Lenovo made quite a splash earlier this year with its A6000 budget 4G 
smartphone, and now two months later, the company has debuted the follow-up device, the A7000. The new smartphone costs a little more than the original, but boasts of significant upgrades.
We go hands-on with the Lenovo A7000 at the ongoing Mobile World Congress and here’s what we think of the smartphone.
Display
Lenovo A7000 has a 5.5-inch HD screen, bigger than the 5-inch display of its predecessor. The screen quality is superb, with vibrant colours and excellent viewing angles. You cannot notice any pixilation on the smartphone’s screen, though some portions may appear a little oversaturated due to the colour reproduction. This display is, in fact, at par with smartphones that cost over Rs 25,000 and sets a new standard for the sub-Rs 15,000 segment.
Design
In terms of design, Lenovo A7000 is a little plain, maintaining the boxy look of its predecessor. Made entirely of plastic, it doesn’t have much to boast of on the design front. However, it is very light at 140grams and you would be able to use it for extended periods of time without noticing the weight.
Software
The new A7000 smartphone runs on Lenovo’s Vibe UI, which we have seen earlier as well. This time, the custom software is built on Android Lolllipop, so there are a few animations you will certainly notice. The performance is very smooth and we did not notice any jitters or lag while running it through our paces at the demo station.
Performance
Lenovo A7000 comes with a 1.5GHz octa-core Mediatek chip and 2GB RAM, making it a powerful smartphone for the price, right up there with Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 4G. The performance, as we mentioned above, is splendid and you would be hard pressed to push this smartphone to its limits using the regular apps. Media playback is another strength of the smartphone, which is the world’s first model with Dolby Atmos technology. The audio worked well with the Sennheisser headphones that were present at the demo station, but we could not hear it on loudspeaker due to excessive ambient noise.
Another key feature of the smartphone is its 2,900mAh battery, which should last at least a day even with 4G turned on.
Camera
Lenovo A7000 has an 8MP camera with LED flash on the back, a standard feature for smartphones under Rs 15,000. It comes with several shooting modes and image editing features but the images we captured at the booth were less than satisfactory. The camera is okay-ish under poor lighting, so we do expect that to change under normal lighting conditions.
The front 5MP camera, however, is very good, at par with the ones we have seen on rival smartphones. As you would expect of a selfie shooter, it glazes over the blemishes on the face to deliver the best possible self portrait. We will discuss it more in our full review.
