Dubai

Lenovo has entered the dual-camera set-up with its special edition Moto G5S Plus. It is an upgrade from this year G5 Plus in a bid to maintain their strong grip over the budget market.

The 5.5-inch full-HD display is powered by a 2GHz.octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, coupled with 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage capacity. The microSD card supports up to 128GB additional storage capacity.

The hybrid dual-SIM tray supports two Nano-SIM slots, one of which is a shared microSD slot.

It weighs 168 grams and runs on stock Android 7.1.1 OS version.

Lenovo has opted for full aluminium unibody design with curved edges so that it stays firm in the hand and the all-metal build quality made out of a single block of metal gives it a premium finish.

The full HD LCD display with 401 pixels per inch density is crisp and colour reproduction is excellent.

The fingerprint sensor is incorporated into the home button and it is very fast to open the device.

Lenovo stuck to the old-style micro USB 2.0 port instead of the USB Type-C port on the bottom of the phone.

The device also boasts of a water-repellent nano-coating for protection against accidental splashes but not swim proof.

Lenovo has kept its “Moto” app to access the “Moto Actions, Moto Display and Moto Voice” features such as activating the flashlight by a double-chop motion and opening the camera app by twisting your wrist. You can also swipe down from the centre to the bottom left or right corner to shrink the display area on the screen, which makes one-handed use easier.

Under Moto Display, users get a Night Display mode which reduces blue light, and makes notifications fade in and out while the device is in standby mode.

The focus of this device is the camera. The dual 13MP camera set-up on the back with f/2.0 aperture, autofocus and dual-LED (dual tone) flash takes good snaps in well-light but in lowlight conditions, it struggles due to the weak aperture size. Some lowlight shots were a little under-exposed.

One is a colour camera and the other is monochrome with 3D depth sensing software added.

Landscapes are exposed well and colours are accurate. The HDR mode does a good job of maintaining highlight details in shots that have uniform lighting.

There is a “Night Mode” designed to improve lowlight photography. However, this further slows down the shooting process and doesn’t radically improve results. Auto HDR does a good job of bringing up the mid-tones in tricky lighting conditions.

The raised circular bump of the rear camera can attract scratches.

It can record 4K videos at 30 frames per second, 30fps and 60fps at 1080p and a 120fps for the slow-motion mode.

The 3D depth sensor can capture depth data so that users can edit the depth of the pictures after the picture is shot in real time. Users can also apply actions like ‘Selective B&W’, ’Selective Focus’, or even ‘Replace background’ in the ‘Depth Editor’ app.

On issue is that the phone gets warm just by using the camera app for a while and it takes around five to six seconds to process an image. You need to have patience when using this side. I hope Lenovo can solve this problem with a software upgrade.

At the front, it sports an 8MP sensor with a f/2.0 aperture, wide-angle lens, and an LED flash.

The front camera can produce decent shots but again in lowlight, it is weak despite having a flash.

There is no notification light in the front and have to stick to Moto Display.

The Adreno 506 GPU performs well in graphics-heavy games and handles multitasking with ease. I had no issues while playing games like Asphalt 8: Airborne and Dead Trigger 2. The device does not get warm.

The single speaker at the bottom is loud enough to fill a room but the sound distorts at maximum volume. The headset within the box is average but with a good headset, you can enjoy the music.

Regarding connectivity options, it has 4G LTE, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, microUSB, NFC and 3.5mm headphone jack.

The 3,000mAh non-removable battery gives around 14 hours of heavy use and around 11 hours of HD video playback, which is pretty average. For moderate users, it can last close to working hours. The good thing is that it ships with TurboPower adapters. The device gets warm while quick charging. The battery charges in one hour 25 times via quick charging from zero to full and can provide up to 6 hours of battery life with a 15-minute charge. It is priced at Dh1,099.

Pros

Good build quality

Easy to hold and use

Stock Android experience

Value for money

Handy Moto features

Cons

No notification light

Camera needs improvement

Gets warm

Mediocre battery life

Takes time to process an image