Lenovo Released Vibe K5 Note earlier this year, and compared to their other member of the Note family, the Vibe K4 Note (also released at the start of 2016), it comes with many upgrades including all-metal body, more RAM, and a better processor. Let’s see if all those upgrades are worth the price difference and which one should you choose.
First, the price – Lenovo K5 Note comes with a price tag of $180 for 3GB RAM variant and around $200 for the variant with 4 gigs of RAM. On the other side, we have K4 Note packing a price of $165 (3 gigs of RAM, 16GB of storage). The K5 Note comes with an all-metal body which received a minimal facelift; the phone is a bit thinner, shorter at the sides and a bit less bulky when it comes to height (152×75.7×8.5 mm compared to K4 Note’s 153.6×76.5×9.2 mm). The K4 Note packs dual speaker combo on the front, while K5 Note has a speaker on its back. Both the phones come with Android 5.1 (Lollipop).
Displays are pretty much the same. Both K5 and K4 come with an IPS LCD 5.5-inch displays packing a 1080p resolution. Hardware-wise, the K5 Note comes with much better SoC. It features MediaTek Helio P10 (MT6755) with a combination of octa-core 1.8 GHz Cortex-A53 and Mali-T860MP2 GPU; while the K4 Note comes with MediaTek MT6753 SoC, offering octa-core 1.3 GHZ Cortex-A53 in combination with Mali-T720MP3 GPU. It’s obvious that the Lenovo K5 Note comes with much better GPU. Antutu score of P10 being a bit under 48,000 points; K4 Note, with its SoC scores just a bit under 38,000 points, meaning that K5 is (at least to Antutu) more than 25 percent faster, which is a nice upgrade considering $15 price difference (for 3GB of RAM K5 Note variant).
Looking at cameras, both models offer 13MP rear camera capable of 1080p@30fps video recording. The only difference is that the K5 Note offers better front-facing camera (8MP compared to 5MP found on K4 Note). Lenovo K4 Note comes with 3 gigs of RAM and 16 gigabytes of internal storage, while K5 Note is available with 2 gigs of RAM and 16GB of storage (version selling in China), and 3/4GB of RAM combined with 32GB of storage (version selling in India). Lenovo K5 Note comes with a solid 3500mAh battery, while K4 Note has a bit smaller 3300mAh battery. Both phones feature a fingerprint sensor.
When looking at all features, and price tags of both phones, it comes naturally for us to recommend Lenovo K5 Note. The 3GB version costs only $180 ($15 higher than K4) while offering better chipset, higher quality body, nimbler dimensions and slightly bigger battery.