The phone that thinks it's a tablet

AT 6.8 INCHES, Lenovo’s new Phab Plus slips easily into a shirt pocket making it much more portable than the smallest tablet computer. Boasting a full HD screen, the PHAB Plus meets the needs of those who want both a large-screen smartphone and a pocket-sized tablet and its IPS display with 1080x1920 pixel resolution in 326ppi is very good for viewing photos, watching movie clips and reading e-books.

It looks good too with a sleek lightweight aluminium uni-body with round edges and polished buttons that’s available in Honey Gold, Titanium Silver and Gunmetal Grey.

The Phab Plus has two SIM slots – one for a Micro sim card and the other for either a micro SD card or a Nano sim.

The smartphone is powered by an Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 octa-core processor, running at 1.5 GHz and equipped with 2 gigabytes of working memory or RAM and 32 GB of internal storage. The built-in 3,500 mAh battery can last a day on one full charge.

Phab Plus runs on the Android 5.0 operating system and it supports LTE 4G connection. I tested it on TrueMove H's 4G network and found the connection very fast. Applications were downloaded and installed in a flash and my snapshots were backed up to my Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage in no time. I could also post photos to my Facebook wall in a snap. I measured the connection speed using Ookla speedtest app and found the Phab Plus achieved a download speed of 49.56 Mbps and upload speed of 21.52 Mbps.

The phone had good performance during the test. The touch screen and menus were very responsive and applications and video clips ran fast.

The smartphone is good for watching movies with surround sound thanks to Dolby Atmos Sound that creates 5.1-channel virtual surround. It also has Smart Amplifier function for enhancing music quality. 

The Dolby Atmos and Smart Amplifier make it fun to play MP3 files on the Phab Plus but it does not fully support high-resolution music files.

The phone also captures good quality photos both with its 13-megapixel main camera with dual LED flash and a 5 MP front camera.

The beautification function meant that portraits of my colleagues were bright, smooth and flattering and I also had fun with the Auto shooting mode and such scene modes as Landscape, Sports, Flowers, Backlight, Sunset, Night, and Beach.

You can shrink the screen to fit one-hand use just by drawing the letter “c” then draw the same symbol to restore the 6.8-inch screen.

You can also double tap to turn the screen on and long press anywhere on the screen to take a photo.

And the Phab Plus supports the fast Wi-Fi 802.11 ac connection, connecting to my Linksys WRT AC1200 without problem.

It’s in stores now for Bt11,990.

 

Key Specs

 

- Networks: GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz, UMTS: 850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz, FDD LTE: 800 (band 20), 900 (band 8), 1800 (band 3), 2100 (band 1), 2600 (band 7) MHz; TDD LTE: 2300 (band 40), 2600 |(band 38) MHz

- OS: Android 5.0

- CPU: Qualcomm MSM8939 8 core, 64-bit, 1.5GHz

- Memory: 2 GB DDR3 RAM

- Storage: 32 GB internal, upgradable with micro SD of up to 64 GB

- Display: 6.8-inch Full HD IPS panel with 1080x1920 pixels, 326ppi

- SIM slot: dual SIM, Nano SIM and Micro SIM

- Cameras: 13 MP rear camera, 5 MP front camera

- Battery: 3,500 mAh

- Dimension: 188.6x96.6x 7.6mm

- Weight: 229g