First impressions: At 6,999, the Lenovo A6000 is the cheapest 4G phone you can buy

Lenovo's new A6000 smartphone. Tech2

By Shruti Dhapola /  18 Jan 2015 , 09:16

Lenovo has launched the budget A6000 smartphone in India today, priced at Rs 6,999. The device was first showcased at the CES 2015 and Lenovo has already brought it to India, making it the most affordable 4G smartphone to have launched in the country so far.

Interestingly, Lenovo has opted for a ‘registered sale’ model for this budget phone and it will be available only on Flipkart. Interested buyers can register on the site from today, and registrations will remain open until January 27, 6 pm. The smartphone will go on sale at 2 pm on 28 January and only those who have registered will get a chance to buy the smartphone.

We spent some time with the smartphone during the launch and here’s our first impression of the device.

Lenovo A6000 runs Android 4.4.4 with the Vibe UI 2.0 skin

Design, Screen: It’s impressive that the phone packs a 5-inch HD screen, given that it costs just Rs 6,999. Of course, the biggest plus point of the phone is not the screen but rather the 4G LTE capability, so we’ll get to that later.

A movie on the Lenovo A6000 smartphone. Tech2

The display is fairly sharp, though it’s susceptible to fingerprints. Lenovo hasn’t specified whether the smartphone’s screen is scratch-proof, so we’re guessing you’ll have to buy a screen guard for this device.

The design is fairly standard for what we’ve come to expect from smartphones – it’s 8.2mm thick, although the phone doesn’t look too bulky. The back cover is removable and the volume and power buttons are positioned on the right-side. It’s good to see that Lenovo has gone for a matte instead of a glossy back cover, so it doesn’t look or feel too cheap.

The A6000 smartphone also has stereo speakers on the back that work on Dolby Digital Plus technology. We played a movie on the smartphone and, despite the noise in the background, the sound was fairly crisp and audible.

Storage, Processor, Camera: The A6000 has 1GB of RAM and a 64-bit 1.2GHz Snapdragon 410 quad-core processor. It also comes with 8 GB total storage space, which users can expand via a microSD card (32 GB is the limit). Lenovo’s A6000 also has an 8 megapixel rear camera and 2 megapixel front camera.

Lenovo A6000’s speakers are supported by Dolby Digital Plus technology.

As far as the speed of the A6000 is concerned, we noticed some lag when switching between apps. That said, it could smoothly play the movie, Avengers and other videos, which came pre-loaded in the demo model.

The cameras, both rear and the front one, do an impressive job at taking photos for a smartphone that’s priced at Rs 6999. The selfie-camera, in particular, impressed us as it shoots without any lag. The zoom option on the rear camera, however, does not produce the sharpest results.

The front camera on the Lenovo A6000 was quite impressive.

Battery, Connectivity: The device comes with a 2,300mAh removable battery, which Lenovo claims can provide up to 13 hours of calls and up to 11.5 days on standby. Again, 13 hours sounds very impressive for a device is costing less than Rs 10k. We can only comment more on this once we spend sometime with the device, although 13 hours battery would definitely make the A6000 stand out in the budget category.

Detailed specs of the Lenovo A6000 smartphone. Tech2

The A6000 is a dual-SIM smartphone and supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. It supports the TDD band 40 and FDD band 1,3,7 and 20, which means it would support a variety of LTE networks, both in India and overseas. Unfortunately, 4G is yet to come to Delhi so there was no way to find out how speedy the phone is in practice. The 4G LTE feature is still great for a device that costs just Rs 6999.

The smartphone runs Android 4.4 KitKat, which sports the Vibe UI 2.0 skin.

Lenovo A6000 will compete with the likes of Redmi 1S, Yureka, etc.

Conclusion: The Lenovo A6000 is definitely a solid-looking smartphone in the budget category, which will compete with the likes of Redmi 1S and Micromax Yu Yureka. As far as specifications are concerned, the company has done a solid job. However, given that 4G LTE rollout is still a distant dream even in the capital of India, it remains to be seen how relevant the 4G LTE feature is to Lenovo’s customers.

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