Gadgetory

you ever think to yourself dag yo I just need a bigger phone no not like iPhone or pixel big nope v20 or mate nine big just isn't big enough I need something proper large well Lenovo might just have the right device for you okay we're messing around a little we all know the fab 2 Pro is being released as a first generation platform to show off Google's tango augmented reality but this phone exists and if you were to spend $500 to pick one up what kind of experience would you be in store for first up for you specs junkies pause the video now to see what this beast is packin and with that out of the way this is the biggest phone I've ever been tasked with reviewing there's a hypothesis that mini tablet sales have been negatively affected by the rise of larger screen phones the fab 2 would support that idea as I never want to haul around this phone and a tablet this is a substantial gadget no pretense here no pretending that thinness matters it's big and it embraces that size and thickness having played with numerous yoga tablets and convertibles the fab definitely has that Lenovo vibe it's a straight forward look clean professional lines chamfered edges make an attempt at delivering some style but largely the form of this phone closely follows the function the six point four inch display is crisp and detailed thanks to that quad HD resolution though we do wish it were brighter our battery test is run at 190 lux and this phone seems to top out somewhere around 350 some of these AR apps could definitely benefit from an easier to read screen while outside the fingerprint sensor is quick and accurate enough but even in our weeks of using it the placement on this phone still feels low that you really need to bend that finger to unlock the phone and where your digit would normally land is exactly where a camera sensor lives we'd also be remiss if we didn't mention the lack of NFC no tap in pair no tap and pay certainly a frustrating omission for any phone especially at this price point moving over to software we're happy lenovo has recently found something of a balance between customizing the UI for china and appealing to a more Western audience this phone now much more closely resembles stock Android and organizational elements like the AppStore have returned there's almost no bloat here with only a few lenovo services pre-installed the fab comes with a mid-range processor specifically the Qualcomm 650 - we wouldn't be too concerned about this chipset it still runs a touch on the warm side but manages to deliver better performance benchmarking than last year's flagship processors and lenovo seems to have optimized this hardware well it posts numbers just nipping at the heels of some phones using more powerful hardware we have been a little concerned with a handful of software gremlins though some apps forced closing and the odd Android service barking but they've thankfully been minor inconveniences and hopefully Lenovo can patch them in a future update this company doesn't have much of a relationship with phone consumers in North America so it's an opportunity to show us what they can do with updates and support Wi-Fi reception is adequate but the fab falls behind many other metal backed phones like the mayn't 9 in the V 20 likewise cellular reception often landed a couple decibels behind those speed tests in my neighborhood on AT&T were about average for downloading surprisingly the fam was a bit faster at uploading over LTE than many of our recently reviewed devices listening to speaker and headphone output for all this space speaker performance is about average for a bottom firing mono speaker it's not bad it's not great it'll get the job done for most folks likewise the headphone situation is mostly functional lenovo is partnered with Dolby to provide processing tweaks we can't find a way to properly disable that so all audio has at least a little EQ adjusting going on quality numbers land this phone near the bottom of our review pack right alongside the LG g5 in the huawei mate 9 but thankfully lenovo included a slightly beefier amp just barely edging out the galaxy s7 for volume moving to the camera this shooter is also no-frills you get respectable 16 megapixel images with the requisite HDR mode and a handful of seeing modes though HDR shots take a while to capture and even in reasonably lit indoor situations it can be a challenge to pull off a crisp shot for you motion blur video is capped at 1080p and frustratingly there doesn't seem to be any way to control focus the fab shoots truly full-auto it's pretty clear this phone wasn't built around the notion of multimedia creation and this is the main feature we'd be worried might be a deal breaker for folks in our audience now a 4050 milliamp hour battery sounded impressive until we played with another phone that also packed a 4000 milliamp hour capacity in a smaller overall footprint the extra battery here largely compensates for the additional screen size running our media tests streaming 30 minutes of HD video over Wi-Fi at 190 Lux the fab drained 5 percent which is upper mid pack runtime for a modern Android handset when used primarily as a phone we get great daily use easily lasting past dinner time but that actually wasn't very common a tango hardware and apps will drain that battery a lot quicker recharge rates are very good considering the battery size 30 minutes on the included charger resulted in a 44 percent recharge you'll get plenty of runtime after a quick top off and lastly we should probably talk about tango augmented reality has the potential to affect nearly every service we might run from our phones the initial batch of apps we've played with are all very promising but we're still in early days yet what's nice about a r / virtual reality it's a lot easier to share the experience with other people where daydream needs to be experienced one person at a time wearing something on your face that blocks out the rest of the world tango can be viewed side by side showing someone this Domino app letting them play only requires me to pass the phone over and I can still guide or share in that experience as they play it's still incredibly raw think the early days of cardboard but the fact that we're already seeing productivity solutions and not just games is encouraging we were asked by numerous folks in our hands-on video how accurate this hardware was at measuring distance and we're happy to report it's pretty close usually within a 1/2 inch of a proper tape measure we wouldn't rely on it just yet to do precision work but it's significantly faster at getting the general proportions of a room right to drop-in furniture on a personal note it was a funny realization though that I didn't have to hold still while scanning we're just so used to that sensitivity or shooting panorama photos you can walk around drop markers get up close tango does the gig well and in a much more casual way than previous solutions so let's wrap this up where's that leave us with the Lenovo fab 2 pro when judged on the merits of being a mini tablet phone Lenovo's offering delivers a reasonable bang for buck in the United States what would we compare it against we can't imagine the market is huge but if you want a 6 inch plus screen in a device which feels like a premium handset you're not going to be satisfied by pixels and iPhone pluses a $500 is an impulse by territory but the screen size alone somewhat warrants the higher cost over the various terrific $400 phones be reviewed this year though it's a shame that it's lacking NFC and that the camera game is so weak it's not an exciting phone at $500 but there's enough here to justify the cost as it stands most people would be safer considering this a companion device like a mini tablet to another phone then you add tango to the mix and the story shifts a little bit now at $500 you're buying something unique literally no other phone has this it's rare that we find something truly new in the mobile market augmented reality is rad but to be fair it always makes us a bit nervous recommending a phone built around one specific feature you are also buying into the promise of future services to come and that's the cost of doing business on the bleeding edge Google might walk away from this tomorrow but we don't think they will at least we hope they don't as always thanks so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more reviews like these and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for pocket now i'm juan carlos bag now some gadget guy on twitter and instagram and i will catch you all on the next review