Lenovo lifts lid on 'layered' Vibe X2 and Z2 smartphones

Lenovo Vibe X2
Check out the Lenovo Vibe X2 smartphone

Lenovo has refreshed its smartphone range with the addition of two new devices under the Vibe banner showcased at IFA 2014.

The new flagship will be the Vibe X2, which is the world's first layered smartphone, which is exactly what it sounds like - the chassis is made up of three different "slices" adding to 7.27mm.

It is the first smartphone on the market - from a tier-1 player - that comes with Mediatek's MT6595m True8Core system-on-chip; this has four Cortex-A17 and four Cortex-A7 cores clocked at 2.2GHz and 1.7GHz respectively with 4G connectivity baked in.

The rest of the feature list makes it a compelling mainstream competitor; a 5-inch full HD IPS display, a rear 13-megapixel camera, a 5-megapixel front facing one,, a 2,300mAh battery plus a new range of accessories called Xtensions.

No Motorola updates yet

As for the Z2, it sports a brushed metal unibody chassis, 5.5in HD display, a rear 13-megapixel camera with Sony Exmor BSI sensor, an 8-megapixel front facing camera, a 3,000mAh battery and dual-sim support by default. A 64-bit, quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 401 system-on-chip powers the Z2.

Both smartphones come with 32GB onboard storage, 2GB of RAM and Android 4.4 OS with Lenovo's customized user interface, the VIBE 2.0; the X2 carries a $399 SRP (about £250, AU$ 450) while the Z2 will, oddly enough, sell for $429 (about £270, AU$470).

The Chinese manufacturer expects to become third biggest smartphone maker worldwide after Motorola's acquisition and noted that about 2000 Motorola engineers will join Lenovo.

Desire Athow
Managing Editor, TechRadar Pro

Désiré has been musing and writing about technology during a career spanning four decades. He dabbled in website builders and web hosting when DHTML and frames were in vogue and started narrating about the impact of technology on society just before the start of the Y2K hysteria at the turn of the last millennium.