Hands on: Lenovo Vibe Z.

Lenovo has actually commonly spoken about spreading its smartphone wings out into the broader world, and while it has moved out of China it hasn't succeeded in making the jump to the UNITED STATE or Europe. Not that it's been slacking because of this. In the meantime it has collected a substantial adequate market share to make it the world's 3rd biggest smartphone producer. Up till now, it has actually never ever produced a phone which we truly wanted. This changed at CES 2014, where we got the possibility to play with the recently revealed Vibe Z.

Regrettably, regardless of some reports to the contrary, Lenovo had nothing to release about a Vibe Z UNITED STATE or European version. It's not for want of attempting apparently, as a Lenovo representative told us the problem was attempting to reach some kind of compromise with the all-controlling networks. So, now you know you can't have it, we finest inform you why that's a bad thing.

It comes in two shades, gunmetal grey and titanium black, which looks best and really sets off the chrome base of the gadget. To offer the polycarbonate rear panel a various look, a laser-etched pattern has actually been used.

Flip the phone over and you're met a 5.5-inch, 1080p resolution display, which reveals Android 4.3. It's even more heavily skinned than we 'd like, and gets rid of the app drawer so we're left with pages of icons to look at, similar to iOS. To offset it, Lenovo has actually added in a selection of incentive functions. Our favorites focus (sorry) on the cam, particularly the lens above the display. While Huawei's Ascend Mate 2 can safely be crowned king of the selfies at CES 2014, the Vibe Z comes an extremely close 2nd.

The front video camera has 5-megapixels and an 84-degree large angle, for that reason it doesn't need the panoramic mode seen on the Mate 2 to fit your mates into the shot. Lenovo wants you all the best look, and has included a "Beautify" function which immediately tweaks the image for the best outcomes. If that's insufficient, an editing tool can offer you a tan, broaden your eyes, and even slash off a couple of pounds. It works well enough that's we'll never take a look at a selfie in the exact same means once again.

Lenovo understands the Vibe Z's a big phone, and we liked the modifications made to the onscreen keypad to allow one-hand use. To leave us well and genuinely teased, the Vibe Z is also Lenovo's first smartphone with 4G LTE connection.

It's not best though, and the choice not to put the sleep/wake key on the side of the phone where it belongs, however instead on top is fairly frustrating. It was made even worse by its last position, makinged finding it by touch frustratingly difficult.

By far the worst thing about the Vibe Z is that we can not pop out and buy one. Those in Lenovo's significant markets such as Indonesia, Philiphine, and Saudi Arabia, will see the Vibe Z in February, but the rest people should wait up until the contractual and legal wrangling between Lenovo and the networks has actually been exercised. For the first time, we're really rooting for the fits to arrange something out soon, as the Vibe Z suffices to ruffle some feathers.