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Banggood

Lenovo Zuk Z2 5" 1080p Snapdragon 820 4GB/64GB $161.91USD

  • Last Updated:
  • May 29th, 2017 10:26 am
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Nov 28, 2013
21330 posts
10938 upvotes
Oakville
ChippewaBarr wrote: According to willmyphonework.net it has LTE Band 4-AWS though? Is that site wrong? (Hope not since I ordered one a while back for Koodo use).
It has AWS LTE support, but not AWS 3G. That's why it doesn't work with Wind.
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Aug 29, 2012
9301 posts
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wearysky wrote: Were you the one that posted the sample photos in one of the other threads about this phone? I don't see them in the most recent BG thread. I recall the "grainy" shots looking pretty fine at anything other than 100% zoom (which, for cell phone cameras, is a ridiculous thing to judge it on... Especially for a $200ish cell phone camera)

I used this phone's camera for a few weeks, under many different situations. I found out that not only it took horrible pictures, but unless one has perfect lightning conditions, good luck getting this one to focus. Even with selfies in a room that was steady and just a tiny bit lacking in lightning it took a horrible out of focus, grainy picture.

I refuse to touch it ever again. Don't believe those who say it is not do bad. The camera is a TURD.
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Sep 7, 2014
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Onterrible
wearysky wrote: It has AWS LTE support, but not AWS 3G. That's why it doesn't work with Wind.
Ah I got what you mean now, thanks for the confirmation.
Jr. Member
Aug 12, 2008
111 posts
38 upvotes
Toronto
I've been using this phone for several months now with LineageOS. If you want a phone with a good camera, don't buy this phone. If you want a phone that performs exceptionally well for an amazing price, this is the phone for you.

Personally, I don't really care about photo quality on my phone, I'm more interested in performance. For around $200 CAD, you can't really find a better phone.

But if camera quality is really important, go ahead and spend $500+ on a different phone.
Poutinesauce wrote: I used this phone's camera for a few weeks, under many different situations. I found out that not only it took horrible pictures, but unless one has perfect lightning conditions, good luck getting this one to focus. Even with selfies in a room that was steady and just a tiny bit lacking in lightning it took a horrible out of focus, grainy picture.

I refuse to touch it ever again. Don't believe those who say it is not do bad. The camera is a TURD.
Member
Aug 15, 2012
357 posts
82 upvotes
Mississauga
This should be a good phone for gaming, I hope. But Lenovo's lack of optimization may hinder performance. I heard ZUI's a pretty light skin? Not sure.

Really tempted to pick one up seeing as it's somewhat cheaper than what I usually see it for ($60 more). I just really need a decent Android gaming device right now. The 820 makes this a killer deal.

Pity about the camera. I wonder how it fares compared to the Le Max 2 or Pro 3. Better? Worse? The same?

I'm a bit disillusioned with phone cameras these days. Most of my photos are taken indoors and even the iPhones I've tried produced crappy, grainy results.
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Apr 13, 2004
458 posts
438 upvotes
York Region, Ontario
wearysky wrote: It has AWS LTE support, but not AWS 3G. That's why it doesn't work with Wind.

Again, this is WRONG.

Freedom uses band 4 in Peterborough eastward to Ottawa.

In the GTA, they use band 66. Either way, there is no 3G AWS support. No go with Freedom.
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Sep 7, 2014
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sk2003 wrote:
sk2003, I quoted you just so you could be notified of my mini-review.

I promised a mini-review, because who doesn't love some good old retrospective.

So I've had this phone for about two weeks now, arrived last Monday after ordering in Feb, so basically exactly 4 weeks which wasn't bad. Chose free shipping through Royal Mail as method of shipment, paid C$239.

First impression was the solidness of the build, pretty impressive for a device this price, however it is Lenovo so I imagine it should be decent right off the bat. Second impression was the speed of this thing, it is fast and crushes through any task I can throw at it, even with multiple apps open, no RAM reloading. I ran Antutu on it and it was hitting 135k or so, which is extremely impressive!

First thing I did though was wipe the modded ROM from ******** and flash the official India MM ROM. Super easy following the steps online. It's been rock solid stable so far and is very light. Coming from someone who claimed to only ever go with stock Android, I can say it's very light, doesn't bog it down at all. In addition, the Indian ROM gets rid of all the Chinese default apps and replaces them with very few new ones, which are easily uninstalled and not baked into the software.

My only gripe so far would be the way notifications are presented in the notification drawer. I miss being able to inline reply to texts or expand notifications that are longer, but alas you can just view what's there and tap on them as per normal to go into the respective app. I'm hoping the Nougat update adds this in...or I'll bite the bullet and pick the most stable and stock feeling custom ROM. I feel this phone is going to ramp up in popularity over the next while...I mean, you're getting an Adreno 530 and SD820 (that are used effectively) in a C$240 package! This thing has tons of potential.

Note about signal: I'm on Koodo and get better reception than I had previously with my Nexus 5, so was happy about that as well, despite being expected.

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask and I'll try and answer best I can
Newbie
Nov 26, 2012
50 posts
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Montreal
Is the deal dead? I get "This coupon is not available for limited offer products."
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Sep 7, 2014
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dougshidong wrote: Is the deal dead? I get "This coupon is not available for limited offer products."
Hey dougshidong, I use this site pretty often...searches all the major Asian sellers and tracks the pricing so you can see when it's best to buy.

Also these resellers will often price match others, so can always ask if you like buying from one particular store.
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May 22, 2006
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At ChippewaBarr:

How do you find the single key? Is the camera as shaky as people say? Or how would you compare it with the nexus?
Member since 2006

Fido- $40/15GB
Curren phone: Samsung s20FE
Member
Aug 15, 2012
357 posts
82 upvotes
Mississauga
@ChippewaBarr Thanks for the small review. So the ROM it ships with is the Chinese ROM? Shame, I thought there was an international English ROM. That sort of kills my excitement for the phone because I don't trust Chinese ROMs straight from vendors, but I don't want to risk flashing a ROM on the phone (which will inevitably require me to unlock the bootloader) in case the game I want to play doesn't work on the ROM. It's an online game with very finicky requirements. Pretty sure that, in addition to Safety Net (curse you Google), it looks for a whole host of other factors like if the ROM is a custom one or not, if SEAndroid is permissive or enforced (has to be enforced to my knowledge) and so on. It's worse than the average bank app Smiling Face With Horns But I really enjoy the game so I'm willing to make some sacrifices.

Of course, all of these problems are solved if I just get the Indian variant.
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May 22, 2006
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How good are bang good in giving back money if product never arrived? I had an issue once with aliexpress item shows delivered but never received after 1 month of complaint (5 months into it) , I just gave up
Member since 2006

Fido- $40/15GB
Curren phone: Samsung s20FE
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Sep 7, 2014
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keljai wrote: At ChippewaBarr:

How do you find the single key? Is the camera as shaky as people say? Or how would you compare it with the nexus?
Single key: honestly thought I was going to forgo it and go back to the on-screen keys (enabled in settings) before I got the phone, but I've been really impressed with it. Takes some getting used to but once you get the hang of it it's super efficient!

Camera: shaky as people say? Probably, but that's on the stock camera. Maybe it's me but I noticed MASSIVE improvements in picture quality by installing the Google Camera app. I've heard Snap Camera may be even better but haven't tested since I find current one fine.
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Sep 7, 2014
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sk2003 wrote:
No prob sk2003, however I should have been more clear; the ROM it ships with depends on the vendor but even the modded Chinese one I got from G34RB35T was defaulted to English. Only thing with this is if you try to update OTA 1) you can't since you need to be in China...Or do it with a VPN app and 2) if you do apparently it can soft brick your phone since the vendor modded the ROM and the updatedr is trying to update based on a stock ROM.

The stock Chinese ROM is fine from what I've read, stable with some glitches, just has tons of bloatware apps baked in that are uninstallable, but it is on N if that matters to you.

The stock Indian ROM however is apparently the best one according to the ZukFans.eu forums. No glitches 100% stable and like zero bloatware, kind of impressive actually, there's like one app you can't uninstall but it's to do with the U-Touch button...Also it's on MM which is no biggie for me.

So if you get one, just flash either the official CN or IND ROM, either is fine but I'd personally go for the IND. Also to alleviate your SafetyNet concerns, flashing the stock ROMs doesn't require unlocked bootloader since your using the actual tools Lenovo used to install the OS in the first place. I had those concerns as well so I've stuck to the official ROMs but someday I'll venture out into customs ROMs and try to use Magisk to avoid SafetyNet trips (love TRUE stock Android too much haha).

Apologies for the long-winded post!

EDIT: wow RFD censored the name of the vendor...weird!
Member
Aug 15, 2012
357 posts
82 upvotes
Mississauga
ChippewaBarr wrote:

So if you get one, just flash either the official CN or IND ROM, either is fine but I'd personally go for the IND. Also to alleviate your SafetyNet concerns, flashing the stock ROMs doesn't require unlocked bootloader since your using the actual tools Lenovo used to install the OS in the first place. I had those concerns as well so I've stuck to the official ROMs but someday I'll venture out into customs ROMs and try to use Magisk to avoid SafetyNet trips (love TRUE stock Android too much haha).
Oh yeah, I forgot. I should know that stock firmware doesn't require bootloader unlocks since I'm currently using Nexus Root Toolkit... I suppose every OEM works that way. I wonder if this phone can get discounted anymore? I hope so lol. If I did buy this phone, it'd be my first time buying a phone online from a Chinese store. I trust Banggood and ********, but I wish the ROMs on these phones weren't so fishy.
Newbie
Jan 25, 2012
96 posts
41 upvotes
Edmonton
sk2003 wrote: Oh yeah, I forgot. I should know that stock firmware doesn't require bootloader unlocks since I'm currently using Nexus Root Toolkit... I suppose every OEM works that way. I wonder if this phone can get discounted anymore? I hope so lol. If I did buy this phone, it'd be my first time buying a phone online from a Chinese store. I trust Banggood and ********, but I wish the ROMs on these phones weren't so fishy.
Can anyone please tell me how to change to IND ROM? I am a newbie.

Thanks
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Aug 22, 2001
7099 posts
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nishitboy wrote: Can anyone please tell me how to change to IND ROM? I am a newbie.

Thanks
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=how+to+flash+zuk+z2

there are several youtube videos.

Find compatible TWRP.
TWRP is an app that runs on the phone which lets you flash stuff like ROMS and APPS like the Google apps.

Find ROM. Places like XDA and zukfans have plenty.

Get ROM onto phone.
Reboot phone into TWRP.
Follow instructions on flashing ROM (wipe cache etc)

Enjoy.
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Apr 25, 2005
1275 posts
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For those wondering about shipping times, it took 16 days for me from order date till delivery. No taxes. Thanks OP. Now trying to figure how ROM related matters as I'm not quite sure what it's got running. Almost has no bloat ware and had zui 2.0.093 which corresponds with official rom version.
Newbie
Jul 27, 2012
3 posts
1 upvote
Edmonton
30 days since order and still waiting, YMMV !
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Jun 14, 2011
1801 posts
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i got mine on the 30th day after ordering(28th day after notification of shipping)

Looking for the best rom now. Already unlocked, installed TWRP, and rooted it. Not sure if i'm on the chinese or indian rom(Ordered from banggood. Theres a bit of bloat that cant be uninstalled without root. UC browser and some other icon with a green deer) but regardless id like to put something cleaner in. All i really care about keeping is the single button functionality. Everything else being stock with security updates, would be ideal(so i can then put my own media player, file manager, launcher, etc... on)

My total cost was $221(no taxes or duties on delivery), and that was for the phone and a cheap TPU case. Ordered a glass screen protector, a nicer case, and a few backup cables/dock from ebay that should hopefully get here next week. Once i get everything set up i can finally ditch by Mlais MX base... Which if i'm being honest, hasnt been too horrible a phone for its $150 price, even though it has not gotten updates in over a year.

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