Lenovo P2 vs Xiaomi Mi Max 2 : Battle of The Two Powerhouses

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Xiaomi’s Mi Max 2 phablet was launched in India a few weeks back, and our readers have been requesting us to compare the giant phone with the Lenovo P2 and the Moto G5 Plus for quite some time. But since the Mi Max 2 and P2 fall in the same price bracket, we decided to clash the two first.

As mentioned above, the Mi Max 2 is a phablet as it comes with a huge 6.44-inch display. Apart from that, the smartphone’s USP is its big 5,300mAh battery. Both smartphones come with almost similar set of specifications, so it will surely be interesting to find out which one performs better.

Note: This review is based on the 4GB RAM/64GB ROM version of Xiaomi Mi Max 2 and 3GB RAM/32GB ROM variant of Lenovo P2.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE | Lenovo P2 vs Mi Max 2 Comparison

Xiaomi has beautifully-crafted the Mi Max 2. The new device is both sleek and stylish. Plus, its metallic body gives a premium feel.

The handset is insanely big and heavy, weighing 211g. So it’ll likely be a big NO for people with small hands. Even I couldn’t handle the handset with one hand, and I have big palms.
Coming to the back of the Mi Max 2, here you will find the camera along with dual- LED flash and fingerprint sensor. The left edge of the device has the SIM tray, while the right edge has the volume rocker and the power button.

The Lenovo P2, on the other hand, has a metallic body as well. The look and the feel of this smartphone met our expectations. It looks beautiful and easily fits in the hand.

Unlike Xiaomi Mi Max 2, the fingerprint sensor on the Lenovo P2 is placed at the front, below its display. At the top of the display, you’ll find the selfie camera, earpiece and usual sensor(s). As for the back, here you can find the camera along with dual-LED flash. On the left edge, there’s a SIM tray and ‘Power Saver’ button, while the volume rocker and power button are placed on the right edge.

Although the build quality of both handsets is identical, the Lenovo P2 takes a lead in this department with its small size and lesser weight.

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DISPLAY | Mi Max 2 vs Lenovo P2 Display Comparison

Lenovo P2 has a 5.5-inch FullHD Super AMOLED capacitive display with a pixel density of about 401ppi. Xiaomi Mi Max 2 also has a FullHD display, but pixel density is about 342ppi due to the bigger size of the display. The displays on both smartphones are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass.

Xiaomi Mi Max 2’s display is bright but unfortunately, it has lower pixel density which means it is not able to produce colors as vibrant as Lenovo P2. Plus, it has a bigger display and a bigger display requires higher ppi. So, with such low pixel density, it can’t event maintain the quality of an image while displaying. Further, its auto-brightness works fine and the display also comes with a “read mode” feature that makes the screen brightness slightly yellowish, thus making it perfect for those who like to read novelsor books on their smartphones for long durations of time.

On the other hand, Lenovo P2’s display is better than the Mi Max 2. It comes with smaller display and higher pixel density, making its display brighter, sharper and colorful. It produces amazing colors. Much like the Mi Max 2, its auto-brightness works fine and come with ‘Brightness Protection’ feature which is similar to Mi Max 2’s ‘read mode’.

In this section, the crown easily goes to the Lenovo P2.

USER INTERFACE

Xiaomi’s MIUI is a highly customized UI layer. The Mi Max 2 comes with the latest MIUI v8.1 (on top of Android Marshmallow) and packs countless features. It’s not simple, but also not that confusing after you get used to it. Some of the key features include three-finger screenshot, which lets you take a screenshot by swiping down three fingers simultaneously on the screen. Not just that, if you want to take a screenshot of any webpage that doesn’t fit on the screen in one go, you can choose the scroll screenshot feature, which scrolls the entire webpage and takes a combined screenshot of it. MIUI has a built-in app lock as well.

Mi Max 2 includes an IR blaster that can be used to control home appliances like air conditioners and TVs.

MIUI also has countless free themes that can completely change the look and feel of your Mi Max 2. Quick toggles and notifications can be accessed by swiping down from the top of the screen and are customizable. MIUI further comes with a ‘Dual App’ profile feature. Using it, you can clone any app to use multiple profiles on the same device. A ‘Quick Ball’ feature offers one-touch shortcut access, similar to that on the iPhones.

The Lenovo P2, on the other hand, comes with its own Vibe UI layer which is more like stock Android. The smartphone runs Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and the UI is alright for normal users, but advanced users might get bored of it in some time. That said, the UI is clean and doesn’t lag.

Other features of the Lenovo P2 include Quick snap, Knock to Light and Micro Screen.

In the first section, I mentioned that the P2 has a ‘Power Saving’ button. As soon as you turn it on, the smartphone becomes a basic phone. This means that in this mode, you can only use selected features like calls, text and contacts. It’s customizable as well.

The Mi Max 2 is a clear winner here, thanks to its highly customized Android UI layer that has themes and many other features.

PERFORMANCE | Lenovo P2 vs Xiaomi Mi Max 2 Performance

Both Xiaomi Mi Max 2 and Lenovo P2 are powered by a 2.0GHz octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 processor, coupled with 3GB of RAM and Adreno 506 GPU.

I found the performance on both the smartphones to be impressive. I played several heavy games including Modern Combat 5: Blackout, Asphalt 8, GTA Vice City and CSR Racing on both devices for about an hour. Meanwhile, I kept switching between Modern Combat 5 and GTA Vice City as well.

Both smartphones handled high-end graphics flawlessly and didn’t show any lag while switching between heavy apps. In about 40 and 50 minutes, Mi Max 2 and Lenovo P2 started heating respectively. However, games ran smoothly on both smartphones and they didn’t lose considerable juice either.

In this section, there’s no clear winner as both smartphones are good.

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CAMERA | Lenovo P2 vs Mi Max 2 Camera Comparison

The Lenovo P2 features a 13MP primary camera with f/2.0 lens aperture and dual-LED flash, while a 5MP camera with f/2.2 lens aperture is placed at the front.

The Mi Max 2, on the other hand, has a 12MP camera with f/2.2 lens aperture and dual-LED flash, whereas the front-facing shooter is a 5MP unit with f/2.0 lens aperture.

PRIMARY CAMERA

Both the Lenovo P2 and Mi Max 2 produce more or less similar images, but I feel that the Mi Max 2 is slightly better. Both smartphones click decent images in daylight and artificial lighting conditions. Talking about the sharpness, the Mi Max 2 takes a lead here as it takes more detailed images, while the P2 lacks at producing realistic colors.

Coming to HDR, I was a little bit confused as to how to describe it. The Mi Max 2 is good at covering lighter parts while maintaining good quality in darker parts, whereas the Lenovo P2 is good at covering darker parts while maintaining good quality at lighter parts.

Low-light pictures taken from both smartphones are not at all good, even though those from the Mi Max 2 still look better than that of the Lenovo P2. The Mi Max clearly captures more detailed images than the Lenovo P2.

SECONDARY CAMERA

Well, everyone loves selfies and after seeing the samples of Mi Max 2, I can easily say go with it. THe smartphone uses some sort of filters to enhance the images, whereas the P2 produces more realistic colours in selfies.

BATTERY | Mi Max 2 vs Lenovo P2 battery

Xiaomi Mi Max 2 and Lenovo P2 are backed by a 5,300 mAh and 5,100 mAh battery respectively. Both handsets also come with fast charging technology.

Because Lenovo P2 doesn’t support measurement of in-detail battery consumption, we had to measure it manually. So we did half an hour of video recording, video playing, gaming and music playing (each) to find out how much battery the two smartphones consume. Below are the results:

Video Recording:        Mi Max 2: 6% | Lenovo P2: 5%
Video Playing:            Mi Max 2: 7% | Lenovo P2: 7%
Music Playing:            Mi Max 2: 3% | Lenovo P2: 5%
Gaming:                     Mi Max 2: 7% | Lenovo P2: 6%

The Mi Max 2 has a bigger battery than the Lenovo P2 but their charging time is almost similar. The Lenovo P2 took around 100 minutes to fully charge the battery whereas the Mi Max 2 took few minutes over. Below are the charging measurement.

30 Minutes:     33% (Lenovo P2) | 24% (Mi Max 2)
60 Minutes:     69% (Lenovo P2) | 51% (Mi Max 2)
100 Minutes:   100% (Lenovo P2) | 91% (Mi Max 2)

SOUND QUALITY

Both Mi Max 2 and Lenovo P2 have impressive sound quality. However, Lenovo P2’s quality is better than that of Mi Max 2. When playing audio without earphones on the Mi Max 2, you will realize that it lacks in terms of bass and treble. On the other hand, the Lenovo P2 produces the perfect blend of bass and treble.

The Mi Max 2 doesn’t come with earphones, whereas Lenovo P2 does. Unfortunately, the earphones suppl

In this section, the crown goes to Lenovo P2.

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FINGERPRINT SENSOR

Xiaomi Mi Max 2 and Lenovo P2 have fingerprint sensor with 360-degree fingerprint recognition support, which means you don’t need to place your finger straight to unlock the phone(s).

Both smartphones’ fingerprint sensors are extremely accurate, and any registered part of your finger unlocks the device(s) quickly. However, the Mi Max 2 is a bit quicker than the Lenovo P2. Not only this, even the Mi Max 2 gets unlocked if you swipe your finger on the fingerprint sensor, while the same is not the case with Lenovo P2.

In this section, the crown goes to Mi Max 2.

CONCLUSION

While both Mi Max 2 and Lenovo P2 are average smartphones with big batteries, I have come to the conclusion that both are overpriced. With the specifications they have, they should be sold under Rs 12,000.

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