Lenovo A7000 hands-on: touting Dolby Atmost at budget price

If you’ve seen Lenovo‘s two new tablets yesterday, then you might already guess the company’s MWC 2015 spiel by now. It is offering affordable mobile devices that try to give the best, particularly in the audio department. Th new Lenovo A7000 walks this line as well. What is normally a mid-tier smartphone is made more interesting by the inclusion of Dolby’s Atmos technology. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Lenovo is throwing in some other interesting tidbits as well to make the budget smartphone a bit more enticing.

In terms of hardware specs, the A7000 clearly lies on the middle range. You have a 1.5 GHz octa-core MediaTek MT6752m running the show, assisted by a decent 2 GB of RAM. The display is large but somewhat disappointing, a 5.5-inch 1280×720 IPS screen to be exact. The 8 GB storage is actually even more disappointing, especially since it only supports up to 32 GB more via a microSD card. In terms of battery life, the 2,900 mAh might do well, but with 4G LTE in the mix, it could just as easily be drained. The smartphone supports two micro SIM cards.

Let’s face it. The Lenovo A7000 wouldn’t even be an interesting piece if it weren’t for Dolby Atmos. This new technology that the audio expert is pushing to mobile devices promises to deliver a cinematic audio experience. Of course, you wouldn’t know that if you listened through the speakers. You’ll have to use earphones instead in order to experience the crisper, multi-directional, and richer sounds that the technology offers.

Lenovo is also touting the smartphone’s slim and lightweight body, at only 7.9 mm thick and 140 g heavy. On the software side, Lenovo’s DOit apps aim to please, with SHAREit for easy sharing, CLONEit for migrating from an old phone, and SYNCit for backing up contacts and messages. It will also run Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box.

The Lenovo A7000 Dolby Atmos-powered smartphone will available this month in countries that carry Lenovo smartphones. The price tag will be $169 and color options include Onyx Black and Pearl White.