So I checked Lenovo and Samsung stores personally and I found one to go with - Lenovo A7010 - 3GB 16GB version.
WHY?
1. I was looking for operating system variants, that have possibility to set device resource access per application - Lenovo A7010, Samsung J5.
- Lower product numbers like Samsung J3 was too simple to get per app access control.
- Lenovo K5 was even more terrible, prohibiting you to remove app icons from desktop, because it lacks application menu or any other menu!
2. Lenovo K5 Note (A7020) i have NOT tried, but it has 2SIM / 1SIM + SD combo slot. I have seen how to use both, but I don't like to do that. But it has better specs for not such a price difference..
3. Even Samsung OLED display in 720p looks slightly better than Lenovo 1080p IPS:
- Samsung version of Android GUI restricts you to remove "quick setting shortcut box" in settings menu. It leaves empty white box, suggesting you to add some “shortcuts”.
- Samsung quick settings panel icons still look very “childish”, but Lenovo has very weird labels on theirs..
- On Lenovo you can not move WiFi / Cell / BT switches in quick settings panel other than inside the top row.
- Samsung has more themes available right away in the menu, but mostly I don’t like their styling anyway.
- Samsung has possibility to change OS font (I did not notice this on Lenovo version). Just for you to know.
4. Even not visible, average performance of A7010 processor seems 1.5x higher and it has double the cores.
- It should show in battery life.
- I don’t care about GPU.
- Both interfaces are very responsive.
5. Lenovo A7010 has option for 3GB RAM, which seems more futureproof in today's style of app / web coding.
6. Camera image quality looks on par (but I didn’t try to compare, as I don’t care). Samsung had more intuitive controls for camera (as for setting it manually), but was definitely slower on auto.
7. Lenovo A7010 has capacitive home button, which I prefer designwise to physical one. Samsung J5 home button is great though!
- Lenovo P1 home button (with fingerprint reader, about which I don't care) is wobbly. I like stifness of control surfaces.
8. Lenovo A7010 has details I like:
- slightly higher capacity battery, but not exchangeable as Samsung J5 has
- very interesting deep energy saver mode
- much better timekeeping app design / usage
- very thorough black/white listing of contacts, automatic call recording, even yellow pages feature!
- WiFi ac, direct WiFi
- buttons on one side so you always know where to find them (probably not an issue for most of you)
- front facing speakers (even I don’t care about them) makes more sense
- headphone jack on top side of the phone (allows you to hold it vertical on your lap)
- dual led flash
- small notification led!
- is black only, suits every occasion
9. Other brands I had oportunity to check live (Moto) or online:
- do not have home/back/menu buttons under the screen, which takes screen real estate and decereases operating speed while waiting for them to show up, if they hide
- have a version of Android from Asia (no offense please)
- do not have Android
BUT:
- I forgot to check contact list group assign on Lenovo. Samsung does it well (allowing contacts to be added to more groups at the same time).
- I am not sure about differences in using multiple alarm clocks.
- I don't remember details about automatic network, private mode and do not disturb modes switching...
- I am not sure about differences in built-in file management, but was well thought of on Samsung.
Any comments or questions appreciated!
Thank you for reading.