Lenovo K6 Power review: A closer look

Software and Performance

The K6 Power runs on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow with Lenovo's skin on top, which is no longer called Vibe UI. We have seen Lenovo cut back on custom UI elements in the past and it's now more apparent than ever. So much of the UI has been dialed back to the stock Android skin, that it's hard to tell you are even using a Lenovo phone anymore, except in some places like the quick toggles in the notification area. One of the built-in themes even lets you switch to stock Android icons for the default apps.

Lenovo Android UI with Marshmallow

The launcher is custom but has an old-school appearance with the standard two-layer UI including a side-scrolling homescreen layout and an app drawer, which can be either paginated sideways or visualized as a scrolling list. You can customize the homescreen to your liking and then do a backup of it so you can restore to this arrangement later if you change something.

The rest of the software is pretty close to what we saw on the Lenovo K6 Note, and we've covered that extensively already. There are few pre-installed apps, so there is hardly any bloatware. There is also the Dolby Atmos feature, which works system-wide and can also be disabled

Hardware specifications

Performance-wise, there is only so much you can expect from a device running on the Snapdragon 430. For what it's worth, the phone does work fairly well most of the time; apps open and close reasonably quickly, and scrolling is also fairly smooth in most apps.

What was annoying, however, was the way the phone scrolled. For whatever reason, Lenovo felt the need to mess with the perfectly fine default Android scrolling behavior and chose to accelerate it instead. Even a light flick can send content flying past you on the screen. If you're scrolling through Instagram, for example, what would cause most phones to scroll about one image causes the K6 Power run past five. It gets frustrating real quick, and as you'd expect there is no way to change this.

GeekBench 4 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  3016
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  2040
• Lenovo K6 Note
  2027
• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  1944
• Lenovo K6 Power
  1698

GeekBench 4 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  819
• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  641
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  641
• Lenovo K6 Note
  635
• Lenovo K6 Power
  610

AnTuTu 6

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  62316
• Lenovo Moto G4
  46949
• Lenovo K6 Note
  44972
• Lenovo K6 Power
  44115
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  43957
• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  43344

As for gaming, once again the Snapdragon 430, or more specifically, the Adreno 505 inside it, does not have the grunt required to run modern heavy 3D games at respectable frame rates on a 1080p display (it can barely manage on a 720p display), and as such you are limited to mostly casual 2D or older 3D titles.

Basemark X

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  10424
• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  7604
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  7510
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7480
• Lenovo K6 Power
  7475
• Lenovo Moto G4
  6932

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  9.8
• Lenovo K6 Power
  7.1
• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  7.1
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  6.9
• Lenovo Moto G4
  6.5

GFX 3.0 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  14
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  9.6
• Lenovo K6 Power
  7.1
• Lenovo K6 Note
  7
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  6.9
• Lenovo Moto G4
  6.8

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (1080p offscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  6.2
• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  4.5
• Lenovo K6 Note
  4.4
• Lenovo K6 Power
  4.4
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  4.4
• Lenovo Moto G4
  4.2

GFX 3.1 Manhattan (onscreen)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi Redmi 3s Prime
  10
• Xiaomi Redmi 4 Prime
  6.1
• Lenovo Moto G4
  4.5
• Lenovo K6 Note
  4.4
• Lenovo K6 Power
  4.4
• Asus ZenFone 3 Max ZC553KL
  4.4

Multimedia performance was pretty decent. The headphone audio quality was nothing to write home about, and the max volume isn't particularly high. The stereo speakers, despite their poor positioning as already discussed, actually sound pretty great - even better than phones costing several times as much.