Lenovo P2
With monster battery life, the P2 will keep on going long after others have died – a brilliant-value phone
Remember when your phone lasted more than a day on a single charge? Well, the glory days are back and Lenovo’s P2 is the saviour: it lasted a staggering 28hrs 50mins in our continuous video test. That’s a full five hours longer than our previous winner, Motorola’s Moto Z Play ( see issue 268, p62). Anecdotally, after a heavy weekend’s sightseeing filled with Google Maps, selfies and the odd game of Mini Metro, the P2 never dipped below 70%.
Lenovo achieves this by cramming a 5,100mAh battery – most phones’ batteries sit around the 3,000mAh mark – into the P2’s metal body, but this isn’t a bulky phone. It feels a little fatter than super-svelte flagships such as the A-Listed Galaxy S7 Edge, but at 8.3mm thick and 177g it’s only 0.6mm thicker and 20g heavier than the Samsung.
A handy fingerprint reader sits beneath the screen, and a volume rocker and power button on the right edge, while the left treats you to the dual SIM slot and an intriguing battery saving switch. Flick it up and your P2 enters Ultimate Power Saver mode, switching off data and disabling apps. It could be a handy “Defcon 1” function, but given the already impressive battery life, it’s unlikely to see much use.
We’re treated to a Full HD, 5.5in AMOLED display on the front, covering 99.9% of the sRGB colour gamut. And, as with all AMOLED displays, its contrast ratio is effectively perfect. Some of the darker tones – deeper reds and dark blues – were oversaturated under the scrutiny of PC Pro’s colour calibrator, but you won’t spot this day to day. One sticking point is the P2’s peak brightness of 326cd/m2. While that’s fine for gloomier winter days, you’ll be squinting at your phone once the sun finally pokes through the clouds. The Honor 6X ( see issue 270, p58) is much better suited to such conditions with a peak of 502cd/m2. For the price, the P2 is a surprisingly nippy performer. Powered by Qualcomm’s 2GHz octa-core Snapdragon 625 chip and 4GB of RAM, overall performance was silky smooth. With a Geekbench 4 multicore score of 3,130, the P2 bested the Moto G4 by almost 700, and wasn’t far behind the 6X’s 3,319. Switching to games, it scored a 10fps average in the onscreen GFXBench Manhattan benchmark, beating both the Honor 6X (8.4fps) and Moto G4 (7.7fps). Sky Force: Reloaded, a game that grinds to a halt
“At the flick of a switch you can enter Ultimate Power Mode, switching off data and disabling apps – a handy ‘Defcon 1’ function”
on lower-powered devices, ran without a single frame drop, even during those action-packed enemy encounters.
That’s near-full marks then – but then we come to the camera. It’s not that the P2’s 13-megapixel rear camera is bad; it’s just that it loses out compared to Moto’s G4. Outdoor test shots under gloomy skies picked up plenty of colour, with noise kept at bay. Flicking on HDR gave mixed results, with oversaturation on the orange bricks in our test shot, but it did help to balance exposure levels.
Where it falls down is indoors, especially in low light. Under close inspection our test subjects looked grainy and, while colours were vibrant, noise was apparent. Try to use the P2’s camera outside with plenty of natural light, if you can.
The P2’s camera software is also a tad clumsier to use than its rivals. Navigating through tedious menus isn’t ideal for on-the-fly photography, while the P2 would have benefitted from Huawei’s one-hand-friendly left and right swipes. At least Lenovo’s Pro mode allows you to delve into settings such as ISO and white balance.
The final and relatively minor con is that Android 6 Marshmallow feels a little dated after the recent move to Android 7 Nougat. We’re told an over-the-air update is coming in the near future.
Do these criticisms matter? Arguably not. That absurd battery life alone is well worth the price: don’t forget, you’re buying the longestlasting smartphone by far. And it doesn’t stop there: the P2’s display, performance and build quality are all top-notch given the price, and it’s a worthy competitor to much more expensive flagships.
There is still tough competition to fend off. You can buy the Moto G4 for £40 less, and in return get a rear camera that’s a better performer in low light. Or the Honor 6X is arguably sexier, for around £25 more. Yet still we come back to the P2’s amazing battery life and all-round strength. The Lenovo P2 is the new budget smartphone king.
SPECIFICATIONS Octa-core 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor 4GB RAM Adreno 506 graphics 5.5in 1,920 x 1,080 AMOLED screen 32GB storage 13MP/5MP rear/front camera 802.11ac Wi-Fi Bluetooth 4.2 NFC micro-USB 5,100mAh battery Android 6 76 x 8.3 x 153mm (WDH) 177g 1yr warranty