Lenovo's Vibe Shot, the Smartphone That Looks More Like a Camera

Lenovo today at the MWC expo in Barcelona unveiled its latest smartphone: the Vibe Shot, a regular Android phone with a 16-megapixel camera at the rear, encased in an aluminum body, that looks like a compact Sony point-and-shoot camera.

The Vibe Shot features a 16 MP BSI sensor with optical image stabilization, tricolor LED flash, and six-element lens with sapphire coating in a premium 7.3mm thin aluminum chassis with Gorilla Glass 3 front and rear surface. It comes with a 5-inch 1080p display that offers 400+ ppi density, a 64-bit Snapdragon 615 chipset that is just a step below Qualcomm's finest, 3 GB of RAM, 32 GB of built-in storage, plus a microSD slot. In addition, the phone itself is a dual SIM device, offering two nano-SIM slots, and LTE connectivity. It ships with a lithium-polymer 2900 mAh battery pack.

Of course, the real selling point of the new Lenovo smartphone is its 16-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization (OIS) and tricolor flash. The device has a 2-stage shutter release mechanism that activates autofocus when pressed halfway. It also has a physical slider to flick between smart mode and pro mode. On smart mode, shooting pics is mainly automatic, but pro mode, it offers options to change the ISO level, white balance, exposure, and many more settings. Like other smartphone models, the Vibe Shot also has an 8-megapixel camera at the front.

Running on the Android 5.0 Lolipop OS, the Vibe Shot is planned to be launched in June, priced at $349 without any carrier subsidies in markets where Lenovo currently ships its smartphones.

In related news, Lenovo on Friday announced that at it will stop shipping PCs with adware and bloatware and that it now aims to be the "leader in providing cleaner, safer PCs." Said the company: "The events of last week reinforce the principle that customer experience, security and privacy must be our top priorities.  With this in mind, we will significantly reduce preloaded applications.  Our goal is clear:  To become the leader in providing cleaner, safer PCs." Last week, the company suffered massive backlash from the public after the discovery that it was routinely shipping bundled advertising software with its products.