Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro review: Expanding universe

Display

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro sports a 6" IPS LCD screen with a 2560 x 1440 pixel resolution. The pixel density meter stops at the eye-popping 490 ppi.

The 6" QHD display is fantastic

The company has given you a lot of control over its image quality by including a special menu to adjust the display modes. There's the standard configuration, comfort, super bright and the option to manually adjust saturation, tone and contrast.

Finally, you can switch on the Smart brightness option if you want the phone to detect any hard lights hitting the display and adjusting its brightness automatically. The display is covered with a protective layer of Gorilla Glass 3, making it more resistant to breaking and scratches.

The matrix is a standard RGB type with an equally sized red, green and blue pixels. Here's the display matrix of the Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro shot with our digital microscope.

The black levels of the Vibe Z2 Pro display are good and the brightness is adequate at both 50% and 100%. However, the contrast is only average and the colors are a bit too saturated for our taste. Viewing angles are very good with very little shift in color and contrast.

You'll have no problems viewing the display of the phone in direct sunlight, too.

Sunlight contrast ratio

• Nokia 808 PureView
  4.698
• Samsung Galaxy Note 4
  4.033
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3
  3.997
• Apple iPhone 5
  3.997
• Apple iPhone 6
  3.838
• Samsung Galaxy K zoom
  3.675
• Nokia Lumia 930
  3.567
• Apple iPhone 5s
  3.565
• Samsung Galaxy S5
  3.549
• Alcatel Idol X+
  3.527
• Apple iPhone 5c
  3.512
• Samsung Galaxy Alpha
  3.509
• Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo
  3.487
• Motorola RAZR MAXX
  3.42
• Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III
  3.419
• Nokia Lumia 925
  3.402
• Gionee Elife S5.5
  3.386
• Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4
  3.352
• Samsung Omnia W
  3.301
• Samsung Galaxy S5 mini
  3.174
• Samsung I9000 Galaxy S
  3.155
• Samsung Ativ S
  3.129
• Samsung I9190 Galaxy S4 mini
  3.127
• Samsung Galaxy S4 zoom
  3.118
• Nokia N9
  3.069
• Apple iPhone 6 Plus
  3.023
• Samsung Galaxy Note
  2.97
• Samsung Galaxy Premier
  2.958
• Sony Xperia Z1
  2.95
• HTC One S
  2.901
• Samsung I8730 Galaxy Express
  2.861
• BlackBerry Q10
  2.856
• Samsung I9100 Galaxy S II
  2.832
• Samsung Galaxy S II Plus
  2.801
• BlackBerry Z30
  2.79
• Sony Xperia ZR
  2.672
• Huawei Ascend P1
  2.655
• Sony Xperia Z3
  2.618
• Sony Xperia Z3 Compact
  2.616
• Sony Xperia T3
  2.609
• BlackBerry Passport
  2.595
• Nokia Lumia 900
  2.562
• Motorola Moto G 4G
  2.546
• HTC One Max
  2.537
• Nokia Lumia 720
  2.512
• HTC One
  2.504
• Motorola Moto G
  2.477
• Sony Xperia Z
  2.462
• Xiaomi Mi 4
  2.424
• Samsung Galaxy S III mini
  2.422
• Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro
  2.416
• LG G Flex
  2.407
• HTC One (M8)
  2.371
• Motorola RAZR i
  2.366
• Sony Xperia ZL
  2.352
• Samsung Galaxy Note II
  2.307
• HTC One (M8) for Windows
  2.291
• Oppo Find 7a
  2.279
• Alcatel One Touch Hero
  2.272
• Apple iPhone 4S
  2.269
• HTC Desire 600 dual sim
  2.262
• Nokia Asha 311
  2.25
• LG Nexus 5
  2.228
• Nokia Lumia 820
  2.193
• HTC One (E8)
  2.185
• Nokia Lumia 920
  2.17
• HTC One X
  2.158
• Nokia N8
  2.144
• Nokia Lumia 620
  2.142
• Nokia 515
  2.134
• HTC Desire 500
  2.129
• Xiaomi Redmi Note
  2.119
• Sony Xperia acro S
  2.119
• Nokia Lumia 1020
  2.103
• Oppo Find 5
  2.088
• Sony Xperia SL
  2.078
• Nokia Lumia 630
  2.056
• BlackBerry Z10
  2.051
• Huawei Ascend Mate7
  2.024
• Samsung I9295 Galaxy S4 Active
  2.022
• Apple iPhone 4
  2.016
• HTC One mini
  2.003
• Xiaomi Mi 3
  2.001
• Huawei Ascend P7
  1.992
• LG G2
  1.976
• OnePlus One
  1.961
• Oppo R819
  1.957
• Sony Ericsson Xperia ray
  1.955
• Sony Xperia Z2
  1.944
• Sony Xperia E3
  1.943
• Nokia Lumia 1320
  1.941
• HTC One mini 2
  1.94
• Samsung Galaxy Camera
  1.938
• Sony Xperia J
  1.932
• Acer CloudMobile S500
  1.931
• LG Nexus 4
  1.926
• LG G Pro 2
  1.922
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 6.3
  1.913
• Nokia Asha 308
  1.911
• HTC Butterfly 2
  1.905
• Sony Xperia T
  1.894
• HTC Desire X
  1.878
• HTC Butterfly
  1.873
• HTC Windows Phone 8X
  1.873
• HTC Butterfly S
  1.867
• Huawei Ascend P6
  1.865
• Huawei Ascend Mate
  1.845
• LG G2 mini
  1.838
• LG G3
  1.82
• Nokia Lumia 1520
  1.813
• HTC Desire 616 dual sim
  1.797
• Sony Xperia V
  1.792
• HTC Desire 816
  1.783
• Sony Xperia Z1 Compact
  1.772
• HTC Desire 700 dual sim
  1.769
• Sony Xperia U
  1.758
• Meizu MX3
  1.754
• LG Optimus G
  1.753
• Sony Xperia T2 Ultra
  1.74
• Sony Xperia Z3 Tablet Compact
  1.735
• Sony Xperia SP
  1.733
• Oppo Find 7
  1.691
• LG Optimus 4X HD
  1.691
• HTC One V
  1.685
• BlackBerry Q5
  1.682
• LG Optimus Vu
  1.68
• Xiaomi Mi Pad 7.9
  1.672
• LG Optimus GJ
  1.666
• LG Optimus 3D Max
  1.658
• HTC Desire V
  1.646
• Samsung Galaxy Xcover 2
  1.632
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 3
  1.622
• Jolla Jolla
  1.605
• Sony Xperia Z Ultra
  1.578
• Sony Xperia go
  1.577
• Samsung Galaxy Ace 2 I8160
  1.566
• Samsung Galaxy Core
  1.563
• LG Optimus G Pro
  1.552
• Motorola Moto E
  1.545
• LG Optimus 3D
  1.542
• Nokia Asha 302
  1.537
• BlackBerry Curve 9320
  1.488
• Sony Xperia M
  1.473
• Oppo N1
  1.47
• Meizu MX 4-core
  1.462
• Nokia Lumia 610
  1.432
• Samsung Galaxy S Duos
  1.4
• Sony Xperia M2
  1.393
• Samsung Galaxy Grand Neo
  1.393
• Samsung Galaxy Grand 2
  1.38
• Sony Xperia E1
  1.372
• Nokia Lumia 625
  1.371
• Gigabyte GSmart G1355
  1.361
• Sony Xperia L
  1.351
• Xiaomi Redmi 1S
  1.35
• Samsung Galaxy Mega 5.8
  1.35
• Sony Xperia M2 Aqua
  1.331
• Sony Xperia miro
  1.324
• Samsung I9082 Galaxy Grand
  1.321
• Samsung I8530 Galaxy Beam
  1.315
• HTC Desire C
  1.3
• Nokia X
  1.291
• Sony Xperia C
  1.283
• Nokia Asha 503
  1.281
• Nokia Asha 501
  1.27
• LG Optimus L7
  1.269
• Nokia Lumia 510
  1.268
• Samsung Galaxy Fame
  1.245
• LG Optimus L9
  1.227
• Meizu MX
  1.221
• Samsung Galaxy Young
  1.22
• Sony Xperia E
  1.215
• Nokia XL
  1.204
• Sony Xperia E dual
  1.203
• Asus Memo Pad 7 ME176C
  1.198
• Samsung Galaxy Pocket
  1.18
• Nokia Asha 305
  1.178
• Nokia Asha 306
  1.175
• Sony Xperia neo L
  1.169
• Sony Xperia tipo
  1.166
• Nokia Lumia 520
  1.161
• Samsung S6802 Galaxy Ace Duos
  1.148
• Samsung Galaxy mini 2
  1.114

Battery life

Since the Vibe Z2 Pro has a lot of space inside it, Lenovo has managed to fit a whopping 4,000mAh battery. And while that number is certainly impressive, it's worth pointing out that it's not the largest in the segment - the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 sport a 4,100mAh battery.

Still, we are very pleased with what the power autonomy of the Vibe Z2 Pro. We ran our usual set of battery tests: 3G talk time, video playback, web browsing and stand-by. While the huge pixel-dense screen meant scores in the video and web browser department were good, but not quite record-breaking, the excellent stand-by endurance gave the Vibe Z2 Pro a solid score of 76h.

You can find more about our battery testing procedure here.

On top of that, the company has baked in a handy power manager app. It gives you a clear reading of what battery power you have left and an estimation of how much usage it will give you. There are also three modes you can pick from: normal, power saving and emergency. Power saving mode will block apps running in the background and also downclock the CPU a bit to make the phone more economical, while still retaining most of its functionality.

The Power Management app

Emergency mode goes a bit extreme by enabling only calling and messaging. Anything else on the phone is disabled, allowing it to spread that remaining charge over several hours or even days.

Another cool feature of the Power manager app is the Power saving engine, which optimizes the phone's brightness by using "sine wave power-saving technology". Lenovo estimates it can reduce power consumption by 5-30%. There's a similar option for the GPU and its power reduction goes as far as 25%. If you want to get even more juice out of the battery, the app allows you to schedule a timed shut down of the phone.

Freezing apps from drawing power

You can freeze apps and see a detailed graph of the power consumption. The latter is separated into software and hardware. The software part is akin to the stock Android battery graph, while the hardware shows you how much power the CPU, screen, radio, Wi-Fi and other hardware components draw out.

Turning the phone automatically on and off is a cool feat

Finally, there's the option to optimize power consumption. The button is located at the bottom and upon pressing it the app detects what draws the most power and offers you advice on how to fix it. It's clear that Lenovo has turned special attention to getting the most out of the Vibe Z2 Pro battery.

Connectivity

The Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro comes with truly global quad-band 2G/GPRS/EDGE and penta-band 3G with HSPA (up to 42Mbps downlink and 5.7Mbps uplink). The six-band Category 6 LTE support (50Mbps of uploads and 300Mbps downloads) is not the best around, but it still covers plenty of big names in the 4G business.

The phone is available in single SIM a Dual SIM configurations. The latter has a dedicated SIM management section in its settings menu. It allows you to choose which SIM card is active and the default SIM to place voice calls, use data connection or send messages.

Local connectivity is covered by dual-band Wi-Fi a/b/g/n with DLNA, so you can easily play media (photos, videos, music) from DLNA-enabled storage devices or push content from your phone to a DLNA-compatible TV or music player. There's also a Wi-Fi display app to connect the phone to an external display using Micracast.

Bluetooth 4.0 is also on board with A2DP, EDR, and LE. The microUSB 2.0 port supports USB host so you can attach USB flash drives or connect peripherals.

GPS and GLONASS support is enabled. There's an FM radio and NFC on board, leaving infrared blaster as the only connectivity feature missing.