Table of Contents
OVERVIEW
Whenever you consider ZTE, generally it’s not a name you join with flagship devices. Despite its greatest efforts, the Chinese company just can’t get away from lower-end budget smartphones. However with its latest device, the ZTE ZMax Pro, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Just a few weeks ago the company launched the 6-inch, spec-heavy mid-range smartphone that will be impressive at most price points, however at just $99 USD.
HARDWARE
First off, let’s discuss this. The body of the device feels nice, the matte panel on the back is fantastic in just about each way you can think of, and the phone overall just has a very interesting aesthetic — you wouldn’t have even believed the $99 price point more than a year or two ago.
That said, the average consumer may have a tough time with this one. As I said before, this is a really large phone, mainly compared to most devices in this price range.
ZTE has also done a great job with the details on this device. I love the metallic-looking accents around the camera ring, fingerprint sensor, and the buttons. The buttons, by the way, are fantastic, providing a fixed quantity of click and are spaced just right for the size. The y’re however just a bit high up on the phone for my taste. You’ll find a 3.5mm headphone jack and a USB C port on the bottom with a microphone.
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SPECS AND PERFORMANCE
At this level, in the time budget phones are fantastic regarding their spec listing. However, the ZTE ZMax Pro takes things to an entirely new level. In this phone 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage, Snapdragon 617 processor under the hood, which is just superb.
With these specs and Android 6.0.1 also get excellent performance. The re’s a bit of sluggishness from time to time, however overall the experience was great. The ZMax Pro could simply hold a few apps in memory without regularly reloading and most casual games performed quite nicely.
SOFTWARE
As previously talked about, the ZMax Pro ships with Android 6.0.1 out of the box and this is stock Android. The Home screen, Thesettings menu, and many of the stock applications are all unaffected.
The changes mainly come from the lock screen and notification tray/quick settings. Here you’ll notice a transparent, blurred out style which seems fairly similar to IOS. Everything still works more or less the same, though, and I’m a fan of the changes ZTE made. It’s a delicate difference. However, the changes don’t slow things down, make the UI harder to use. However this is something that may be easily fixed down the road, and regardless. However, Being a provider phone, I count on some, and the re’s not much, to be honest. However, it’s a tad invasive. I didn’t keep track, however just within the week and a half; I used the device as my daily driver I recall at the least 4-5 occasions the place a large advertising for a MetroPCS promotion took over the whole UI.
DISPLAY
The display on this device, despite a TFT panel, is very impressive. Simply use it indoors or out with no problems as all. Viewing angles are shockingly good and also Colors are good.
With that comes a note once again regarding its size. This panel is massive. You’ll undoubtedly want two hands to get most things done on this screen.
CAMERA
The most important drawback with nearly every budget phone is the camera. Making a super cheap smartphone isn’t easy. However, the camera is one place where many OEMs seem to gravitate toward when it’s time to trim prices. However, the camera isn’t one of them. The 13MP sensor often overexposes pictures and just doesn’t capture as much detail as it should. It’s a passable camera, however, don’t expect to impress anyone with the pictures taken on this phone. The video was equally unimpressive. The re’s no stabilization, so you’ll have held the phone regular and along with that, the video just doesn’t look nice and is capped at 1080p @ 30fps. However once again, this camera overall is completely fine for a $99 USD smartphone.
BATTERY
The ZMax Pro gives a good battery life. It was nearly impossible to kill it in a day. With came around 2 and a half hours of screen-on time which added about 30 minutes of casual gaming.
REVIEW SCORE
WHERE TO BUY
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