Launching this month in India: LG X Screen, Zopo Speed 8, Lenovo K5 Note

The competition in the Indian smartphone market is getting intense which is dominated by Samsung, Lenovo/Motorola, Xiaomi and LeEco. So far this month Samsung launched a slew of devices including Galaxy J2 2016, Galaxy J Max, Galaxy On5 Pro and Galaxy On7 Pro and there were also smartphone offerings from Panasonic (Elugua Note), LG (Stylus 2 Plus) and domestic vendors like iBall, Karbonn among others.

Now in the next couple of days three new smartphones will be making its way into the country – LG X Screen (July 18), Zopo Speed 8 and Lenovo K5 Note (both on July 20). All three smartphone has unique selling feature and it will be interesting to see how they fare.

LG X Screen

LG X Screen which made its debut in MWC will launch in the country on July 18. The main highlight of X Screen is its 1.76-inch 'Always-on' secondary screen above the main display, just like the flagship V10. The secondary screen lets you easily access frequently used apps, answer calls, control music playback and check the time, date, notifications and battery status without interrupting the current activity on the main screen.

The specs include 4.93-inch HD IPS display, Snapdragon 410 SoC, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, microSD card slot, 13MP rear camera w/ LED flash, 8MP front camera, 4G LTE and 2300mAh battery. It runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. 

Zopo Speed 8

The Zopo Speed 8 will launch in India on July 20. To recap, the Speed 8 was unveiled at MWC as the first smartphone to pack deca-core processor.

The specifications include 5.5-inch Full HD display, deca-core Helio X20 SoC, 4GB RAM, 32GB internal storage, 21MP Sony IMX230 rear camera (w/ LED flash), 8MP front camera (w/ LED flash) 4G LTE, NFC, USB Type-C, dual-SIM slots, 3600mAh battery, fingerprint scanner and Android Marshmallow. It was introduced at $299 (Rs. 20,000), so we can expect it to cost around this price point, however the Speed 8 is available on Amazon India for Rs. 31,5000. (not sure if final price) 

Lenovo K5 Note

The Lenovo K5 Note will launch on July 20 and pack top end specs on a budget. The K5 Note offers all-metal body, 5.5-inch Full HD display MediaTek Helio P10 processor, 2GB RAM, 16GB internal storage, microSD card slot, 13MP rear camera, 8MP front camera, dual-SIM slots, 4G LTE, Dolby Atmos Surround Sound, fingerprint scanner and Android 5.1 Lollipop (upgradable to Marshmallow). In China it's priced at CNY 1099 that's around Rs. 11,000 in India.

Out of the three, only Lenovo K5 Note looks like a worthy competitor in the budget segment, and we can expect it to sell like hot cakes, just like its predecessor, the K4 Note which sold over 6,000,000 units so far in India.