Lenovo announces camera-centric Vibe Shot

Today at Mobile World Congress 2015, Lenovo have announced a new camera-centric smartphone dubbed the Lenovo Vibe Shot. Aiming to bridge the gap between smartphones with good cameras – such as the Lumia 1020 – and camera-first smartphones – such as the Panasonic CM1 – the Lenovo Vibe Shot combines a modern smartphone body with several pro camera features to create a truly unique package.

 

The Vibe Shot features a 5 inch Full HD 1080p IPS display with Gorilla Glass 3 protection and is powered by a 64-bit octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor clocked at 1.7GHz with 3GB RAM and 32GB internal storage which can be expanded by up to 128GB using a microSD card slot. The Vibe Shot sports an aluminium frame and runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop with Lenovo’s new slicker Vibe UI on top.

The real magic of the Vibe Shot happens on the back as this is where the smartphone gives way to the professional camera. The rear camera is a 16MP rear autofocus camera with tricolor flash – a first on smartphones – along with a six-piece lens, Optical Image Stabilisation and a Backside Illuminated sensor. The Vibe Shot also comes with Laser autofocus offering double the focusing speed (compared to non-laser autofocus) and the tricolor flash automatically adjusts the luminosity of the images based on the ambient light.

The Vibe Shot is one of a rare breed of smartphones to feature a dedicated hardware camera shutter button and next to this button is a switch which, when toggled, flicks between smart shooting and pro shooting modes. The pro shooting modes offer complete control over photography including the ability to manually set the exposure, ISO, white balance (and many more) whilst the smart shooting mode automatically adjusts the photo depending on the scene – in a demo, Lenovo showed off the smart shooting mode automatically flicking from portrait mode when focused on a face to food mode when focused on a plate of fruit.

The Vibe Shot is just 7.3mm thin and weighs just 145 grams but still manages to come 4G LTE Cat 4 support, an 8MP front facing snapper, 2900 mAh battery and a dual Nano SIM card slot allowing you to use two SIM cards at once. The Vibe Shot will launch with a recommended retail price of $349 (before taxes and subsidies) when it launches globally in June later this year.