ZTE has been teasing its upcoming ZTE Axon 7 flagship for the past few days. Now, this beast is official, which means we know the entire specs and features of the device, and they are quite impressive.

We were present at the unveiling and also got to play around with the device for some time which means we have our first impressions of the device as well. Here’s all the details about the Axon 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z35TYn5bf2E

First of all, ZTE Axon 7 is built from the ground up for audio lovers. In fact, the company has made Lang Lang, a pianist famous in China as well as worldwide, the brand ambassador of the new Axon flagship. The company reportedly consulted with music professors and set up a dedicated lab to develop and perfect the phone’s audio quality. So, there’s no doubt that ZTE is targeting music lovers with its new device.

ZTE will continue with a similar design philosophy on the new Axon 7 as the previous generation flagships. So, you get the same dual speaker design up front, with a curvier back to ensure that the phone fits well in your hand. We got a good hands on with the gold version of the device and it looked attractive. Needless to say, you know this is an Axon flagship the moment you lay your eyes on it. The display looks good and the bezels are quite thin as well. You see thin black borders around the screen, but they blend well with the display. The company teamed up with Designworks, a subsidiary of BMW group to perfect the phone’s design.

The volume and power buttons are located on the right side of the device, while the dual nano SIM / MicroSD card tray lies on the left. The back feaures the 20MP sensor with dual LED flash and a fingerprint sensor. Down below, you have the USB Type-C port and on top, the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack. You get dual microphones on the new device as well.

Coming to the specification, the ZTE Axon 7 comes with the powerful Snapdragon 820 quad-core chipset inside with two memory variants, 4GB RAM + 64GB storage, and 6GB RAM + 128GB storage. Both the versions come with MicroSD expansion support up to 128GB. Up front, the phone features a beautiful 5.5-inch 2K AMOLED 2.5D glass display which is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4 generation. This translates into a pixel density of 558 ppi, which is quite impressive and ideal for VR.

At the back, the Axon 7 sports a large 20MP sensor with OIS and PDAF with f/1.8 aperture. The company claims that the camera comes with functions similar to SLR-quality camera to capture perfect pictures and videos. Up front, the phone comes with an 8MP shooter with f/2.2 aperture and smart beautification feature. Like we saw in the teasers, ZTE is focusing on the audio quality of its new Axon smartphone and it features built-in  dual Hi-Fi (AK4961 + AK4490). Further, you get Dolby Atmos Suround Sound as well. So, expect the audio performance to be great. In fact, in the teaser, we got to hear the audio from the device, so check that out from here.

The phone runs on the Android Marshmallow version with Mifavor 4.0 on top. It has a fingerprint sensor located at the back and features NFC as well. What’s interesting is that ZTE has decided to add Force Touch feature on the top-end 6GB RAM + 128GB version of the flagship. Inside, the Axon 7 houses a 3250mAh battery which comes with QC 3.0 support. All this, inside a 7.9mm body.

As for the pricing, the ZTE Axon 7 starts at 2899 Yuan ($441) for the 4GB RAM + 64GB ROM model. The 4GB + 128GB model retails at 3299 Yuan ($503) while the top-end 6GB RAM + 128GB ROM model retails at 4099 Yuan ($625).

The phone will be first released in China, followed by other regions like United States and Europe. You can pre-order the device in China starting May 26 from JD.com, and the phone goes on sale online and in person at stores from June 2. You have two color choices, gold and silver.

The post ZTE Axon 7 Official With Snapdragon 820, Hi-Fi Audio & Powerful 20MP Rear Camera appeared first on Gizmochina.

We haven’t seen a new flagship smartphone from ZTE yet, but that may change soon. ZTE CEO Zeng Xuezhong has just revealed the new Axon 2 flagship via his Weibo page, giving us the first glimpse of the upcoming smartphone. The phone will reportedly come with a new design, without any screws at the bottom. The CEO revealed the picture down below and said that the company is aiming for a minimalistic design without the use of the boring old screws down at the bottom.

From the image above, we can see that the Axon 2’s design is going to be very simple. Unlike the Huawei P9 or the iPhone 6S shown in the image for comparison, the new Axon flagship will feature just the USB port and the microphone at the bottom. So, no speakers at the bottom. But that brings us to another question, if the speakers are located at the back of the phone, that may not be the ideal location. We have seen that speakers on the back give out muffled output when placed on a flat surface. We hope that the new design comes with a solution to this problem. But there’s another possibility, the previous TENAA images have revealed front facing speakers on the new Axon flagship, which could be the perfect location. We hope that’s going to be the case here.

Another question brought by this image is how well is the built quality of the Axon 2. Traditionally screws do a good job of keeping the body intact, but since ZTE is coming up with a different design, it would be interesting to see how overall built of the phone.

We have already seen the Axon 2 on TENAA in the past revealing most of the specs details of the device. The ZTE Axon 2 is expected to come with the Snapdragon 820 chipset with 4GB RAM, 64GB of storage further expandable up to 128GB. At the back, the phone will have a 20MP sensor while up front an 8MP shooter. Finally, a 3140mAh battery will be powering the phone.

While the above specs aren’t confirmed by the company, what we know for sure is that the new Axon 2 will come with a top-end Sharp 2K panel, which should also be ideal for VR. You can read more about the CEO’s comments on 2K from here.

The post ZTE CEO Gives Us A Glimpse Of the ZTE Axon 2’s New Design appeared first on Gizmochina.

2K resolution on a smartphone display has always been the topic of discussion, with some believing that there’s no real need for such high-resolution panel, while others stating that 2K is really the future. Huawei’s CEO, Richard Yu has always been a strong criticizer of 2K resolution on smartphones, that is, until recently. A few weeks back, he revealed that although 2K resolution would be unnecessary on a smartphone display of size less than 6.5-inches, it was needed for VR. Hence, even Huawei was going to release a 2K smartphone this year.

Now, ZTE’s CEO Zeng Xuezhong revealed his views on the matter and his comments indicate that the upcoming ZTE Axon 2 flagship is all set to come with a 2K resolution display that’s better than rivals. He revealed late yesterday that ZTE’s Axon flagship is using the top-end panel from Sharp with 2K resolution which makes it amazing. He further revealed that 2K displays were necessary for VR since in a VR headset the screen was too close to the eyes and the image looks enlarged. This is why smartphones need to have at least 2K resolution displays to deliver a good VR experience.

The CEO also revealed a picture of VR (added above), which hints that the company will release some VR related products soon. A VR headset from ZTE won’t be a surprise given that major tech players are all invested in this emerging market. But according to Xuezhong, a good VR experience is not just about 2K resolution screen, as there are a number of other factors involved as well. The experience will also depend on the screen’s color gamut, contrast ratio, response time and power consumption.

Considering these comments from the company CEO, it looks like the upcoming ZTE Axon 2 will give these factors due attention to ensure a great VR experience. ZTE is said to be working on VR / AR since 2009 and by 2015, it is said that the company has hundreds of patents under its belt.

Since the CEO has started commenting about VR and Axon flagship, it is possible that we will meet the new device soon. We had already spotted the Axon 2 model recently, you can read more about that from here.

The post ZTE Axon 2 To Come With Top-End 2K Sharp Screen, Perfect For VR appeared first on Gizmochina.

ZTE seems to be working on a new flagship smartphone, most likely the ZTE Axon 2. Recently, a new model from the company, namely the ZTE A2017 was spotted on the benchmarking website GFXBench revealing the specs of the device. However, at that time, we couldn’t see the performance of the phone. Now, the same phone has been spotted on the AnTuTu benchmarking revealing specs as well as the performance of the device.

According to the AnTuTu benchmark of the A2017, the phone comes with the powerful quad-core Snapdragon 820 chip inside with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. The display sports a resolution of 2K, and it will most likely be a 5.5-inch panel. At the back, there will be a 20MP (most likely 21MP) sensor while on the front, there will be an 8MP camera sensor. As for software, it will run on Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.

These are some pretty great specs and are in line with what we saw on the GFXBench a few days back. With SD820 and 4GB RAM on board, the phone managed to score an amazing 140,086 points on the AnTuTu benchmark. This is even better than the scores posted by Xiaomi Mi 5 and Galaxy S7.

Overall, this looks like a powerful flagship in the making. While all we have is the model number, i.e. A2017, it’s possible that this is the Axon 2. The first generation ZTE Axon was a great flagship (check out our review from here | Axon Mini Review) and with these specs, the upcoming phone seems like a powerful device as well. One of the plus points of the Axon series is its pricing and we hope that ZTE can price its upcoming products competitively.

Anyways, stay tuned for more details. If ZTE plans to release this device anytime soon, we are surely going to hear more about it in the coming days.

The post ZTE A2017 (Possibly Axon 2) Now Hits AnTuTu With SD820, Performance Is Amazing appeared first on Gizmochina.