Lenovo K4 Note Review : Good but not Killer

lenovo K4 Note

The mid-range smartphone market is now heating and becoming better day by day with the launch of new smartphones every week. Lenovo’s new entry Lenovo K4 Note is another device offering fingerprint sensor, good multimedia experience and powerful specs.

Lenovo has always been a company which pushes its smartphones with aggressive pricing. We have seen the success of Lenovo A6000, Lenovo A6000 Plus and Lenovo K3 Note. Now, this company is focusing to capture India’s mid-range market with its Vibe smartphone series. Lenovo K4 Note is said to be the successor of Lenovo K3 Note but this phone also comes under Vibe series. Let’s have a look on this device.

Lenovo K4 Note Review

Design

Lenovo revamped the design of Lenovo K4 Note and it looks better than Lenovo K3 Note. Slight curve at the back and rear camera has been pushed towards the center. It is thicker that K3 Note and weighs slightly more. Maybe the design is not something very attractive, but it is more comfortable in hands with proper placing of every component. Volume rockers and power button at the right side are easily accessible.

Back cover is removable but the battery is non-removable. Back-covers will also be available in different patterns. You may try if you want to give your device a different look.

MicroUSB at below side and 3.5 mm audio output port at top. Dual front speakers powered by Dolby Atmos. Display is fingerprint magnet. So, you may find it irritating.

Display

It features a 5.5 inch full HD IPS LCD display with Corning Gorilla 3 protection. Display offers good viewing angles. If you are not using low brightness, you will get good visibility even under sunlight. Good display for enjoying videos and movies.

The only complaint is its fingerprint magnet display. It means it will catch your fingerprint marks. It will ruin the viewing experience and you will be forced to clean it again and again. Considering the price range of the phone, the display is good.

User Interface

Lenovo has used light Vibe UI at the top of Android 5.1 Lollipop. UI has not improved much and still face lags sometimes. Lenovo has given various options to customize the look and feel. But there is not much room for customization in Android skin.

Lenovo K4 Note User Interface

It comes with few pre-installed apps which you can remove if you want. You will get Step counter, SYNCIt, SHAREIt, User Guide, Gallery, File Browser and MX Player.

Lenovo K4 Note theme

Overall experience was fine but it lags sometimes while multiple apps are running. UI needs fixes. Lenovo generally pushes software updates regularly to fix bugs. But I couldn’t find improvements in UI from Lenovo Vibe P1 to this. Lenovo should seriously think about improving this experience.

Performance

Lenovo Vibe K4 Note is powered by a 1.3 GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6753 processor. The company has downgraded clock speed which was 1.7GHz in K3 Note. But processor is also different. With 3 GB RAM, this phone’s performance is fine enough. But multitasking shows lag sometimes when you try to switch to another app.

Lenovo K4 Note Performance

This phone is packed with Mali-T720 MP3 graphics processor. Gaming performance is also fine. Asphalt 8 was not pretty good on high settings. But other high-end games were good. I found lag on few high-end games. You watch our gaming review video to see the game play. Low-end games are awesome with good graphics, loud sound a smooth performance. In terms of performance, it couldn’t beat Lenovo K3 Note.

Lenovo K4 Note gaming

Benchmarking scores are also lower than K3 Note. You can check its scores on AnTuTu and Geekbench below.

Lenovo K4 Note Benchmark scores

Best thing about the phone is that it didn’t heat up a lot even if I did gaming for more than half an hour. Lenovo K3 Note suffered heating issue. But this phone is fine and does not show heating.

If I talk about its fingerprint sensor, it is at the rear side. It is quick to unlock phone. Not just unlocking, you can also use it to capture photos from front camera. Yes, it was not capturing photos while using rear camera. I have no complaints with its fingerprint sensor.

Lenovo K4 Note

Camera

Vibe K4 note is packed with 13 megapixels rear camera with dual-color LED flash at rear and 5 megapixels camera at front. Rear camera comes with Phase-Detection Auto-Focus for fast focusing. I am not sure why, but its fast focus was not pretty good in working. It could be the fault of camera app. Camera app is fine and seems to be fast enough. You will find many camera effects to choose from. But you will not get many camera modes. Just panorama is there. You can also use the manual more option in settings for changing ISO, white balance, saturation level as per your choice.

Lenovo K4 note camera review

Daylight photography is good but in night, it was not that much of great. Using artificial lights can help you in capturing photos but you will see noise in pics. Its flash works fine but I found pale effect while using flash. It could be close to natural as it is offering dual color flash.

Front camera also does pretty well job in day-light. By default, beauty mode is there and you can use slider to choose its effectiveness. If you do not want to use beauty mode, you can turn it off in one tap. It also works fine in night if light is pretty good.

Talking about video recording capabilities, it can record 1080p videos from both front and rear cameras.

If I summarize the camera experience, it is good and you will be satisfied. But this is not the best camera experience in this price range.

Connectivity

This phone got various connectivity options including NFC. While NFC is a less used connectivity option in this country, it could be a plus for users who want to use NFC. This phone supports 4G network for offering you high-speed mobile data. While 4G is still on the way, its roll out will be faster. I tested this with Airtel 4G in Delhi NCR area and was satisfied with call and data performance.

Other connectivity options are Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS/A-GPS and microUSB 2.0 Port. 

Multimedia and Sound

Lenovo K4 Note is a multimedia rich phone and it does perform well in this segment. Its front-facing speakers are loud and clear. I also tired Lenovo Skullcandy Ando earphone. But these earphones are not pretty well. It was just satisfactory. But if you use better earphones, you will get satisfaction.

Lenovo K4 Note Multimedia

Not just speakers, its 3-mic system also works pretty well. Another person will get your clear voice. Of course, call quality also depends on cellular network.

Battery

It is packed with 3300 mAh battery which claims to offer 265 hours of standby time and 22 hours of talk time. Although it is not as per claims, I am satisfied with its battery performance. You will easily get a whole day battery life. I found that battery drains faster than expectations when you are not using the phone. But battery life is still fair enough to offer you a full day backup. I am expecting a software update to fix this battery issue.

The battery takes too much time in charging. It is around 2 and half hours with charger comes with bundled with phone.

Final verdict

Lenovo K4 Note offers quite a lot of features for just Rs. 11999. Even if it is packed with powerful processor, it fails to impress it with its performance. Gaming was not as per expectations. But multimedia experience on the phone is awesome. If I summarize, this phone offers good overall performance. It offers good display, responsive fingerprint sensor, good camera and good battery.

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