Lenovo A6000 Plus Unboxing and First Impressions [with Video]

If you’ve been following us and our reviews, you will probably remember that we reviewed the Lenovo A7000 last September. We loved it and gave it an outstanding score. We said that the Lenovo A7000 Plus offers good value for your money at its introductory price of only Php 7,999.

Just yesterday, Lenovo launched the A7000 Plus’ younger kin, the A6000 Plus. In a nutshell, its 5-inch HD IPS display makes consumption of entertainment contents like games, photos and videos a lot more enjoyable. It’s pretty much built to delight casual mobile gamers as well with its Qualcomm Snapdragon 1.2Ghz 64-bit quad-core processor. More over, the A6000 Plus’ twin speakers can enhance the listening experience of music lovers. It is also pre-installed with a Guvera music application.

Earlier today, I opened the A6000 Plus I got during the launch. If you haven’t seen the video above this post, go ahead and click this link. If you don’t have enough data allocation, you can check out our quick impressions below. Full review will be posted soon.

First Impressions

The Lenovo A6000 Plus bears much of its look from the A7000 Plus. This time around, the new A6000 is more compact, but capped with features also found on its older kin. The new phone has a vibrand 5-inch HD IPS screen. I will talk about the screen in greater detail later. Above its screen are the 2mp fixed-focus camera, earpiece and sensors. Below the screen are 3 capacitive buttons – Menu, Home and Back – that don’t light up when touched. Bummer.

The volume rockers and sleep/wake buttons are found on the right side of the device. Ports (3.5mm headphone jack and micro USB) are located at the top of the phone.

2 microphones are located at the bottom of the phone and just below the LED flash and 8mp auto-focus camera at the back.

The device features twin speakers infused with Dolby technology. This is the phone’s best selling feature, and during our first boot up of the phone, we heard how audible and loud the sounds were. My only gripe is the location of the twin speakers – it’s found at the back, which, when placed flat on solid or cushioned surface, can muffle the sound coming out from it. Minus the aforementioned issue, I thought that the Dolby technology on the A6000 plus is genius. The difference can really be heard when the feature is enabled.

Unlike the Lenovo A7000 Plus, the new phone shows a Lenovo logo above its screen. I don’t have any complaints with this, but this – in my opinion – sends a message that Lenovo is intensifying its brand to its end-consumers.

Let me delve deeper on its screen. Texts are clear and crisp on this phone. Colors of photos are evenly saturated. Apart from Dolby, this is probably the best thing about this phone. Here are sample photos of the texts that appear on the phone’s screen.

The phone, overall, is good, but there’s one disappointing fact when I first boot it up – it’s running on Android 4.4.4. A 1gb+ update will be available (presumably the Lollipop update) when you check for software updates, which is a relief, but downloading such would take time. You would probably agree with me that it would have been better had they upgraded all the phones to Lollipop prior to shipping. For now, I can only guess if the the 1gb download that’s waiting to be downloaded on my A6000 plus is indeed the Lollipop update. I will give you guys a quick update once its done.

As for the camera, I would say that its on fair to average. The colors of the output aren’t too vibrant, and saturation level is below average. Its sensors hardly keep up when taking photos at low light, and the flash can be too OP (overpowered). The camera has good potential though on taking semi-macro shots with decent bokeh.

Its 2mp front facing camera is enough for selfies and video calls, but expect your photos to have relatively high noise.

Check out sample photos below:

Overall, the Lenovo A6000 Plus is a device that easy to fall in love to. Great display and sound, but below average to good camera. Some, however, will find its price too high though considering that this is quite an old model. The device was launched last April of this year, and just tad cheaper than the Lenovo A7000 Plus.

We will subject this to a comprehensive test, and we will back our findings soon. In the meantime, if you’re keen on getting this, this will be available on December 9, 12nn for only PhP6,999.

Giancarlo Viterbo

Website

Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.