Last August, Lenovo sub-brand ZUK entered the affordable flagship battle with the Z1, an Android phone with a 5.5-inch 1920x1080 display, Snapdragon 801, and more. Today ZUK is back at with a new flagship-tier smartphone.
The ZUK Z2 Pro features a slightly smaller screen that its predecessor, offering a 5.2-inch 1920x1080 Super AMOLED panel. Around back lives a 13-megapixel Samsung ISOCELL camera with optical image stabilization and an f/1.8 aperture, and below the camera is a heart rate sensor. You can use this sensor to include your heart rate when you’re taking a selfie, and the rear camera has a trick that’ll let you use it as a UV detector.
Around on the front of the ZUK Z2 Pro is an 8-megapixel camera with an f/2.0 aperture, and as with many other phones nowadays, the Z2 Pro offers a beautification mode to improve your selfies. Also on the front of the Z2 Pro, below the screen, is a fingerprint reader.
Diving inside of the Z2 Pro, there’s a Snapdragon 820 processor, 64/128GB of storage, 4/6GB of RAM, 4G LTE, USB Type-C 3.1, Quick Charge 3.0, and a 3100mAh battery. The Z2 Pro also offers a rollcage-style design that includes a layer in-between the curved glass rear and the metal frame that is meant to help protect the Z2 Pro if you drop it.
The ZUK Z2 Pro runs Android below the custom ZUI 2.0 interface, and as with the Z1, you can use the Z2 Pro’s fingerprint reader to perform actions in the software. Gestures like single and double taps and horizontal scrolling all help you perform tasks. One other notable software feature of the Z2 Pro is that you can use it to sync with Apple’s iCloud service. It remains to be seen how well it works, but hey, it’s interesting nonetheless.
The ZUK Z2 Pro will be available in two versions. The top-end model with 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM will cost 2,699 yuan, or around $417 USD, and it’ll be available for pre-order in China on April 22. The other version will have 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM, but there’s no word yet on its pricing.
The Z2 Pro looks like a pretty solid second offering from Lenovo’s ZUK brand. It’s got a good-looking design and crams high-end specs — especially that model with 6GB of RAM — into a device that’s not too expensive considering the features that it offers. Unfortunately, like most of these affordable high-end Chinese smartphones, it’s not clear when or if the Z2 Pro will come to the US. ZUK did say that it plans to continue sales in Europe and the Middle East, though, so folks in those parts of the globe will get to try the Z2 Pro.
