We unbox the Lenovo A7000!
The lower mid-range market has become the de-facto battleground for many Chinese brands today. Meizu fired the first shots early this year and now Alcatel and Huawei is poised to make a big splash with the imminent release of the Flash Plus and the Honor 4X. Today, Lenovo joins the already heated battleground with their own market disruptor – the A7000.
Lenovo A7000 specs
- 1.5GHz MediaTek MT6752m octa-core processor
- 2GB RAM
- 5.5-inch IPS HD display, 1280 x 720 resolution
- 8GB of storage expadable via microSD up to 32GB
- 8-megpixel rear camera
- 5-megapixel front camera
- Dual-SIM
- 3G, LTE
- WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, A-GPS
- 2,900mAh battery
- Dolby ATMOS surround sound
- Android 5.0 Lollipop
Packaging and contents
The Lenovo A7000 comes in the company’s traditional white box, with the photo of the device contained inside taking front and center. All of the relevant specs of the device are printed on the back, which leaves little doubt of the phone’s hardware for people perusing store shelves.
Inside the box are the typical accessories that you’d find with every purchase of a modern phone – a user manual, USB cable, USB charger and a pair of headphones. No surprises there.
Initial impressions: Another solid mid-ranger
We’re seeing really good bang for the buck phones come out in the past few months, and Lenovo’s A7000 is no exception. Because of its projected price point, the A7000 uses a primarily plastic body, and a removable back case that’s reminiscent of Huawei’s Honor 4X. The overall design is pretty straight forward, with the A7000 more sharp corners on the case compared to the competition, though the corners of the phone does have gentle, sloped appearance.
The physical controls – namely the volume and power button – are located on the left, and sport a concentric metal finish that adds just the right touch of premium to the phone. While the 3.5mm jack is located on top, it’s rather oddly offset to the left side of the phone. The USB port is also located on top, occupying the traditional spot of the 3.5mm audio jack.
The phone uses a 5.5-inch HD display that’s nice and bright, along with physical capacitive keys that don’t light up. The phone is powered in part by Android 5.0 Lollipop and use Lenovo’s own UI that strips out the app drawer and lays all of your apps in the open.
Flipping the phone over, you’ll notice the matte flat back of the phone, which has a few specs of metallic thrown it to give it a slight visual flair. Located on the top left side of the phone is the 8-megapixel camera, with the dual-LED flash right below it. The back case of the A7000 is removable and hides the dual-SIM slots (sorry guys, single SIM LTE only) and the microSD expansion slot. Unlike other phones out in the market today, the A7000’s battery is removable.
The A7000 is powered by MediaTek’s MT6752m octa-core processor, and gets roughly the same benchmarks as the Alcatel Flash Plus. It’s really not that surprising since both devices utilize roughly the same processor and hardware to achieve said benchmarks.
It really looks like Lenovo’s offering may be another solid entry into the lower mid-range market. Lenovo really has a chance here to disrupt the pricing of their rivals IF they play their cards right. Since most of their rivals have already announced their pricing, the company can potentially spoil their plans by undercutting their competitors with an aggressive, cut throat pricing strategy.
Will Lenovo price the A7000 competitively? We’ll know next week.