Lenovo A7000 hands on, first impressions

Officially introduced here in the Philippines just last night, Lenovo announces its new A7000 that took the label as the first smartphone to have Dolby ATMOS sound technology. Our friends from the company was kind enough to immediately lend us a unit to test out and here are our initial thoughts.

The A7000 has a 5.5-inch IPS display with a resolution of 1280 x 720. It’s not Full HD and has a spacious screen real estate to cover, but we tried playing several HD video clips on it and so far we find the images sharp and lively.

In addition, bezels are also slim enough to make the display pop out more while we use the phone.

At only 8mm, the A7000 keeps a thin profile which positively adds to the overall handling of the device.

The front cam is decently-spec’d with a 5-megapixel sensor. As for the screen, its 720p display panel has 267 dots per inch — it’s a far cry from OnePlus One and iPhone 6 Plus’s 401 dpi but images still appear packed and detailed while we browse the phone.

Its 8MP rear camera is squeezed in the upper left corner with dual flashes right below it. Also somewhat awkwardly-placed on the right edge is the speaker grille that puffs out decent volume during a quick music playback that we did.

Also seen here are textured buttons for the volume rocker (upper) and Power/lock screen (lower).

This Lollipop-running handset still employs capacitive buttons (Active apps, Home, and Back) which sometimes need to be operated with two hands since it was cumbersome to reach the farthest button across with just one hand.

Viewing the device horizontally, its body and display panel tandem make for a rectangular shape with hard edges but curves smoothly on corners.

Charging the smartphone or transferring files will be done up top where its microUSB port is located, while seated at the edge is a 3.5mm headphone jack. We like how even though they went for a removable back cover made of plastic, it still doesn’t feel cheap as it sounds reinforced when you lightly knock or tap on it.

Form factor has been one of Lenovo’s strong suits since we’ve already come across a number of their handsets that have premium-like feel to them even if they’re only in the mid-range category (like the Vibe Shot) and in this case, a sub-Php8K smartphone.

Finally, Lenovo included some generic-looking earbuds and we still have to try them out together with its ATMOS technology. Stay tuned for our review before it becomes available exclusively on Lazada this May 21, 2015. See listing here.

Lenovo A7000 specs:
5.5-inch IPS HD display, 267ppi
1.5GHz MediaTek MT6752m octa-core CPU
Mali-T760MP2 GPU
2GB RAM
8GB internal storage
up to 32GB via microSD
8MP rear camera w/ LED flash
5MP front camera
Dual-SIM, Dual-Standby
4G LTE, 3G
WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth 4.0 w/ A2DP
GPS, A-GPS
FM Radio
Dolby ATMOS surround sound
Android 5.0 Lollipop
152.6 x 76.2 x 8 mm
140 g
2,900mAh Li-Po battery
Price: Php7,390USD 126INR 10,676EUR 120CNY 917