Lenovo S580 review – Snapdragon quad core with 5 inch HD screen

The Lenovo S580 is quad core powered handset that houses the qualcomm snapdragon 200 chipset clocked at 1.2GHz. This dual SIM handset comes with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage. Unfortunately it is running on outdated Android 4.3 OS.

Box Pack
Inside the box you will find the S580 handset, screen guard, plastic case with stand, user manual, warranty information, standard earphone, travel charger, 2150 mAh battery and data cable. The SAR value is mentioned on the box : 0.44 W/kg @kg head and 0.31 W/kg @1g body.

Design, Display and OS
The Lenovo S580 is light weight at 127 grams. The rear side has got fabric like feel thanks to the laser etched textures. Build quality and finishing is very good. The handset looks good, gives good grip and very comfortable to hold. Dimensions are : 70.04 x 139.70 x 7.98 (mm).

Power button and volume rockers are on the right side. 3.5mm audio jack and micro USB port is on the top. There is a mic at the bottom.

The S580 sports a 5 inch IPS screen with 1280 x 720 pixels resolution. The screen quality is very good, colour reproduction is great and so is the touch response. Viewing angles are good.

Unfortunately this handset is running Android 4.3 out of the box with customized UI. Though Lenovo has mentioned that the handset will get KitKat update, I think they should have already upgraded it.

There is no LED notification, navigation buttons do not light up and there are 3 sensors – accelerometer, light and proximity.

This is a dual SIM handset with 2 normal SIMs. SIM slot 1 supports 3G and slot 2 supports 2G.

Memory and Storage
There is 1GB RAM, 8GB storage and micro SD card support. On the first boot you will get about 505 MB free RAM and about 5.2GB space for apps / user internal storage. If you are using external SD card you can install supported apps on the external storage.

Performance
The handset is using MSM8610 cortex A7 qualcomm snapdragon 200 quad core processor clocked at 1.2GHz with Adreno 305 GPU @ 400 MHz. The performance is smooth, but not recommended for gaming.

Benchmark

App Result
Quadrant 7756
Antutu 15144
Vellamo Metal (526) Multi core (1002) Browser (1205)
Nenamark 2 32.6fps
Multi Touch 5 point

Camera and Entertainment
There is 8MP rear AF camera with LED flash and a 2MP camera on the front. The still camera quality is good, however at times it is not able to focus properly and the video quality (720p at 30fps) is not that great. Check sample images and videos at the end.

You can play 1080p videos in both H/W and S/W mode using MX player.

Gaming
I tried Asphalt 8, it got installed on the external storage. The game is playable in highest visual quality mode, however there is a bit of lag and it is not easy controlling the car. I played in lowest visual quality mode and it played really well.

Others
Sound is loud and clear. No issues found with 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and GPS (lock is pretty fast).

Battery
There is a 2150 mAh removable battery that gives an estimated 3 to 5 hours of battery backup with moderate to heavy usage.

Task Time Battery drop (%) (max temp)
Running Benchmark apps 23 minutes 10% (38)
HD video playback with Wi-Fi on + full brightness 17 minutes 7% (37)
Asphalt 8 GamePlay 16 minutes 6% (37)
Full wall Charge Under 3 hours 15% to 100%

Verdict
The S580 is from a well known brand, it looks good, feels good and is light weight. The hardware is not that powerful, battery backup is average and considering the price tag of Rs. 8,999 it does not seem lucrative. There are better options available in the market.

Lenovo S580 is available exclusively on Snapdeal.com for Rs. 8,999.

Image Gallery

Sample Images shot using S580

Front camera sample