Lenovo Phab Plus, Vibe S1 hands-on: Lenovo at IFA 2015

Lenovo Phab Plus hands-on

Phone + Tab = Phab, says Lenovo PR, but we don't think the math checks out. The Lenovo Phab Plus can hardly be called a phone with its 6.8" screen. It does have two SIM slots (one micro, one nano) and Lenovo says it has been "optimized for one-hand usability"... sorry, we still get a chuckle out of that.

Some phones come close to its 229g weight, but it's really more a matter of size – it was just too large to hold securely in one hand. So, we'd recommend a headset for making calls.

Anyway, the Phab Plus has a metal unibody with a 1080p screen. It's powered by an octa-core processor (Snapdragon 615 chipset) with 2GB of RAM and runs Android 5.0. It has LTE connectivity and 32GB storage out of the box (plus a microSD card slot).

Lenovo Phab Plus

Lenovo added a 13MP camera (with a 5MP selfie camera) and a Dolby ATMOS-branded speaker with a 1cc sound chamber. All of that sounds quite impressive for the intended $300 price tag.

We would have liked more than 3,500mAh in the battery though. Lenovo rates it at 24 hours of talk time, but that's close to what some sub-6" phones can manage.

Lenovo Phab Plus

Lenovo Phab hands-on

The non-Plus Lenovo Phab is somehow even larger – it's simply a 7" tablet (it's heavier too, 250g). The screen resolution drops to 720p, to be expected from a $180 tablet. The chipset is a Snapdragon of some sort with octa-core CPU, but the deal-breaker is the single gig of RAM.

Lenovo Phab

The base Phab boasts three mics and a dedicated voice processor that powers the 360° Voice feature. You also get a bigger battery, 4,250mAh.

Lenovo Phab