Lenovo is a well known company with very good mobiles and not only. Recently collaborated with Cyanogen Inc. in order together to create a mobile that was going to use CM Rom from the very beginning, just like OnePlus did. For this reason created a new brand (ZUK) so in this category would fit in these new mobiles. The first mobile that came out from this collaboration is the ZUK Z1, a mobile with really premium characteristics and a design from metal. All that can be found at a very interesting price and by using our coupon can be bought even cheaper from the reliable eshop eFox.
Design
The ZUK Z1 despite the fact that looks simple as design, however features a metal frame. According to the company the metal frame is made from aviation aluminum and is crafted using 16 CNC manufacturing procedures and 209 machining operations in total. The metal frame gives also to the handset a sturdy feel. This makes it easy to hold in the hand. By examining the mobile, you can see the volume and the power button on the left side and on the opposite the SIM tray.
On the top we find the 3.5mm headphone jack, when on the bottom side we see the speaker grill, microphone and the USB Type-C port. Below the display a home button with built-in fingerprint reader and two capacitive keys appear. Overall the design may not look that innovative, but one thing is for sure, the use of the metal frame helps to notch up the style a little. The Z1 features a 5.5-inch IPS LCD display, with 1080p resolution, 450 nit peak brightness, 1500:1 contrast ratio and 401ppi pixel density. The Full HD display is a very good thing for a mid-range phone. Zuk Z1 comes in grey and white and it’s dimensions are 155.7 x 77.3 x 8.8 mm.
Hardware
The Zuk Z1 features a Quad Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 8974AC 2.5GHz. Obviously the Snapdragon 801 is no slouch and Android runs very well on this SoC. The UI is fast and responsive. For GPU is equipped with a Adreno 330. The Z1 comes with a very generous 64GB of on-board storage, however, there is no microSD card support. There is also 3GB of RAM, more than enough to run whatever you want without any problem.
Features
The Zuk Z1 features dual band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac (that is 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz), Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS. The Z1 supports 2G, 3G and 4G LTE. From the 4G bands doesn’t support band 20, so always check with your provider if you are uncertain if you need to have and this band at your mobile. The featuring speaker is not that bad but is not and that good. The situation is partially alleviated by the included AudioFX app which adds an equalizer with various settings like Rock, Folk, Classical, Normal and so on.
The ZUK Z1 includes a fingerprint reader in the home button as we have said before. The fingerprint scanner is fast and accurate. It needs about 1 sec to read and activate the mobile. The Z1 doesn’t support NFC, so there are no additional fingerprint reader functions related to payments or other forms of authentication.
Camera
The device features a 13MP camera with Exmor RS stack sensor and f/2.2 aperture. It includes also optical image stabilization (OIS). To be more exact, ZUK boasts that the OIS has a single pixel size of 1.12um and that it has incorporated a 5-element lens. On the front, we will find a 8.0MP camera based on the OV8865. For outdoor shots the camera is fantastic, with vibrant colors, with good exposure levels, the images seem to “pop” without being unrealistic.
For indoor use and low-light photos, with a reasonable level of natural light coming from outside, the photos remain good we could say, but in low-light situations the noise level can be very high. As far as the camera application is concerned, it is the standard Cyanogen Camera app. You have the ability to select the different modes like HDR or the different filters by swiping down on the mode name at the top of the screen. Filters and other settings can be found by searching deeper in the settings area of the app. The pictures are in 4:3 format by standard, but if you want 16:9 then you can change it in the settings, but the number of megapixels will drop to 9.7 MP.
Battery
The Z1 comes with a bult-in 4100 mAh non-removable battery. According to the company, the 4100mAh battery will give you with the Zuk Z1 a 4G talk time of 38 hours, let you play locally stored music for about 85 hours and let you watch locally stored videos for about 15 hours! I’m sure that Zuk is not lying!
Conclusion
The ZUK Z1 recently went on sale internationally. The company is backed by Lenovo, the handset runs Cyanogen, and the 4100 mAh battery is excellent, as is the 64GB of on-board storage. I don’t have anything else to add, except from that you can find the international version of Zuk Z1 at eFox. And if you use our coupon Z110Y you will get a 10€ price reduction and buy it for only 199€!
