, TIOPA1612 amp and Wolfon WM8281 audio codec. For those of you wanting easy sync with accessories and use contactless payments, there is NFC inside too.
Battery life has been pretty good and I can get about a day and a half from the phone on a single charge, which isn’t as much as the Vivo X6 Plus, but then again the Lenovo doesn’t have the bugs and also has a smaller battery.
Gizchina News of the week
Finally on to the rear of the phone and we have the main camera. This is a 21 mega-pixel sensor with F2.0 aperture, PDAF (phase detection auto focus) 6p lens and dual tone dual LED flash. More on the camera in the camera portion of the review.
Last but not least is the fingerprint sensor. It’s another top quality sensor with a larger area for your print to press up against. Speed of the fingerprint is almost instant, and accuracy is right up there too, but not quite has good as that on the Vivo X6 Plus we reviewed last week.
For those of you needing the network support details for the Chinese version of the Lenovo Vibe X3 here they are:
- 2G GSM: Band2,3,5,8
- 3G WCDMA: Band1,2,5,8 3G
- TD-SCDMA: Band34,39
- 4G FDD-LTE: Band1,3,7
- 4G TDD-LTE: Band38,39,40,41NW (2555MHz-2655MHz)
Lenovo Vibe X3 Review – Performance
Lenovo have done a good job with the optimisation of the Snapdragon 808 and 3GB RAM inside this phone and their own UI. The performance has been consistent and bug free from the start. Sorry GFXBench would not run.
Lenovo Vibe X3 Review – Camera
This weekend presented me with the perfect opportunity to test the rear 21 mega-pixel camera on the Lenovo Vibe X3, we we visited Valencia and the excellent BioParc.
Valencia is a great city with beautiful architecture, and this time I was based around the park area with all the modern buildings (where Disney’s Tomorrow Land was filmed)
I already wrote an article detailing some of the features of the Lenovo Vibe X3’s camera here, and I decided to use the phone in ‘smart’ mode consistently with just a switch to ‘artistic HDR’ or ‘defocus’ modes just to try them out now and then.
With the smart mode enabled the default SNAPit app will try to figure out what you are shooting and based on the lighting conditions decide if you need HDR on or not. It will also make changes if it thinks you are trying to take photos of landscapes, people or food too.
The speed the app works with the quality of the photos is very good. Yes, there are better camera phones on the market, but the Lenovo offers a ton of excellent features in an easy to use and fast package. It’s hard not to enjoy taking photos with the Vibe X3.
One detail that you should be aware of is that the lenses on the camera tend to show a much closer photo than most other smartphones. This means you have to take a few steps back than usual for some photos, and in confined spaces it means you may not be able to get all the detail you want in to your photo. On the flip side close-ups are much better.
Below are some sample photos taken in various lighting conditions. Keep in mind that some of the photos of animal were taken with the digital zoom all the way in, while others I was really that close.
Lenovo Vibe X3 photos samples
Lenovo Vibe X3 Review – Vibe UI
I’ve already mentioned a few times that this is a Chinese version of the Lenovo Vibe X3 so throughout my time with the phone I had no access to Google services.
At first I though that this would be a hassle but in the end I feel I had a much better weekend as I was able to keep away from email, and constant calendar reminders.
But as an every day device I would really want to have Google working, and this is easily possible by choosing the India version of the phone.
As for Vibe UI, I do like it. It’s much better than previous Lenovo ROMs, it has a stylish look and most importantly its feature packed and really well optimised. I have also received a couple of updates and while I don’t notice any new features, I also don’t have any new bugs or problems either (take notice OnePlus).
Lenovo Vibe X3 Review – Specifications
| Model: | Lenovo Vibe X3 |
| Sim Card: | Dual SIM |
| Color: | White |
| Capacity | RAM: 3GB
ROM: 32GB |
| Multi-Languages | English, Chinese |
| Chipset | CPU: Qualcomm Hexacore Snapdragon 808 |
| System | Android 5.1 |
| Screen | Display: 5.5-inch
Resolution: 1920 x 1080 |
| Camera | Rear camera: 21 mega-pixel F2.0, PDAFFront camera: 8 mega-pixel |
| Network and Wireless Connectivity | 2G GSM: Band2,3,5,8 3G WCDMA: Band1,2,5,8 3G TD-SCDMA: Band34,39 4G FDD-LTE: Band1,3,7 4G TDD-LTE: Band38,39,40,41NW (2555MHz-2655MHz) |
| Battery capacity and life | 3600mAh |
| Sensor | G-sensor, P-sensor, NFC |
| Other Features | Fingerprint scanner |
| Size | Dimensions: 154 x 76.5 x 9.3 |
| Weight | About 175g |
Lenovo Vibe X3 Review – Gallery
Lenovo Vibe X3 Review – Conclusion
The Lenovo Vibe X3 is the most feature packed Android smartphone on the market at this price. It has amazing build quality, a wonderful screen and a fast camera with fun camera application.
The performance of the phone is spot on, audio is amazing and build quality is on par with phones costing double the price.
This is the phone that ZUK should have made, they should have just rebranded it and offered CM on it and they would have really made an impact on the market.
I hope that I can finally get Google Service working on my version of the Vibe X3, but I’ve enjoyed the phone so much that I might just go out and buy another international version of the phone.
The design looks like a 2013 Oppo model, kind of like the N1 (minus the rotating camera of course) and the Find 5 mashed together (see images below). I don’t like the front of it at all but the back looks pretty nice.
Now on gizlemur. com the blogger is waiting he’s sorry for the delay of x3’s review, but “his sample hasn’t been delivered yet by any stupid human” ?
Hmm, thats Talbot Matra Murena and Porsche 944 S, awesome catch! Not as easy to see these days!
Anyway, thanks for the review, Andi. Lenovo finaly has something, that is not a crap (IMHO).
Wow you know your cars 😀 The Talbot Matra Murena was the whole reason I went to China in the first place. It’s a long story and I still haven’t owned one 😀
I saw just one in Czech Republic and another one in Leipzig, Germany. It has 3 seats in first line, has it?
And that shot you take, was it form some sort of Historic cars event? Coz i see Renault 8 Gordini, Alpina A110 (reminds me Michele Mutton:),Citroen GS, Mini Cooper, Fiat Uno Turbo, Fiat x 1/9…
Envy you 🙂
Yup, 3 seats across the front. I feel they missed a trick with not having the steering wheel in the middle though.
There was a classic racing event at the Moto GP track in Valencia this weekend. I missed the classic F1 cars in the morning but I got to see some very cool cars racing around in the afternoon. The Citroen GS was going around corners on 3 wheels and there was one Mini that was taking it too the Ferraris and Porsches 😀 It’s inspired me to get my Autobianchi finished 😀
You have Autobianchi? 😀 oh my dear…maybe if you could post some more photos somewhere from that event, i admiredto look at it 🙂 really big fan of these cars
Yup, I have an A112, trying to decide if I go for an Abarth Engine or BMW K100 motorbike engine.
Fiat = Abarth 🙂
Autobianchi also had an Abarth engine too
Oh, its 112, Lancia, not Fiat, true. But German engine in italian vehicle? Thats heresy 😀
haha yup 😀
You should bring back the car section of this site. I miss seeing all the knock off Chinese cars. I am always fascinated by how close they come to the original.
The GS is my favorite old timer, I want one so bad.
good stuff, but why do most people think ips cant compete with amoled in terms of colours and deep blacks?
Amoled has some kind of advantage, and the deep black is a win by default, but all in all a good ips has his pros too, so I don’t understand why people love amoled that much
Me neither, in fact I will tend to avoid a phone with an Amoled display since I much prefer a good IPS panel any day.
Black levels usually are much better on AMOLED displays and AMOLED is usually less resource heavy (due to IPS dependency on backlight). But IPS is usually much better at deep whites whereas AMOLEDs will have a colored hue to whites (pink or yellow) and usually display text/images sharper. But it really depends on the quality of the display more than anything, not all display’s are created equal. Some of the best displays I have used have been IPS panels from Sharp.
true i have seen the neo ips on the huawei p8and the black is super deep barely different from the typical amoled but like you said it depends on the quality, some amoleds have bad sun light legibility since its harder for them to illuminate and they burn less efficiently in white
Lenovo are surprising in many ways, congrats Andy on a wise choice. Currently have one now but depending on le2 release date, how can i resist the ceramic back and recessed camera and details of an mi5? Well apart from lack of international and price.
Otherwise, I might stick with a lenovo. Interesting looks in meetings when I put one on the desk! People wonder why I chose, I guess read this review and you’ll see why. It’s the Skoda superb of phones ))
Yes that’s a very good way to sum it up 😀
Why can’t you just sideload Google Play Services?
Ask Lenovo, but it’s not possible
I believe you still can flash whatever gapps package you want starting with opengapps.
This is the year of mid rangers matching premium phones. The mi5 from Xiaomi is effectively a decent premium phone for 2/3’s the price, without any compromises. This should — at least by mid-year’s x20 availability, rewrite the definition of “value” in mid-rangers. It also should make software (including camera software, which is what makes Samsung so great) the differentiating feature for premium phones.
This Lenovo seems like a good enough phone but that price (not mentioned in article) is prohibitive. the fact that it is a yesteryear phone that just came out a bit late and is being reviewed even later should only strengthen the requirements to call it a “good value”. The main features that price it:
• 3gb/32gb makes it competitive with phones starting at $200 but going all the way up to premium as long as it has the features. It does, actually..making it a fitting late 2015 phone.
• the 1080p screen is nice but in phones costing $200 and up it is pretty standard, and shouldnt add anything to the price.
• the build materials is also nice, but is common among phones in the $250+ price range.
• The Snapdragon 808 that you are paying extra for offers nearly zero advantage over the 650 in the Xiaomi note 3 pro —it might push the value up $20 (and add actual costs of $20-$40), because it does offer better gaming.
• the camera (both, in fact) is very nice, and could reasonably add $20-$50 to the valuation of the phone.
• the front-facing speakers carry a patent surcharge in the US .. which would in that market mark the price up about $40. Plus the Dolby kit and you’re probably all-in at $100. Mind it, it isn’t worth anywhere near that.. but anyway.
total cost would be maybe ~$420 —which is what you can find an x3c50 on aliexpress for (and a good $65 less than gearbest, for some reason), but the audio surcharges shouldn’t apply in china and I’d place the value closer to $340. Frankly even $340 for an 808-based phone on lollipop in 2016 isn’t that exciting. Basically, it is overpriced by ~25% —a healthy chunk of change.
A year ago this would have been a stellar sub-premium mid ranger — but in a market like today’s this phone doesn’t stand out for its value.
Lenovo Vibe X3 is only officially available in China and India. In India you get the international version with Google support for $297.
Compared to the Redmi you get a much better made phone, the audio is well above anything Xiaomi produce, has a faster fingerprint scanner and a more feature packed OS.
Wonder how it compares to the Mi4s which now looks like a direct competitor and is about the same price?
You can get this version of the Vibe X3 for $297? I looked at two sources, gearbest (at $485 for this exact phone) and aliexpress ($420 for this exact phone) …
if I had found it for $297 I wouldn’t have bothered to comment at all, I’d have agreed with the article 100% 🙂
“n India you get the international version with Google support for $297.” was my comment, that’s the retail price of this phone in India (Rs. 19,999)
Vibe x3 already officially launced in malaysia with k4 note and already officially sold in malaysia about a month ago.
Yes but Xiaomi phones have better community support. I was easily able to get CyanogenMod 12.1 ( working nicely with not bugs found so far ) for my Redmi Note 2 while I doubt this is so easy to do for a Lenovo phone.
Lenovo K3 Note: Officially comes with 5.0, later we’ve got 5.1 and now the 6.0 update is in proceed.
Currently above 130 roms on needrom, around 10 different Android distributions to try out: VibeUI, MIUI, AOSP, CM, Flyme, IUNI, CoolUI, 360OS, LewaOS, Funtouch, EUI.
Lenovo a680 Pretty much no offical update, still stuck on a crappy implementation of 4.2.2, very, verry happy with it.
Yes it’s low end phone but I still paid $100 for it and Lenovo decided to not give a shit later.
K3 Note seems to be a case where updates and community ROM happened but sadly there are Lenovo phones that got nothing.
I’m not sure this X3 will be as popular as the K3 note but maybe, who knows.
Oh and BTW my Redmi Note 2 is also getting official 6.0 so no real big deal there. I could have also bought the K3 Note but specwise the Redmi is just better.
K3 Note is a rare case for a Lenovo phone to get so much support official and unofficial also. X3 won’t be so popular due to it’s high retail price which is going to be over $350. Now the best deal seems to be Redmi Note 3 Pro: above average performance, very good battery life, good build quality and reasonable price. I expect the price to go even lower after a few months.
Yes I fully agree with this.
Lenovo X3 is OFFICIALLY available in EUROPE too. But surprisingly not at the main markets.(I assume Lenovo’s avoiding some patent fees) It was released in december 2015 and available at authorized resellers for 449E 3G/32G, (Hungary, Romania, Czech rep, Slovakia,..)
of course with Google services
2G = GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz;
3G = WCDMA 850/900/1800/1900MHz, HSPA+ 150 Mbps(DL) a 50 Mbps(UL);
4G = FDD Band 1,3,5,7,8,20;
Lenovo VIBE X3 (PA280000CZ, PA280004RO)
S808 is already outdated and outperformed by the cheaper S650 serie, even before the Vibe X3 comes available !! Are Lenovo at sleep ZZZZZZZ
You know for a fact that the 650 is cheaper than the 808? The 650 is a newer chip which probably means it carries a premium. As for the performance difference most people will never notice a difference.
Remi Note Pro 3 w/ S650 sold for 148USD ( 2+16Gb) and 178USD ( 3+32Gb) – At The end of the day Vibe X3 probberly ends up costing +600USD
Price of a phone has very little to do with price of a SoC. The SoC is one component among hundreds, and it is not even the most expensive the display is. Xiaomi can offer phones cheaper because they have very little overhead compared to a company like Lenovo. They do all their advertising online and they have very little retail presence, they also sell close to cost and make up the difference from the Mi store and sustained sales. And the Vibe X3 is just under $300 in India (19999 INR).
WHERE ON EARTH IS IT $150 ?!
please GIMME A LINK !
I CANT FIND IT ANYWHERE FOR LESS THAN $200 !?
unless you’re living in utopia that price is a dream atm !
Andi, I totally agree with you on that last statement.
“This is the phone that ZUK should have made, they should have just rebranded it and offered CM on it and they would have really made an impact on the market.”
I really like this phone, it seems to tick all of the boxes and the price isn’t astronomical!
If only ZUK did release this with CM 🙁
but why is cam rated at 7.8 only 🙁 ?
You know what Andi is like with his Camera ratings… It’d still only get 9.5 if it was Full Frame DSLR Quality! lol!
lol … i see
its actually a GREAT thing then … i remember Yash giving the shooter on MX5 9/10 or something similar and i asked him if he was too lenient and how would Andi rate it :p
now im gonna look forward to EVERY cam review with Andi’s name on it !
I suspect it’s because he was spoiled with the Vivo XShot camera once upon a time… 😉
I think he’s still using it as some sort of benchmark..? lol
lol
I agree with you, Andi, about Zuk. This phone with CM and US bands would be pretty hard to pass up.
It is called Moto X Pure and yes, it is hard to pass up.
Yup it has the potential to be a direct competitor to LG G4, but for ~$200 less. X3 has a bigger battery, but the G4 has 2K screen and better camera. Speaking for myself I would go for the better battery any day.
A rather obvious question I’m sure… But where would one who lives in say…. The UK, purchase the Indian variant of this?
Indian specific models are hard to get ahold of without going to India. Most resellers only have the Chinese variant and Indian resellers don’t ship internationally. Maybe Yash can ship them out for us lol.
lol
Ye Yash, fancy making some money on the side!? 🙂 lol
That somehow sounds naughty 🙂
This is the issue I’ve been trying with out for a while now. If I can’t I may have to go for the Moto X Style instead.
Lemur tried to grab the phone for himself …
WHO ON EARTH WOULDNT 😀 ?!
Andy I think you definitely need to answer that!
lol indeed
Hey Andi, i am hifi fan and opera singer,when we speak about pure audio (not movie dolby atmos)which phone do you prefere ,vivo x6 or vibe x3 ?
Hmmmm, its close but I would go for the Vivo
thanks, have the same feeling
Please let me know, I just read your review & Want to buy this phone from China, in your review you wrote you did not access GOOGLE SERVICE (google play stor? google chrome?). I want to know from you that there are any option to install GOOGLE SERVICE ? Or can I install google play store by google Installer ? Please Please Please Gizchina reply my question.
No, buy the international version
Thanks
Very weird to claim great value for a 300$ mid ranger.300$ used to be high end, why regress like that?Sure last year sucked with a big void in the high end SoC but that’s not the case anymore and things can return to normal.
If this phone goes on sale for 250 bucks it will be a no brainier. I like it.
I’m planning to purchase the Chinese version ’cause I’m not willing to pay over 400€ for the phone and apparently the international ROM is available (link here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/android/development/rom-lenovo-vibe-x3-row-x3a40-stock-t3328461) but the thing I’m worried about is that if there are some differences between X3c50 and X3c40? Some European sellers and for example devicespecifications.com claims that X3c40 has LTE 900MHz, 850MHz and 800MHz connectivity which X3c50 don’t have.
Awesome review. I’ve been eyeing the phone after I got the spouse a Lenovo K4 Note.
One gets great value for money, but I hate to pop the UI bubble here – Vibe UI is just elementary at best with little customization. One can only select one of four Lenovo provided themes! Lenovo mentioned they made Vibe UI look closer to stock Android.
Why would they even want to mess with the UI, trying to emulate stock Android, when they could just use stock Android!?!
Also, there are no ways (yet) to root the Lenovo K4 Note, let alone the Vibe X3.
I was loving the VibeUI on my K3 Note but only till they started to change many things trying to make it closer to stock Android.
Great review Andi. I have just got a hand on a display unit of this phone a few days ago. I have to say it really is a nice phone and feels great in hand. At first i did not like the design when i see it on the web but once i hold the actual phone it really does look elegant.
How come its so expensive?
Can Gizshop send stuff to Nigeria?