In the highly competitive mid-range smartphone market, Chinese tech-giant Lenovo has unleashed a new beast designed specifically for photography lovers. Dubbed as Lenovo Vibe Shot, the new smartphone packs a nice set of features and boasts brilliant camera capabilities just like an ideal flagship phone. It was unveiled officially at the MWC trade show, and was expected to show up in India by the end of September 2015. Well now, it’s finally here, and is set to create some serious troubles for players like OnePlus 2 and Xiaomi Mi4.
While OnePlus 2 holds an upper hand with OxygenOS and fingerprint sensor, Xiaomi’s Mi4 with only a handful of differences looks like an ideal competitor for Lenovo’s latest smartphone. The two phones go head to head under major categories, and thus to avoid any further confusions, we’re comparing both of these beauties to see which one touts to be the best.
Design
When it comes to design, Xiaomi Mi4 and Lenovo Vibe Shot both stand close and flaunt a classy look with clean and ideally crafted design language.
The latest beauty from Lenovo features anodized aluminum on its sides and glass on its rear, while Mi4 looks extremely premium with a stainless steel band running along its edges. Mi4 gives resemblance of iPhone and feels great despite its glossy plastic backing. Its rear panel can be replaced with swappable rear panel finishes ranging from to something which feels like Marble.
Apart from Mi4’s thickness, no other difference makes one phone better than the other. They both feel quite premium and are comfortable to hold as well!
Display
For display, there is no real difference between Lenovo Vibe Shot and Xiaomi Mi4. Both phones feature the same 5-inch full HD display, and create an excellent ecosystem for complete entertainment. They look fairly dense with 441 pixels per inch, and produce sharp and vivid colors while watching videos or playing high-end games. In fact, whether you’re indoors or outdoors, both of these phones will give great viewing experience with minimal reflection unlike other mid-range smartphones.
Hardware
Xiaomi Mi4 has been equipped with top-tier Snapdragon 801 chip with four cores clocked at a frequency of 2.5GHz coupled with 3GB of RAM. The device packs immense power for non-stop work and play, and offers an incredible user-experience without any lags or performance issues. As per benchmarks, it matches up with phones like HTC One M8 and Galaxy S5, and is a power-packed beast under 20k.
The new Lenovo Vibe Shot, on the other hand, powers up by the midcore Snapdragon 615 chip with four cores clocked at 1.7GHz while other four clocked at 1.0GHz. It pairs a mid-level chipset (same one from Mi4i) with 3GB RAM, and manages enough power to handle heavy apps and programs. But, if you’ll look deep, Mi4 will look a hell lot stronger with its high-end processor clocked at a higher speed.
Software
The latest beauty from Lenovo runs Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with Vibe UI, while Mi4 is still stuck with Android 4.4.3 KitKat based MIUI 6. The company claims, it will be upgraded to Android 5.0 based MIUI 7, but as of now, there is no information about its global availability of the upgrade. On whole, the interface of both phones is pretty slick, and gives decent user experience with a bunch of options for customization. However, they do carry small amount of bloatware and are nowhere near stock Android as well!
Camera
For photography lovers, Lenovo Vibe Shot stands out with its 16-megapixel rear and 8-megapixel front-facing shooter. The power-packed device packs optical image stabilization, and delivers excellent image quality with brighter colors and better contrasts. The lowlight performance of this phone simply incredible, while the quality of videos and selfies is also quite impressive. However, Mi4 is far away from the battle. The device lacks OIS but offers decent photography experience with its 13-megapixel rear and 8-megapixel shooter. We cannot say, it is the best camera phone, but no manufacturer offers such camera setup around 15 and 18k.
Storage
For best user-experience, Lenovo has equipped Vibe shot with 32GB of on-board storage. The device offers sufficient room for non-stop work and play, and if required, can also be expanded up to a maximum 128 gigs via micro-SD card. On the contrary, Xiaomi Mi4 comes in two storage variants with 16GB and 64GB, but lacks additional support for memory expansion. So, if you’re using Mi4, you cannot keep a slew of games, movies, and music.
Connectivity
Xiaomi Mi4 and Lenovo Vibe Shot both offer standard connectivity options including Wi-Fi, GPRS/EDGE, 3G HSPA+, GPS, Bluetooth, and micro-USB 2.0. They feature improved LTE capabilities, and give best download and upload speeds on different networks. The LTE technology of Vibe Shot is slightly better, but they both support LTE bands currently deployed in India.
Battery
As far as power efficiency is concerned, both phones go head to head with a very small difference in their battery capacities. Xiaomi Mi4 packs a 3,080mAh battery, while the new Vibe Shot follows right away with a 2900mAh battery. The difference is just of 180mAh, and will not reduce backup by a significant margin.
Price
Lenovo Vibe Shot has been launched at Rs. 25,499, and is available for pre-orders on Lenovo’s “The Do Store.” The device will ship out from 27th September, and is expected to create some serious troubles for Mi4 shipping at 15k for 16GB and 18k for the 64GB variant. Xiaomi Mi4 is currently available on company’s official website Mi.com and on other websites as well.
Final Verdict
The competition between Lenovo Vibe Shot and Xiaomi Mi4 is very close. They both look stunning and pack top-of-the line specs with a bunch of add-ons. But, unless you’re a big camera freak, we’ll suggest to stay with Mi4. The device comes at a tempting price tag and offers an ideal set of features for smooth and glitch free performance. It offers a great package and is one of the finest smartphones under 20k.