Audio, Display and Camera Quality

The ZUK Z1 is a quasi-flagship device, so we expect top notch display and camera quality.

The 450-nit 5.5-inch display is good and we have no complaints. ZUK states that the display boasts a 1500:1 contrast ration and 100% NTSC gamut reproduction.

Good hardware is just part of the story. The phone has some clever display tricks up its sleeve, thanks to Lenovo engineering and Cyanogen developers. We liked the LiveDisplay feature, which tunes everything depending on light conditions. LiveDisplay changes the colour temperature depending on the time of day. In other words, the display is cooler during daylight hours, and it switches to a warmer tone at night.

Adaptive brightness works flawlessly and the phone has an automatic outdoor mode as well. You can also tweak the brightness by swiping along the status bar, and you can set the camera app to work at 100% brightness all the time, which is more useful than it sounds (just trust us on this one).

Audio quality shouldn’t be a problem, although we’ve seen better speakers on some similarly priced devices. The side firing speaker on the ZUK Z1 is average. Headphone output is the bright spot, and the included AudioFX app helps as well.

Call quality is excellent, nothing to talk about, pardon the pun

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What about the camera? Some reviewers blasted the ZUK Z1 for having a subpar camera, so we didn’t expect much. However, as our sample images prove, the IMX214-based camera isn’t bad at all. It’s possible that these early review units shipped with unpolished camera software, because we weren’t disappointed by the performance at all.

Daylight indoor photos were very good, probably the best we’ve seen on an IMX214 device.

Night shots weren’t as good, probably due to the limited f/2.2 aperture. However, they were still above average for this type of sensor.

Outdoor shots in Audo mode were above average, so we tried playing with the HDR mode.

HDR delivers good results, but we’ve seen faster HDR implementation on slower and cheaper devices. It’s really not a big deal, because quality is not an issue.

In some (admittedly extreme) lighting situations, HDR can be a tad too aggressive, but on the whole we’d say it delivers above average results.

So how does the ZUK Z1 manage to outperform competing smartphones with the same camera sensor, despite its inferior aperture? Optical image stabilisation is the answer. The ZUK Z1 can afford to expose the image a bit longer without blurring it. The slow aperture does take its toll, as low-light images still end up with a fair amount of noise. Could stabilisation be to blame for HDR lag? We can’t say for sure, but it’s a possibility.

The 8-megapixel front facing camera is good and more than sufficient for the occasional selfie and video call. The ability to max out the display brightness also helps if you’re taking selfies or talking to someone in a poorly lit environment.

The camera app is minimalistic, but all the key features are on board. You can easily change shooting modes by a simple flick from the top of the screen, you can use the volume rocker and power buttons to take a shot, and you can tell the camera app to pump up the display brightness to 100%.

There’s also a few filters to choose from, and the photo editor is quite good as well.