Lenovo Z6 Pro review

Wrap-up

The Lenovo Z6 Pro might the best phone Motorola has assembled in a while. Its limited market availability is exactly because Motorola is Lenovo's phone maker outside China, but after experiencing the Z6 Pro we are hoping things change for the better.

The Z6 Pro is Lenovo's flagship, but in the bigger picture it's more of an upper mid-ranger - a niche that OnePlus once called flagship killers. There are a few omissions like ingress protection, premium glass panels, and NFC, but the gains are a lot more to distract you from those.

The Lenovo Z6 Pro is a looker and the first impression is quite important no matter what people say. Its AMOLED screen is punchy and with a small notch, has a fingerprint scanner underneath, and the latest Snapdragon 855 chip is present. But the camera department should be the headliner as it is as awesome as it sounds on paper.

Indeed, the Z6 Pro excels both day and night, in both shooting stills and videos. Sure, we'd have liked electronic stabilization on all shooting modes, but we are still beyond happy from what we got. The selfies surprised us with their 8MP resolution, but they are still pretty good, so we'd forgive this omission in the press materials.

The best part is that the Lenovo Z6 Pro costs about €500 where available outside China and that's a pretty reasonable price, if not a tempting one.

The Competition

And because of this mid-range price the Lenovo Z6 Pro is one tough offer to beat and only its scarce availability is sacking its otherwise great chances around the globe.

Naturally, who else if not Xiaomi to offer a great alternative. The Mi 9T Pro/Redmi K20 Pro is sporting the same chipset, and the same screen, but it does get rid of the notch with a pop-up selfie cam. Basically, Xiaomi will offer you an interrupted screen, NFC, and Gorilla Glass protection on both sides, but this will cost you the dedicated video snapper and the ToF shooter.

Or, if you are not after the fastest chipset on the market, you can save north of €150 and get the regular Xiaomi Mi 9T/Redmi K20.

Xiaomi Mi 9T Pro • Xiaomi Redmi K20 Pro • Xiaomi Mi 9T • Xiaomi Redmi K20

The OnePlus 7 is priced closely to the Lenovo Z6 Pro and it does a bit better in everything but camera. The OnePlus 7 has a brighter but similarly notched AMOLED, Gorilla Glasses on both sides, NFC, and its 48MP cam features OIS. The OnePlus 7 has just this one 48MP primary and omits an ultrawide, telephoto, and night video shooters, though. But its Oxygen OS feels faster than ZUI and has tons of reasons to be a fan-favorite.

Then the Huawei P30 will match the screen, the raw power, and the camera prowess of the Z6 Pro, but will also top it longer zoom lens with OIS and better ingress protection. The P30 Leica camera is still one of the best on the market and as far as operation it goes, it's much more intuitive on the P30. The Lenovo Z6 Pro on the other hand is just miles ahead of the P30 when it comes to video quality, so there is that.

The Asus Zenfone 6 is one very interesting offer that's very hard to ignore. It has a notch-less IPS LCD of a similar size and resolution as the Lenovo Z6 Pro, same Snapdragon 855 chip, and a similar 48MP primary cam and a 13MP ultrawide shooter. It has dual Gorilla Glasses, a pop-up selfie shooter, a larger 5,000 mAh battery, NFC, and can shoot in a lot more resolutions and framerates, with electronic stabilization at that. It costs the same as the Lenovo Z6 Pro and will deliver all those goodies at the price of a zoom and nighttime video cameras.

Finally, the Samsung Galaxy S10e is still an amazing offer. One of the most compact flagships this year, it tempts with an excellent 5.8" Dynamic AMOLED with a punch-hole for the selfie camera. It has an equally fast chipset, excellent main+ultrawide camera setup, and also offers water protection and stereo speakers.

OnePlus 7 • Huawei P30 • Asus Zenfone 6 ZS630KL • Samsung Galaxy S10e

The Verdict

By the end of this review only one thing left us with mixed feelings about the Lenovo Z6 Pro. And no, it's not the surprise launch outside China or the non-sense zoom scrubber in the camera. It's actually ZUI.

Why Lenovo needed a launcher that's vanilla Android for the most part is beyond us. It changed enough on it and so it is a separate layer over the default Android. And sometimes you can feel it slower than the Google's clean OS if you have ever handled an Android One smartphone. It's not that annoying, but why did it need a new notification shade and a task switcher, when they do the same things as Google's? Beats us, but we felt ZUI obsolete. Oh, and Lenovo, please fix that zoom slider within the camera app!

There is no denying the Lenovo Z6 Pro is a great smartphone and we welcome it on the international markets with an open heart. The upper midrange segment will only benefit from this. In addition to the great screen, chip, and battery life, and the usual triple-camera, the Z6 Pro also offers a unique video camera that may win a lot of people on its side. But will it be enough? Only time will tell.

Pros

• Large AMOLED with a small notch
• Flagship Snapdragon 855 chipset
• Excellent battery life
• Great all-round image and video camera, day and night
• 3.5mm jack, microSD slot, FM radio

Cons

• No water or dust resistance
• No stereo speakers, no NFC
• No EIS or 60fps modes in videos
• ZUI is underwhelming