The camera that thinks it's a phone
Sleek, stylish and powerful, Lenovo's Vibe Shot is an ideal smartphone for the keen shutterbug
PART CAMERA and part smartphone, the Lenovo VIBE Shot is the first hybrid to hit the local market. A fast and good quality compact camera, it features a 16-megapixel BSI (backside illuminated) image sensor with optical image stabilisation and an f/2.2 six-element lens as well as a dedicated shutter button and a switch to toggle between Auto and Pro modes.
The VIBE Shot also comes with an on-board infrared auto-focusing system that Lenovo says is twice as fast as the conventional auto-focusing method of most smartphones. And the VIBE Shot also uses a tri-colour LED flash for making skin tones more realistic.
The smartphone is designed to look like a sleek compact camera with a highlighted bar on the back cover where the lens and LED flash are located. The highlighted bar displays the name of the device prominently while the “16MP/OIS” letters are displayed next to the flash and lens, adding to the camera look.
Its Auto Mode, which is available through the toggle switch, comes with automatic scene detection so that camera function will automatically adjust shooting parameters in accordance with the detected lighting environments.
Moreover, the Auto Mode comes with Smart Composition function. The Smart Composition will advise you to move your camera forward or back, left or right, and will display “100 per cent” if the composition is perfect.
If you’re an advanced shutterbug, you will love VIBE Shot’s Pro Mode.
Switching the toggle button to Pro gives you access to six modes – Pro, Panorama, Art Nightscape, Artistic HDR, Blur background and Wide Selfie.
The Pro mode allows you to manually adjust values of aperture, shutter speed, white balance, and ISO sensitivity as well as exposure compensation thus giving you full control. When you select a value to adjust, a curve slide bar will appear on the screen. Just drag it to change the value.
The Wide Selfie mode, designed for group shots, automatically switches to the front 8-megapixel camera. The mode will guide you to tilt the camera left or right within a limited time to ensure no one is left out of the frame.
The Blur background mode creates a blurred background effect, the same as you’d expect from a digital SLR camera. You must make sure that your subject is 50 centimetres or less from the lens while the background you want is about two metres away.
The Panorama mode guides you with a line to pan the camera while the Art Nighscape is useful for taking shots in low-light environments though you must hold the VIBE Shot absolutely still. Mounting it on a tripod or a stand with clip is best.
When you select this mode, you will be required to select one of four sub-modes – City nightscape, Moving people, Stage and Indoor low light.
The Artistic HDR mode is fun to use. It will take several shots for composing into one image with boosted colours and the shot will come out like a pop colour photo.
I found that the VIBE Shot took beautiful portraits and landscape shots in most lighting environments, especially well lit ones. In low-light conditions, some shots came out sharp and clean with beautiful lights but others were blurred apparently because I failed to hold the phone still enough. The shutter and auto focusing of the VIBE Shot was fast for a mobile phone.
As a smartphone, the VIBE Shot has good performance.
The smartphone is powered by 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor, running at 1.7 GHz. The phone runs on Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system. It has 3 gigabytes of working memory or RAM and 32 GB of internal storage with a microSD expansion slot.
The VIBE Shot has 5-inch Full HD IPS display with 1920 x 1080 pixels so the screen is good for composing shots, viewing photos and watching video clips.
The VIBE Shot runs on 4G LTE network and I tested it on TrueMove H’s 4G network. The VIBE Shot has two micro-SIM slots.
During the test on True Move H’s network, the VIBE Shot downloaded apps fast. My snapshots were backed up to Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage and the Google Drive storage very fast. I could post snapshots to my Facebook wall in no time. I used Ookla speedtest app and found that the VIBE Shot achieved a download speed of 46.2 Mbps and an upload speed of 22.51 Mbps.
The VIBE Shot is available in red and grey and costs Bt11,990. Both colours can be bought at Lazada.co.th and the grey version is also available from retailers.
Key Specs
- OS: Android 5.1 Lollipop
- Networks: GSM: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, |3G UMTS (HSPA): 850/900/1900/2100 MHz, |4G LTE: 800/1800/2100/2300/2600 MHz
- Processor: 64-bit Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 1.7GHz Octa Core
- Display: 5.0-inch FHD (1920x1080) IPS
- Memory: 3GB RAM
- Storage: 32GB internal storage
- Sound: 1x speaker, 3.5mm audio jack
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi / GPS Bluetooth 4.1 LE
- Camera: 16MP rear camera with infrared autofocus feature and tricolour flash, OIS, pro-shooting mode, 16:9 BSI sensor; 8MP front-facing camera
- Battery: 2900mAh (Li-polymer, embedded)
- Dimensions: 142.0 X 70.0 X 7.3mm
- Weight: 145g
