It’s been a while since ZTE launched its flagship phone, the AXON 30 Ultra. I’m sure you guys are just as curious as us to see how good the high-end phone from ZTE really is. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how it performs.
Axon 30 Ultra Review: Design & Display
When I first saw this phone, I really liked it. It has a square appearance, with the top and bottom cut flat, and the camera module is rectangular but has some details. With the dark gray frosted glass, the whole shape is very calm and elegant.
This shape reminds me of Samsung’s Note series, but considering that Samsung may not launch a new Note model this year, the AXON 30 Ultra may be one of the most square phones you can buy this year. The camera is color-coated and reflects colorful shades when exposed to light.
The 188g weight makes it one of the lightest flagship phones from any brand this year. Honestly, I really like the look and the lightweight feel of the device, but it is not without drawbacks. The bezel is quite prominent, and it can be a bit uncomfortable to hold it for long periods of time. Other than that, I’m very happy with the design.
The AXON 30 Ultra 5G features a 144Hz refresh rate, FHD+, 10bit color depth support screen. The hole punch is in the middle of the screen. Although the screen has no screen protector, the oleophobic layer of the screen is sufficient, so it is very smooth to operate. The upper and lower bezel is almost equal in width, but it is not on the same plane as the screen, so it cuts your hand when sliding. Although the supplier of the screen is not Samsung, it still uses diamond-like pixels.
The fingerprint recognition area is situated a bit higher than usual, and it is more comfortable when unlocking. In short, AXON 30 Ultra’s screen is average for a flagship, not particularly outstanding to wow people, but it has no obvious shortcomings for users to complain about.
Axon 30 Ultra Review: Hardware & Gaming
Since it is called the Ultra, the phone naturally features top-end hardware like the Snapdragon 888, UFS 3.1, and LPDDR5.
In the AnTuTu Benchmark, the phone scored 790011, while in 3D MARK it scored 5857. The Geekbench 5 scores were 1125 for single-core and 3575 for multi-core. The Benchmark scores are the usual level for flagship phones.
Next, let’s take a look at the gaming performance. The frame rate curve of PUBG is very smooth, which means that the most basic cooling measures are implemented without any problems. The Axon 30 Ultra uses a 2880mm2 liquid cooling plate, which seems to have made a significant difference in the extreme gaming tests.
Genshin Impact’s frame rate curve is not as stable as PUBG’s, but the average frame rate of 52fps and the absence of sudden and significant frame rate drops make for a good gaming experience. Brightridge’s gaming performance is also similar to Genshin Impact.
Of course, it has the same shortcomings as the other Snapdragon 888 phones — the phone heats up quite a bit. But since ZTE has chosen to unleash full performance, a temperature increase is inevitable.
Axon 30 Ultra Review: Camera Performance
The camera system of AXON 30 Ultra is very interesting, three of the four lenses are all main camera level lenses. They are 64MP main camera, 64MP portrait lens, 64MP ultra-wide lens. The last one is an 8MP 5x telephoto lens.
Main Camera
The main camera, even with the AI tuning, is not too gaudy, HDR is moderately strong, the details are plentiful, the white balance is stable, and the finished photo style is of the type that is stable, without mistakes. At night, AXON 30 Ultra’s auto mode is not integrated with any night mode algorithm, so you can see that the auto mode photos are faithfully restored to what the naked eye sees, and the dynamic range of the photos is relatively small. However, once the night mode is turned on, all aspects of the photos are improved tremendously. The noise is also less while retaining details, which already belong to the first tier level of flagship phones.
Ultra-Wide Camera
The ultra-wide camera has basically the same tuning as the main camera. However, because the hardware is weaker than the main camera, the exposure in low lighting scenes is also a bit darker and there will be more noise.
Portrait Lens
The AXON 30 Ultra’s portrait lens is not the same kind that other phones use to assist with bokeh, rather it is called a portrait lens because it is close to the equivalent 35mm focal length. However, to take 35mm equivalent photos, you need to manually slide the adjustment to 1.3x or switch to portrait mode to achieve it, the default mode gives you a 2x zoom button. The bokeh algorithm is not very effective if the portrait mode is not a human subject, so generally, I use this lens as a 2x telephoto. This lens works very well at 2x zoom, and the results at night are not bad. In addition to the noise limited by the hardware, exposure has been at par with the main camera.
Telephoto Lens
The last 5x telephoto lens performs well in the daytime. But at night, when the lighting goes down, the image may turn out to be blurred. Plus, it doesn’t have night mode, so it’s better to avoid using it if the light is too low.
I think the advantage of the AXON 30 Ultra’s image system is that it has a full range of focal lengths, so you can choose the right focal length to compose a picture, no matter how close or far. This is very friendly for photography enthusiasts.
Video
Because all three lenses are at the main camera level, except for the 5x telephoto, they are all able to record 4K 60fps video. The main camera can support up to 8K 30fps video and can also record HDR video. 5x telephoto intelligently records up to 1080p 60fps video. With strong image stabilization, it is a phone with very good video recording features.
AXON 30 Ultra’s new pre-installed system, MyOS 11, is also a change from the previous design, the UI and icons have become more youthful and vibrant, and the animations are smooth. If you’ve used the global version of MIUI or other Chinese branded custom Android OS, MyOS is very similar to them. But unfortunately, the global version of MyOS 11 is less functional than the Chinese version, for example, the streamlined desktop on the Chinese version is not present on the global version, which is a pity.
Axon 30 Ultra Review: Battery Life
AXON 30 Ultra supports up to 65w of charging power. The charger is included in the box, and it is worth mentioning that the charging interface is Type-C and the charging cable sent is also USB-C to C. The charger is very small and supports PPS. And this 65w charger is very small and supports PPS, which is considered to be a better overall quality of the charger that comes with the box.
Charging speed is okay, 10 minutes gets you to 28%, 30 minutes up to 64%, and 52 minutes to fully charge the device. So it looks like the charging tech doesn’t use trickle charge. However, it is rather unfortunate that the flagship is not equipped with wireless charging.
Although it is only 188g, ZTE still stuffed a 4600mAh battery. In the real-life battery test, the phone consumed 5% for half an hour of TikTok, 4% for half an hour of online video, 9% for one game of PUBG, 22% and 12% for half an hour of Genshin Impact, and 20 minutes of Brightridge, respectively. So, the battery life is also at a moderate level.
Axon 30 Ultra Review: Verdict
The AXON 30 Ultra is undoubtedly a very well-balanced flagship phone that has almost no particular shortcomings. But if you look at it the other way, it doesn’t have any obvious strengths either. Perhaps the squarish design, the dominant appearance, and the complete range of focal lengths are its more prominent highlights.
But would you buy this phone for these two strengths? Let us know in the comments section down below.
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