Lenovo Zuk Z2 smartphone – review with characteristics, price and reviews

The ZUK brand was created before Lenovo acquired Motorola. The devices and software were supposed to occupy the current niche of the North American market: powerful but cheap Android devices.

The brand's previous smartphone was not widely used in Russia, despite its powerful hardware and low cost. Internet resources branded the series with the nickname “discounter” and discouraged any desire to purchase the ZUK Z1.

Among Chinese smartphones, the ZUK family really looks original. Unlike most Xiaomi or Meizu devices, there is no hint of simplifying any characteristics. All this for a price of $220.

Characteristics

Review of the Android smartphone Zuk Z2 Pro: a new generation of flagships from the Middle Kingdom

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Specifications
• Packaging and equipment
• Appearance and design
• Display
• Hardware platform and performance
• Software and firmware
• Multimedia
• File system
• Wireless Interfaces and Communications
• Battery life
• Camera
• Comparison with competitors
• Conclusion
• Additional photos

Introduction

The situation when a large company produces part of its products under a different name is no longer surprising.
And this happens in a variety of areas. In some cases, such solutions are intended for the market of a certain country, and sometimes premium and flagship segments are separated into a separate brand. Thanks to our partner, the Cheap-mobile online store, we will look at the new Zuk model. Don't be embarrassed by the brand's low popularity, since this is a subsidiary of Lenovo.

Last year we already tested the Zuk Z1, a long-lived flagship with Cyanogen OS 12 on board. There were no special criticisms that time, and let’s not forget the discount on the first pancake. Moreover, when selecting the best mobile solutions of 2020 in the laboratory, this device became the winner in the “Best Flagship Tablet Phone” category.

Now the manufacturer has introduced a new flagship at a reasonable price - Zuk Z2 Pro, the name of which may remind you of the once top-end model Lenovo Vibe Z2 Pro. And it’s unlikely that this is just a coincidence; most likely, this is how they indicated some kind of continuity of the new product.

Let's start the review of the review hero in a standard way, but as the tests progress we will pay attention to interesting features that have not previously been seen in Lenovo devices.

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Specifications Zuk Z2 Pro

In terms of performance, there are no questions - the top processor and 6 GB of RAM do their job, especially since the screen resolution here is typical. Of course, the record amount of main memory attracts attention.

In addition to the listed characteristics, the Zuk Z2 Pro is capable of offering several additional functions, which will be discussed below.

Packaging and equipment Zuk Z2 Pro

The device is packed in a medium-sized white cardboard box. It is flat, consists of a main compartment and a lid that covers half the ends.

The cardboard is thick and dense to effectively protect the contents. The inside of the lid is glued with a soft material for maximum packing of the contents. Nothing inside is loose, each element is located strictly in its place.

On the front side there is only the manufacturer's logo. But on the upper and lower ends of the cover there are Lenovo logos, no one is trying to hide this fact.

The back side is mostly empty, only a sticker with personal numbers and basic characteristics in Chinese dilutes the picture.

Inside we are greeted by the device itself. It is fixed in a special recess and is also equipped with a transport film on the display.

Underneath is an envelope with documentation and a paper clip for removing the SIM card tray.

At the very bottom is the standard supply of a power adapter and USB cable. Unfortunately, we received a copy without a cable for testing.

The package includes:

• Power adapter;
• USB 3.1 Type C cable;
• SIM card slot clip;
• Technical documentation.

We were pleased with the quality and care of the packaging, and the delivery package was sufficient. It is difficult to imagine what would have to happen during transportation for the contents to suffer any damage. Perhaps the only sad thing is the lack of factory seals. It is worth carefully inspecting the device before purchasing.

Appearance and ergonomics

The phone comes in a simple white box. The package includes a synchronization cable, power supply, instructions and a paper clip.

The appearance of the ZUK Z2 is as simple and concise as possible. Glass top and bottom, all the same color. It may seem that the smartphone looks boring. But it differs from most Chinese (and not only) devices. If only because it openly copies the most successful iPhone model.

The ZUK Z2 is protected on both sides by tempered 2.5D glass with a good oleophobic coating. The side frame is made of fiberglass reinforced plastic.

The controls are located conveniently for hands of any size. The smartphone has a fingerprint scanner.

Double-clicking brings up the running applications screen. A normal press, without a click, sends you back one screen. By swiping left or right on the touch button, you can switch between running applications, just like across desktops on a desktop.

There are no classic touch or on-screen Back and Multitasking buttons on the ZUK Z2. The scanner works well, not inferior to either the flagship Xiaomi devices or market leaders like OnePlus 3 or Meizu Pro 6.

How I chose the Zuk Z2 smartphone

Before purchasing the Lenovo zuk z2, I had been using the wonderful Lenovo p780 phone for more than three years, until one fine moment I dropped it on a tile, after which it began to ungodly slow down and glitch. I'm sure everyone has their own story about buying a new phone. I proceeded from the fact that the phone should not cost more than 15,000 rubles, otherwise, any incident with it could cause significant and unplanned damage to the home budget.

What more did I want from a phone? I wanted a good degree of autonomy. In general, this was where my selection criteria ended. At that time I did not yet know that the telephone industry had stepped far forward and today it is necessary to look at some more capabilities of a mobile phone, but more on that below. In general, the Lenovo company has been pleasing me and not only me for a long time (before that there was an article about returning tax free on a Lenovo laptop), so the article had to see the light of day.

So, armed with the requirements described above, I plunged into the world of reviews, searches, comparisons and information about modern gadgets.

Next I will tell the story in historical chronology from choice to experience of use.

Display

The first generation of ZUK smartphones was equipped with the same 5.5-inch matrix. The latest generation includes two models. The older device ZUK 2 Pro is equipped with a screen of the same size. The younger ZUK Z2 is equipped with a 5-inch panel based on an LTPS matrix with FullHD resolution.

The screen contrast is 1,000:1, the color gamut is 70% of the visible field. The maximum brightness according to the passport is 400 cd/m2. In practice, this means that the smartphone does not lose display quality in bright sunlight. Viewing angles do not affect image quality at all: there are no color inversions or other distortions.

The responsiveness of the touch screen is excellent, the response is pleasant.

Software and hardware

The device works using Android 6 software.

Moreover, since the device is quite new and powerful, it is designed to install updates and additional software components do not affect performance.

By the way, the performance of this smartphone is quite high, which is especially noticeable when running several applications simultaneously.

Although the amount of RAM and performance of this device are high, tests have shown that under heavy loads the processor frequency drops to 729 Megahertz, which is almost a standard indicator for all modern smartphones.

Thus, this device does not stand out in any way in terms of this indicator. This phenomenon does not lead to freezes, crashes or a noticeable decrease in performance.

Despite the fact that the phone runs on the Android operating system, you won’t see the usual menu here, since it has been replaced with the proprietary shell of this line of smartphones.

However, this will not cause any problems using the device, since this menu is quite simple and intuitive. Decorated in blue and white shades, pleasing to the eye.

Control of the device as a whole is quite unusual and interesting. This is not just a menu redesign, it is a complete rethinking of the concept of smartphone control. It is built on the principle of a separate application menu with the ability to divide them into folders.

When you swipe at the top, the so-called status bar opens, in which there is no possibility of any settings, but only displays (time, battery charge and other standard information).

In order to go to the device settings, you need to swipe up from the bottom edge of the screen.

The panel that opens will present a number of customizable parameters and the ability to customize them.

<Fig. 4 Menu design>

Hardware platform and performance

The main advantage of the ZUK Z2, in addition to the form factor, is the platform used. Today this is one of the most affordable smartphones on the Snapdragon 820 with a nominal frequency of 2.15 GHz. In addition, the latest firmware can overclock the processor to 2.3 GHz.

The RAM size is 4 GB of LPDDR 4 standard. This is an excellent foundation for the next couple of years. The device's memory size is 64 GB (it can be expanded with a memory card), but it complies with the eMMC 5.1 standard, while most Snapdragon 820 smartphones use the faster UFS 2.0. Despite this, the results of synthetic tests are impressive.

Real performance doesn't lag behind. The interface works smoothly, without lags. Switching between applications occurs without delay. The performance will be enough to run the most powerful games at maximum graphics settings.

operating system

The smartphone uses the ZUI add-on based on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow as its base operating system. Let us recall that the ZUK Z1 was produced with two firmwares, which were installed depending on the place of sale. Devices with ZUI were supplied to the domestic market. In other countries, Lenovo ZUK Z1 was released running Cyanogen OS.

Unlike the previous line, the ZUK Z2 officially does not have international firmware. However, Russian craftsmen ported Cyanogen OS 14 based on Android 7.0 Nougat to the device and translated ZUI.

If you wish, you can stay with the basic firmware. Despite the incomplete translation of the menu, Russian can be set as the system language. Some elements will remain in English.

But this is not a reason to abandon ZUI. The shell is similar to another iOS clone, but compares favorably with MIUI and Flyme. It has its own Control Center called Quick Switch Panel. The curtain is located at the bottom of the screen. I don’t know about fans of pure Android, but, in my opinion, this is much more convenient.

The system has a lot of built-in applications in English: a proprietary security center, a good file manager, themes, an application for tracking and installing updates. The interface is well designed, there are no problems when using it.

In the near future, the smartphone will receive an official update of the proprietary system to Android 7.0 Nougat.

Firmware for Lenovo zuk z2

I would rate the quality of the shell design at 4 points , due to the fact that there are significant nuances associated with flashing the phone (details below).

The device uses the ZUI operating shell developed by ZUK, as I understand, this sub-brand also concentrates on the operating system of smartphones and pays special attention to this part of the phones. But first things first:

What I liked:

1. Pleasant soft appearance of the interface.
2. The presence of built-in functions that are important for me: anti-spam with the function of blocking numbers by masks and ranges, intelligent blocking of SMS spam mailings, built-in functionality for recording telephone conversations;
3. Application management using the built-in manager;
4. Notification and status panel - displays all the necessary information (network mode, connection and data transfer speed, etc.).
5. And the most important thing is the high degree of readiness of the system itself for use - you just need to put your favorite wallpaper, set your favorite ringtones and go into battle. Everything you need for everyday work with your phone is already installed, or almost everything (without having to search for the right application, check for compatibility, without advertising, etc.). Of course, I’m not writing here about all sorts of instant messengers, games, etc. – this is installed through the playmarket in a matter of minutes.

What I didn't like:

1. The first and main problem with this firmware is the impossibility of using it out of the box! No matter how strange it may sound, you just have to go to w3bsit3-dns.com, read the instructions, download the firmware and reflash your phone. And that's why:
   A lot of “Chinese”;
2. No Russian language (my stock firmware version installed by the manufacturer ZUI93st);
3. The Play Market is very buggy, which does not allow you to download applications from the store;
4. The stock firmware is not updated “over the air” from the Russian Federation (they say that this is due to the great Chinese firewall and if you establish a VPN connection with the Chinese server, the update will arrive - it didn’t work for me);

I installed the following firmware on my Lenovo zuk z2:

Chinese 2.43 (the problems with PlayMarket did not go away), then I installed CyanogenMod 13 (everything was fine, standard Android interface and all that, but all the advantages of ZUI, of course, disappeared, the touch button did not work as the designers intended, and then it began to close spontaneously installed programs, and when trying to record calls, the phone generally rebooted).

I played with CM13 for one week and updated it to firmware ZUI 2.3.042 ST +RUS+GAPPS Captainemo's mod. This is standard Chinese firmware, “finished” by our craftsmen (by the way, many thanks to them for this) to a digestible state - some bugs have been fixed, Chinese applications have been removed, the interface has been completely translated. Now it’s a real pleasure to use.

If you don’t know how to flash it yourself, contact the service - I found out that it costs up to 1,500 rubles. But realistically, if you know how, it takes 30 minutes.

1. The native Chinese dialer has very limited functionality; it will have to be replaced with a third-party one.
2. You cannot set wallpaper separately for the lock screen and desktop.

Lastly, I’ll say that if you don’t want to fiddle with firmware and lose the warranty on your phone, because... reflashing deprives the phone of its functionality, then I would not recommend purchasing this model.

Hardware, performance, survivability

Overall, I would rate the hardware a 5 plus, however, there are several marketing ploys here that you shouldn’t fall for as I did, so I’ll rate this section 4.5 points . It’s not that I was upset, but I was hoping for opportunities that in fact weren’t there.

What we liked about Lenovo zuk z2:

1. The volume of permanent memory of Lenovo Zuk Z2 is 64 GB. For me, this is a lot and the lack of the ability to expand memory using cards does not seem like a disadvantage.
2. The amount of RAM is 4 GB . Everything flies and doesn’t glitch. Not every smartphone could boast such a volume at the time of purchase, especially for the money I paid for it.
3. The ability to work in 4G networks from any SIM card without rearranging them is really convenient (before this, as I wrote above, I had a Lenovo p780, there was no such option, I had to swap SIM cards every time).
4. Good quality of video and photography (and, as it seemed to me, with the native firmware the quality of shooting is better than with CM13). I can’t say that it’s a direct “WOW”, but 90% of the time it turns out decent photos. It should also be noted that you can shoot video both in slow motion (120fps) and in accelerated mode; below you can look at a couple of such videos. It is also possible to shoot video in 4k mode. This is what slow motion 120fps looks like, playback 30fps (4 times slowdown). And there are also modes at 240fps and 960fps.” By the way, the maximum resolution of the rear camera is UHD 4k, the front camera is HD 1080p

1. The battery capacity of Lenovo zuk z2 is 3500 mAh and it allows you not to worry about its charge. At the end of the working day, I have 40 to 50% battery charge left. I can’t say that I use it intensively during the day - it’s social. networks, surfing, online radio, up to 20 minutes of calls per day.

Multimedia capabilities

Unlike the ZUK Z2 Pro, the younger device received a 13-megapixel main camera. Sensor - ISOCELL. It is covered by a 5-component lens with an f/2.2 aperture and a focal length of 24 mm. In addition, there is digital stabilization and hybrid autofocus.

The standard photography application spoils the hardware capabilities - its settings are extremely meager. What saves the day is the perfectly working automatic mode and a set of ready-made presets for shooting in different lighting conditions.

In good lighting, be it the sun or good artificial light, the ZUK Z2 camera allows you to take beautiful, clear photos with correct color reproduction.

In HDR mode, the camera carefully tightens the tones without increasing saturation, keeping the photo natural.

The front camera uses an 8 MP sensor and an f/2.0 aperture lens. The pictures cannot be called outstanding, however, they are better than those obtained on Chinese devices in this price range.

The smartphone shoots video with a resolution of 3,840 × 2,160 pixels at 30 fps and stereo sound. Among other advantages of the camera, it is worth mentioning the presence of slow-motion shooting in HD resolution (without sound) at speeds of 120 fps, 240 fps and even 960 fps.

Cameras

Zuk Z2 is equipped with two cameras - a 13 MP main camera and an 8 MP front camera. The aperture of the main camera is f/2.2, and the front camera is f/2.0. The application interface has not been greatly redesigned.

On the start screen, you can turn on the flash, select the HDR operating mode (on, off, automatic), go to settings and proceed to video recording.

The quality of images in good lighting conditions is not bad - above average, but at night everything is not so good - the frames are noisy. It is impossible to compare the Zuk Z2 camera with the current flagships of Samsung and LG, but a non-demanding user will like the photos.

The front camera did not cause any complaints.

Video recording is possible in 4K resolution at 30 frames/sec.

4

ITC.UA rating

Pros: powerful platform; large amount of RAM and user memory; screen quality; smooth interface; fast operation of the fingerprint scanner; price

Cons: the need for firmware and installation of Google services; At the moment there are minor firmware glitches (incorrect operation of automatic brightness adjustment)

Conclusion: Zuk Z2 will be of interest primarily to those who are familiar with Chinese smartphones, know how to flash them and, most importantly, are ready to do this. At the moment you can buy it for $227, which is extremely tempting, but if you are not ready to understand the intricacies of the firmware and constantly deal with minor glitches, then it is better to look at something else.

Specifications

Sound

The ZUK Z2 copes with voice communication to the fullest extent. The external speaker also does not disappoint: there is a reserve in volume, the tonal balance is quite even.

The sound in the headphones is not bad. But there is one big drawback here - the smartphone has practically no volume reserve. Without systemic sound “improvers” or an equalizer, this minus can ruin the mood of a music lover.

Cellular communications and interfaces

ZUK Z2 is equipped with a combo slot for two nanoSIMs. There is only one radio module. Both slots are equivalent and can work with 4G. The range of supported frequencies is sufficient for use in Russia and the CIS; there is support for LTE band 3/7. The most common LTE band 20 is not supported.

The set of wireless interfaces is limited to dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1. NFC and IR port are missing. The main wired port is USB-C, compliant with the USB 2.0 standard.

Geopositioning can work with both GPS and GLONASS. A cold start takes no more than 20 seconds, a hot start - about 5 seconds. The tracking accuracy in the city is good, so the smartphone can also be used as a navigator.

Delivery of Lenovo zuk z2 smartphone to Russia

I paid for the order on the website on December 11, after which I accidentally noticed that I had entered the delivery address incorrectly. The GearBest website has a customer support function, I opened a topic to clarify the delivery address, this moment just happened to be on the weekend.

The issue was resolved quickly and accurately the next day, I confirmed the delivery address and already on December 13, the parcel was packed and shipped.

Imagine my surprise when the parcel arrived in the city, judging by the tracker (parcel tracking service), already on December 30th. Considering that the first two weeks were a stormy weekend throughout the country, I was able to receive my long-awaited phone only on January 10 - they called me and asked when and where to deliver it - very convenient, by the way. Here I want to note the good work of the CDEK delivery service.

By the way, immediately after ordering the phone, I bought accessories for it on Aliexpress - two cases and a USB type-c - HDMI cable, the cable and one case arrived almost simultaneously with a difference of a couple of days on the twentieth of January, but I didn’t get the second case received so far.

Battery and runtime

When using the ZUK Z2 as a navigator or multimedia device, the long battery life will come in handy. The smartphone has a 3,500 mAh battery with support for QC 3.0 fast charging. Thanks to this, charging time is only 2 hours and 10 minutes. The device charges from 0% to 75% in just 70 minutes.

The small screen and large battery had a great impact on the autonomy of the device. In mixed mode of operation with a serious load, the ZUK Z2 is guaranteed to survive until late in the evening. This takes into account calls, a couple of hours of watching videos, using instant messengers, social networks and other standard load.

In other scenarios the results are no worse:

• Video viewing (from memory, at maximum brightness, with airplane mode turned on) - 16 hours.
• Surfing (Wi-Fi, 50% brightness) - 14 hours.
• Surfing (4G, 50% brightness) - 10 hours.
• 3D games (Wi-Fi, 50% brightness) - 4 hours.