The budget smartphone market has extremely cutthroat competition and an array of new models that keeps on emerging to grab the attention of the buyers. Unlike the premium smartphone models, the budget smartphones have much larger consumer base and generate greater sales volumes. This is because not only these low cost smartphone models suffice the need of the general mass market where the buyers are not willing to shell out a large sum of money, but also attract those buyers who frequently change their mobile phones. The budget smartphone market thus, constantly gets flooded with new devices intensifying the already fiery competition. There are many smartphone makers that engage in immense competition. Among these, two prominent companies are the fellow Chinese mobile makers – Lenovo and Xiaomi.
Once again Lenovo is all ready to lock its horns with its very capable market rival Xiaomi with its latest budget smartphone offering which has been named as the new Lenovo Lemon 3. The Lenovo Lemon 3 has been launched in the Chinese mobile market shortly after the Xiaomi Redmi 3. The Redmi 3’s primary market rival is the new Lenovo Lemon 3 and both these new smartphone models are highly affordable, but good in capabilities and features. These two new offerings from the two Chinese mobile manufacturing companies will be fighting for dominance over the budget mobile market.
While Lenovo as well as Xiaomi are both renowned Chinese brands, their similar latest mobile handsets have been causing a lot of confusion among the buyers in the Indian market. The Lenovo Lemon 3 and the Xiaomi Redmi 3 are also expected to increase this confusion further, as these two come with almost identical technical specs as well as price.
While the new Xiaomi Redmi 3 as well as the new Lenovo Lemon 3 have still not landed in China and are currently on sale in China, they are soon expected to hit the Indian mobile market with aggressive price tags.
Let us put the Lenovo Lemon 3 against its arch rival Xiaomi Redmi 3 to compare the two similar handsets and find out which among these two is a worthier:
Display & Design
Xiaomi is well known for its neat and premium designing even for its low cost devices and the new Redmi 3 is no different. The Xiaomi Redmi 3 boasts of an all metal unibody design which looks really cool. The device has a thickness of 8.5 mm and weighs at 144 grams. Thus, it gets a sleek and light design which should offer a comfortable hold and usability. It packs in has 5 inch HD display with a screen resolution of 1280 x 720p with a pixel density of 294 ppi.
On the other hand, the new Lenovo Lemon 3 also flaunts a nice all metal design language in terms to be even with its arch rival. This handset also packs in a 5 inch large screen. However, the Lemon 3 beats the Redmi 3 when it comes to screen resolution, as it boasts of a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels resulting in a pixel density of 441 ppi. The Lenovo Lemon 3 comes with a thickness of 7.99 mm and weighs at only 142 grams.
This means that while the Lemon 3 and the Redmi 3 are very similar in terms of overall design, dimensions and display size, the Lenovo Lemon 3 will offer a better display with crisper and more detailed visuals with the help of its higher screen resolution.
Cameras
The Xiaomi Redmi 3 offers a 13 MP primary camera lodged at its back that comes paired to a LED flash, f/2.0 aperture and five physical lens setup. The device offers Phase Detection Auto Focus and delivers super fast 0.1-second focus. The Lenovo Lemon 3 also offers a 13 MP rear primary snapper that also gets an LED flash to enable better low light photography, but the exact camera specs are yet not known.
Both the Lenovo Lemon 3 and the Xiaomi Redmi 3 comes with a secondary 5 megapixel front facing camera to satisfy the selfie lovers. The Redmi 3 smartphone offers an f/2.2 aperture and has an array of great features such as face recognition and 36 intelligent self portrait styles for selfies. Xiaomi has also said a lot about the Redmi 3 photo shooting capabilities and claims to deliver great quality images. However the details of the Lenovo Lemon 3’s cameras are still not known, and thus in this category the winner can’t be decided as yet.
Hardware
The Xiaomi Redmi 3 and the Lenovo Lemon 3 both pack in the same Octa core Qualcomm Snapdragon 616 chipset that is supported by 2 GB of RAM as well as Adreno 405 GPU. Both the devices also offer the same internal storage space of 16 GB along with microSD card support for memory expansion. In terms of hardware specs thus, both the devices are identical and are expected to deliver good performance.
Software & Connectivity
Again both Xiaomi Redmi 3 and the Lenovo Lemon 3 runs on the same OS, Android Lollipop. However, the Redmi 3 has the Xiaomi MIUI 7 on top which is quite admirable. Both the smartphone models also offer dual SIM card support and offer standard connectivity options including 4G LTE.
Battery Life
Xiaomi Redmi 3 draws its juice from a massive 4,100 mAh battery, which is its biggest draw point. On the other hand, the Lenovo Lemon 3 gets powered by a 2,750 mAh battery. Hence, in terms of battery life, the Redmi 3 beats Lemon 3 hands down.
Price
The new Lenovo Lemon 3 is tagged at ¥699 (approximately, Rs 7,143), which is again identical to the price of the Xiaomi Redmi 3. We are expecting the device to be little above Rs. 8K as it offers additional features like Full HD and so on.
Conclusion
The Lenovo Lemon 3 and the Xiaomi Redmi 3 are again two very close rivals and hard to choose from. Both these Chinese devices offer great value for money prospects and identical specs. The Redmi 3 offers a massive battery, while the Lenovo Lemon 3 offers better display and also sound quality. Thus, depending on the usability you can take your pick.