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$169 USD / $227 AU Lenovo ZUK Z2 (Snapdragon 820, 4GB RAM / 64GB EMMC, 5") from BangGood (Coupon)

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Was $189USD not low enough? How about $169?

Powerful 5" device running the Snapdragon 820 chipset with 4 gigs of RAM. Only downside — it comes with a tampered english ROM so you might want to flash a new ROM yourself, either a custom one or the official Indian locale ROM.

For roms, check here

Also supports Dual SIM, with 4G / 3G support, which is fine for those users on Telstra with deactivated 2G broadcast.

White version only.

No B28 support

Specs

5 inch 1080p IPS display
Snapdragon 820 system on a chip with Adreno 530
4gb Ram
64gb Non expandable storage
13mp main camera with Sony sensor
8mp selfie camera
Dual band wifi
No Nfc
3500mah integrated battery with Qualcomm Quick charge 3.0
Usb Type C port
Audio jack / FM radio

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closed Comments

  • -6

    Support for Australian 4G bands seems quite limited.

    • +27

      For those that wanna know the bands supported are

      ✓ B1 2100 MHz FDD [Telstra, Optus Tasmania, Vodafone]
      ✓ B5 850 MHz FDD [Vodafone only, Rolled out in capital cities and regional Queensland]
      ✓ B3 1800 MHz FDD [Telstra, Optus, Vodafone]
      ✓ B7 2600 MHz FDD [Telstra, Optus, TPG]
      ✓ B8 900 MHz FDD [Telstra only]
      ✘ B28 700 MHz FDD [Telstra Cat6, Optus]
      ✘ B40 2300 MHz TDD [only used for the NBN wireless broadband]

      this information has been compiled using data from Whirlpool and GSM arena.

      • +5

        Optus uses B40 2300MHz

        • +2

          Wow.. did not know that. Would be pretty expensive to set up the TDD-LTE since it kind of requires additional equipment to handle the time slicing and frequency broadcasting. But it means a lot more Chinese branded mobiles will work better on Optus then.

        • +2

          @bchliu: mmm…time slicing….

        • @homersyd:
          Time division multiplexing, I think.
          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-division_multiplexing
          Allows multiple users to share a single frequency.

      • +3

        Is there an app that tells you which band you're connected to and which one you're connected to most of the time?

        • i want to know this as well.

        • Try Network Signal Guru. Tells you which band you are connected to.

        • @WantToPayLess:
          Needs root I think

  • Wow those phones are sure getting cheaper.

    FWIW shipment of some USB cables took about 6 weeks.

    • cheap because they aren't made for the australian market hence limited band support. If it had band 28 and band 40 would probably cost more with those other specs.

      needed dual sim 3G/4G now that 2G has been turned off by Telstra so got the moto G4 plus, that was $320 but has the Australian 4G bands.

      • Band 28 support is a 'nice to have' for most people. Band 40 is almost completely irrelevant.

        The moto G4 plus looks nice, and if the larger screen isn't an issue, if it can be had for $320 with 4G RAM and 64GB storage it would be a good buy, albeit $100 more than this.

  • +3

    This is really cheap price for 4GB ram

    • +20

      I think you are missing the main selling point of this phone. This is the cheapest phone on the market that has a Snapdragon 820 processor.

      • Yes when you compare the performance of the 820 vs say the 625 in the RN3PP, it is leaps and bounds ahead. As long as this had a decent screen and build quality this should be a superior hoice, bar lack of some 4G bands.

        • +1

          RN3P has Snapdragon 650 I thought? (The Kate version)

        • +2

          @twister292: Kenzo and Kate are both SD650. The SD820 is much faster than the SD650 (on Antutu at least). Apparently the LCD on the Z2 is not very good according to Reddit reviews, so many people have opted for the Pro model instead

        • +2

          @pseudobacon:
          It's not only faster, but MORE importantly it is more efficient.
          If you were to grade the performance, power, and efficiency of superphone processors….
          ….over the years it would look something like this:

          Chip type/name____Performance metric____Power drain___Overall efficiency rating
          Cortex A5__________(100%)_________________222______________450
          Snapdragon S1_______105_________________1,050______________(100%)
          Cortex A8___________120_________________1,091______________110
          Snapdragon S2_______125_________________1,087______________115
          Cortex A7___________130__________________260______________500
          Cortex A32__________140__________________255______________550

          Cortex A9___________165________________1,320_______________125
          Cortex A35__________170__________________293______________580
          Cortex A53__________190__________________409______________465
          Krait 300____________215________________1,344_______________160
          Cortex A12__________225________________1,154_______________195

          Apple A7____________240________________1,091_______________220
          Krait 400____________255________________1,275_______________200
          Cortex A15__________270________________2,077_______________130
          Cortex A17__________275________________1,222_______________225
          Krait 450____________280________________1,217_______________230

          Apple A8____________315________________1,068_______________295
          Atom X7-8750________320_________________1,280_______________250
          Cortex A57__________375________________1,364_______________275
          Apple A9____________390________________1,083_______________360

          Kryo 100____________465________________1,329_______________350
          Cortex A72__________480________________1,352_______________355
          Cortex A73__________490________________1,289_______________380
          Intel Core M7________600________________2,000_______________300

        • @Kangal: Which is also supported by GSMArena's battery benchmarking. http://www.gsmarena.com/battery-test.php3 put the slider to all web browsing (seriously who uses a phone to make calls anymore) and you'll see the SD820 equipped Mi 5 come pretty close to the SD650 equipped Redmi Note 3 Pro, even with a 1000mah battery deficit

        • @pseudobacon:
          Not that I doubt you, I concur, but you have to remember they aren't exactly identical.
          There's still the factors of the motherboard, daughter-units, radios, display, and software to take into account.

          Also, the QSD 650 is a great chip in its own right.
          Its balanced in terms of drain and heat production. And makes a decent upgrade to from the QSD 800, QSD 801, and QSD 805 chips.

          There's little reason to upgrade from the QSD 650 ….to the QSD 652, QSD 653,
          ….or (the hated) QSD 808 and QSD 810 units.

          However, the Exynos 7420 from 2015's Galaxy S6 is in a league above them all.
          And that league contains the newer Exynos chips, Apple A9 and A10 chips,… the QSD 820 and QSD 821.
          This group is approaching/nipping at the heels of Intel's Core M chipset.

          Can't wait to see what surprises Nvidia/ARM/Nintendo has with the Switch handheld convertible console.

      • Serious question. I almost only ever buy $49 local Android phones so I'm out of touch. When you get to the $200 mark of China-phones do the processors still make a big difference these days for Google apps (browser, YouTube, Maps etc, which is all I use 90% of the time).

        • +6

          Typically at around $200 dollars, you can only get a budget Mediatek Helio X10 or Snapdragon 650 device, which aren't bad but won't hold a candle to the Snapdragon 820. The SD 820 is a powerful CPU typically found in much pricier models (LG G5, HTC 10, Galaxy S7 Edge), so it is very unusual for a SD 820 to be found in such a budget phone. Hence, the popularity of this phone amongst power-users (with a tight budget)

          It's not just the processor. The $49 dollar phones you get from a supermarket typically are low memory devices with around 512MB -> 1GB of RAM, which makes them pretty awful at multitasking. You might be lucky to get one minor update to fix any major bugs, but it's very unlikely to see, say, a value-phone get updated from Android Lollipop to Marshmallow, unless there's a big community behind it to mod the phone.

          and you'd probably get a lot of messages like this or this. You'll see it a lot less with a higher end device.

        • @scrimshaw: Thanks Scrimshaw!

  • If you flash a custom rom on this phone and for whatever reason decide to go back to the stock rom, your phone will be blocked from receiving updates OTA. You'll still be able to update your phone by flashing which might be a pain.

  • Did anyone buy it? I saw this deal earlier but could not get coupon to work, so did not post.
    It could be for those who bought from banggood before

  • Good price but this phone has some software issues:
    Spotify continues playing music when answering phone call
    Alarm may not work (due to aggressive killing of apps)

    And it has one physical button which will take time to get used to.

    • +1

      Regarding Spotify playing music in the background during phone calls, I wouldn't say that's a problem with the device. I have a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge and I experience the same issue. I believe it's a bug - I am running a beta release anyway. The app has never worked flawlessly for me on any device, beta or not.

    • Pretty sure the Spotify issue happens on Samsung Galaxy Note 3 (Android 4.4)

  • +5

    Wait whattttt, you can get a flagship processor with a lot of ram and storage for ~$220 now =0

    Phones sure are getting cheap

    • +4

      Well, Chinese phones are.

      Pixel and iPhone say otherwise.

    • Not to mention Qc 3.0! You never find that in cheap phones.

  • Good specs…if only it didn't have such a crappy ROM

    • Get your hands on mi5s sales in mid january

  • I was looking at this phone, but decided against it when I saw it had no NFC. Only real use of a fingerprint sensor is payments at the moment, and this phone can't make payments.

    • +1

      I never use the NFC except for checking the balance of my opal card (which I could do, if i had it in my account anyway)
      Fingerprint is fantastic for unlocking your phone hassle free without typing pins or patterns..

      • Yeah, I never thought the fingerprint scanner would be much use, but it's great to pickup my wife's G5 and it just switches on.

  • shame the screen is not bigger, would have bought one :-(
    by the way, how is the custom rom scene for this phone?
    Is Cyanogenmod doing official builds? or mostly one off from random people?

    • +2

      There are a few ROMs around, including unofficial Cyanogenmod

      http://forum.xda-developers.com/t/lenovo-zuk-z2

      • +2

        What do people suggest is the best ROM to put on this? I have one just arrived for my daughter for Christmas.

        • Any thoughts?

        • @ozpanda:
          I currently run the official Indian rom. It's all the bells and whistles of the official Chinese roms without the bloatware/malware. Highly recommend this one.

          You should check out zukfans for a detailed comparison of roms and general info.

    • +1

      MoKee, a spin-off of CyanogenMod is doing official builds.

    • +4

      Smaller screen is better for me. I want a phone that fits in my pocket, not a tablet.

    • +2

      I'm glad to see a phone for the often neglected 5" phone market.

  • i have a redmi note 2 and annoyed with the battery life on it, and the 16gb on onboard storage. it goes quick and i don't even have any games installed lol. apart from that no complaints

    want some opinions, should i get this, snapdragon processor will be heaps better than the helios chip i have atm, in regards to battery efficiency?

    or go with the note 3 with the snapdragon in it and 4000mhz battery? only thing is it only comes with 32gb of storage, this has 64 which i think is pretty good. shouldn't come into storage issues for a long time

    • +2

      I recommend the Redmi Note 3 (be sure to get the Snapdragon 650 variant instead of the Helio) over this phone mainly for the larger battery, microSD slot and better software overall.

    • Have you flashed the original software from Xiaomi onto it to be sure that you don't have spyware? I have the redmi note 2 and I can go 2 days without charging.

      • yeah i flashed the global rom first thing, it drains heavily if i watch youtube.

        i mean yeah, if i dont touch the phone it lasts ages. like overnight it only knocks off a few percent. but im always on facebook/whatsapp/soundcloud/youtube/instagram, im a heavy user at work lol

        • Maybe just a USB battery rather than a whole new phone?

    • Doesn't the RN2 have a replaceable battery?

      • Yes and a real original genuine battery is hard to find

  • NFC for google pay?

    • No NFC

    • No NFC here. This is a phone with compromises in places which might affect only subset of buyers.

  • +1

    How long are Banggood taking for delivery these days?

  • Although the specs is very good, I think it uglier than xiaomi

  • The phone looks amazing and even has a physical home button, sweet.
    Incredible specs for so cheap. Same Snapdragon 820 processor as 2016 flagships including the LG G5!
    Is the bootloader unlocked?

    • No. But AFAIK can unlock if u agree to voiding warranty.

      • Hahahaha. Banggood warranty? good one

        • Lenovo warranty

  • +1

    Wow.. lots of ROMs to choose from

  • Damn. Bought a Xiaomi Mi 5 for $350 2 weeks back.

    • Zuk Z2 and Mi 5 both have 4GB RAM and Snapdragon 820.

      However Mi 5 has optical image stabilization, Gorilla Glass, worse sensor size (1/2.8"), 500mah smaller battery.

  • -3

    This phone is garbage, you can have the best hardware in the world but if the software is rubbish then it doesnt even matter.

    • +4

      Pretty sure that a good custom ROM fixes this problem very easily

      • -5

        Custom ROMS made by some nerd in there basement, rarely work, even Cyanogen rarely works 100% on phones. I have use Custom ROMS before and its always been a rubbish experience.

    • Been using for 2 months, love this phone. Stock ROM (killed malware)

      • +2

        Hi psychd. Direct link to a guide to flash stock rom and kill the malware would be appreciated thanks.

    • +2

      Actually people have had excellent experiences with the Indian stock rom and you don't even need to to unlock bootloader to flash it.

      http://zukfans.eu/community/threads/indian-z2-plus-qpst-offi…

  • +1

    LOL BangGood… what a name, just like "The Well Hung" meat company. XD

  • +1

    Great phone, amazing price. 137K Antutu better than my new iPhone 7 with 135K. Only 1 button, just like the new iPhone 7.

    • Does anyone know if there soft buttons for Recents and Back?

      • +1

        Yes, you can enable this in the settings.

        • How's the SOT for 100% of battery?
          On wifi? On 4G?

        • @Fobsessive: No clue, I don't own the phone. Try watching reviews on YouTube.

        • +2

          Yeah, button is programmable, works well. Can program swipe up functions for menu, etc as well. Only occasionally miss the other buttoms

        • +1

          @Fobsessive: 3500 mAh lipo battery & feels like it. Happy with runtime.

        • I did research and it looks like the Back and Recents buttons are on-screen.
          Since there is already a physical home button they could have saved screen space with capacitive keys like Samsungs.

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