The much anticipated Lenovo Vibe X3 has finally revealed and it looks like the best phone the Chinese manufacturer has made this year.
We spotted what we thought was the Vibe X3 earlier this year receiving approval from Malaysian and Chinese certification associations earlier this year, but were unable to say for certain. Based on this revealed spec sheet however, it looks like our hunch was right…though not entirely.
Lenovo launched two Vibe X3s, the first is a high spec variant bearing the Vibe X3 badge whereas the second is a watered down version dubbed the Vibe X3 Youth. The high spec Vibe X3 will come with a 5.5-inch 1080×1920 pixel display tucked behind the protection of Corning Gorilla Glass 3.
It sports a hexa-core Snapdragon 808 processor clocked at 1.5GHz coupled with 3GB of RAM and a choice of either 32GB or 64GB of internal storage. The Vibe X3 also features a big 3,600 mAh battery, which is bigger than the 3,500 mAh that we originally thought. Camera wise, the Vibe X3 features a 21-megapixel Sony rear shooter paired with an 8-megapixel selfie cam.
The Vibe X3 Youth, while maintaining the 5.5-inch screen, has considerably watered down specs in a bid to lower cost, featuring an octa-core 1.3GHz MediaTek processor, 2GB of RAM and only 16GB of internal storage. The camera optics have also taken a hit as the Vibe X3 Youth only has a 13-megapixel rear shooter and a 5-megapixel front camera. It also has a smaller battery, rated at 3,400 mAh.
Both phones however do share Lenovo’s much teased audio system, which features not only two front-facing stereo speakers, but also Hi-fi 3.0 with a total of three Texas Instruments OPA1612 amplifiers, a Cirrus Logic WM8281 codec for noise and echo cancellation to handle the input from the three mics, and a high-end Sabre 9018C2M DAC.
Other similarities include a hybrid dual-SIM slot, where users can opt to run two SIM cards or a single SIM card with a microSD card. Both phones also have a fingerprint scanner on rear panel just below the camera, and will support 4G LTE connectivity.
Prices start at CNY 1,899 (around RM1,303) for the Vibe X3 Youth, CNY 2,499 (around RM1,714) and CNY 2,999 (around RM2,057) for the 32GB and 64GB variants respectively. Both phones are now available for pre-orders in China, but there is no news on availability outside of China, or what Android version the devices are running.
