Lenovo S850 First look and hands on

The second device in a new trio of budget-friendly smartphones launched by Lenovo at MWC 2014, the S850 does manage to impress in some key aspects. Here’s our first look and hands on with the Lenovo S850!

The Lenovo S850 comes with a beautiful all-glass design that will somewhat remind you of the current crop of Sony flagships. While it is great-looking, durability does come into question when you have this kind of glass finish all around. With flat sides, rounded corners, and a thickness of just 8.2 mm, the sleek device is easy to handle and pretty comfortable to hold, even though it features a big 5-inch display.

One thing we weren’t able to show you, but is actually quite interesting is the fact that the Lenovo logo at the back lights up, where you can also choose what color it’ll be, depending on what notification you’re getting on the phone.

When it comes to the display, you get a 5-inch IPS LCD screen with a 720p resolution. Knowing that it as an IPS display, brightness and viewing angles aren’t an issue, and the colorful UI of the device does seem to come through quite nicely, at least in the short time we were able to spend with it.

The Lenovo S850 comes with a quad-core MediaTek processor, clocked at 1.3 GHz. Coupled with 1 GB of RAM, the performance is satisfactory, but it is definitely slower than some other devices out there, especially the flagships. You get 16 GB of internal storage, but with no option of expandable storage.

What is impressive about the S850 are its cameras, with the device coming with a 13 MP rear shooter and a 5 MP front-facing camera. These kind of camera specifications are increasingly being found with mid-range devices, such as the HTC Desire 816 that was also launched during MWC.  The device also comes with a decent 2,000 mAh battery, which should last a while, with a promise of 13 hours of talk-time.

Like the other Lenovo smartphones launched recently, you get a customized UI that does away with the app drawer completely. This could take some getting used to, especially if you switch from other Android user interfaces, and depending on how many apps you download, you’re homescreens could get cluttered very quickly.

As far as the apps go, you do get the full DOit suite of apps that were introduced by the company, including the SECUREit, SHAREit, SYNCit, SNAPit, and SEEit.

The Lenovo S850 is a budget-minded device that does provide quite a bit, packed into a great design. The device is priced at $269, and will only be available in selected markets, or through the company’s webstore.

What are your thoughts? What do you think of the Lenovo S850? Let us know in the comments section below.