Today Lenovo is announcing a new phablet called the PHAB PLUS. Even though Lenovo now owns Motorola, they’re still releasing Android phones under the Lenovo name. This one won’t be released in the North American market though. The Lenovo PHAB PLUS will be released in India, Asia and some South American countries. It’s got a 6.8-inch full HD 1920 x 1080 IPS screen, Qualcomm Octa-Core 64-bit processor, Android 5.0 Lollipop, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, Micro SD support for expandable storage, and a 3500 mAh Li-ion battery. Of course it has Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, and 4G LTE as well, and there’s some nice Dolby Atmos 3D Surround Sounds support.
If you draw a gesture on the screen in the shadow of the letter C, the Phab Plus will switch to one handed usability mode which shrinks the operating system’s interface to a smaller size and positions it in a corner so that you can more easily reach the buttons with your thumb. You can change the size of the shrunken screen to suit your ready and also change which corner it’s positioned in by tilting the phone.
Of course this is a hack to enable one handed usage since Android was never designed for large screen devices like this. Ideally the whole UI would be arranged for one handed usage while the out of reach areas of the screen would be used to display relevant information. Instead, out of reach areas just become blank wasted space.
The back is clean flat metal with a few plastic accents. In the hand the Lenovo PHAB PLUS actually feels very light.
You’ve also got a 13 megapixel autofocus camera on the back with a dual LED flash along with a 5 megapixel front facing camera on the other side.
The rounded edges look great and we’ve got premium-feeling power and volume buttons on the side. The phone is only 7.6mm thick and weighs a surprisingly 220 grams.
The full HD 6.8-inch full HD 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS screen looks great, and the Dolby Atmos 3D audio is sure to make watching movies on this Phablet a joy.
The PHAB PLUS has dual Mini-SIM card slots and the MicroSD card slot is in there too. You have to kind of sandwich it in there just right.
The Lenovo PHAB PLUS will start at $299 USD, but there’s also a regular Lenovo PHAB that will be $179. The less expensive version has only 1GB of RAM, 16GB storage, and a 7-inch 1280 x 720 screen.
Will the Lenovo PHAB PLUS be your next phablet? Let us know in the comments below.
Originally published on Pocketnow on September 2, 2015.