Lenovo Nigeria has released a number of budget smartphone into the market. One of them is the Lenovo B, a budget smartphone meant to meet the need of the increasing smartphone users in Nigeria, especially with the present economic situation where smartphones which are necessities are almost getting out of reach owing to price increase.
The Lenovo B is on sale in the market at a price which seems to fall within reach, however it is worthy of note that this device is not a high end smartphone.
The Lenovo B is packed in an orange colour box which can be open on either side as against the conventional phone packs that are opened from the top.
Inside the box you find the phone, earpiece, a USB cable, power plug, Battery and user manual each packed in nylon and arranged neatly.
Surprisingly the battery of the phone is removable; it actually feels strange because I almost thought OEMs do not make phones with removable batteries anymore.
The design and interface of the phone is pretty simple and basic, something to easily familiarize with. Screen is a compact 4.5-inch with display resolution clocked at 480X840.
You don’t get a super sharp HD screen as obtainable in the high end smartphones with HD displays, however this display just seem okay for multimedia consumption and pretty simple stuff.
Design is pretty simple too, navigation keys are places just below the display, volume and power buttons within finger reach on the right hand side while the headphone jack and the USB/charging port are on the top.
There are no buttons on the left side nor below the phone.
Back cover is removable, this covers the battery compartment as well as the SIM and SD card slot.
I particularly like the back cover as its designed to provide extra grip while holding in the hand, this helps to prevent sudden falls that is often witnessed with phones with smooth back covers.
This device runs on the Android Marshmallow OS and powered by a MediaTek Quadcore processor capped at 1.0GHz.
Internal memory is 8GB but upon setting up, we found out that the System has used up about 4.3GB and users are left with just 3.7GB to store pictures and other multimedia files. There is a MicroSD slot which provides a memory expansion option up to 32GB when using a memory card. It is advisable to purchase a memory card along with this device.
RAM size is 1GB and default installed apps have used over 50% of the RAM size which leaves users with limited RAM size. Apparently this device is a budget phone and its not expected to be subjected to heavy task and frequent multitasking because of the limited RAM size.
Camera is a fair 5MP with LED flash while the front camera for selfie is pegged at 2MP. There is no AutoFocus nor OIS feature on the camera.
Interestingly, the Lenovo B is 4G enabled, has FM radio and a 2,000mAh battery which performed not too bad.
Verdict
Users must ensue to buy a memory card along with this device, internal storage at 8GB with the system already using up over 4GB of that space. RAM size is also pretty small, users may encounter tardy functionality after some time.
Lenovo B is a good budget phone, – Errhhh!!! I think the term budget phone doesn’t fit anymore in Nigeria, thanks to the increased exchange rate – but whichever way you look at it, it is still one of the few quality phones that money can buy.
It will definitely pass for people who chose to use spend less on a second phone and also people who don’t do so much on their devices.