USING the Lenovo VIBE Shot is like “having a full camera,” said National Geographic documentary photographer Hannah Reyes during the phone’s launch in Cebu.
Reyes, currently based in in Phnom Penh, is a National Geographic Young Explorer and recently completed an expedition to document changing indigenous cultures in Northern Luzon. Her work has been published both in print and online in publications like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Time.com, NationalGeographic.com, The Diplomat, The Guardian and Lonely Planet.
Lenovo has partnered with National Geographic to promote the Vibe Shot, its latest smartphone released as part of the Vibe On campaign aimed at millennials.
Reyes said during the launch in Cebu last Aug. 14 that the Lenovo Vibe Shot “feels good in my hands.” She said that what she liked about the phone was its manual controls.
The Vibe Shot has a toggle that allows a user to turn on two modes: auto or pro. With auto, the phone acts like a regular point-and-shoot camera with composition guides for portrait, food and scenery shots. During the launch, Lenovo Smartphones Philippines marketing manager Vincent dela Cruz demonstrated how the viewfinder displayed notifications like “good” and alerts that the subject was too close when taking photos using the auto mode.
In pro mode, the camera has slider controls to manipulate the aperture, shutter speed, white balance and ISO setting. Reyes said the phone’s range of focus “is really good.”
Reyes said another thing that she liked about the Vibe Shot was its dedicated shutter button. Long-pressing that button wakes the phone into camera mode, ready to take a photo.
Dela Cruz also said in his presentation during the launch that the Vibe Shot is the first phone to have a tri-color LED flash that takes “the most natural-looking photos.” It also has optical image stabilization (OIS) technology and takes good images even in low light.
During the launch, Reyes displayed some of the stunning photos she took in Cebu using the Vibe Shot.
“It is a stylish and powerful smartphone that consumers want,” said Lenovo Smartphones Philippines country manager Dino Romano, “and an advanced camera that budding and seasoned photographers will love to use.”
The phone has formidable hardware specs for its price range. It has an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor. The company said in its specifications brochure that this is chip “engineered for multitasking, but is extremely power efficient at the same time.”
The Vibe Shot has a 3GB RAM with 32GB of built-in storage that it expandable, via a microSD card, up to 128GB. The phone offers LTE connectivity and comes with Android Lollipop. It has Corning Gorilla Glass front and back with an aluminum outer frame. The phone is sold at P17,999.
Romano said during the launch that the Vibe Shot was released as part of its Vibe On campaign targeted at millennials.
The campaign, the company said, is meant to offer millennials “smartphones with the latest technology and features that they care about, at a price they wouldn’t expect.”
(max@limpag.com)