ZTE Axon 30 5G Review: The Budget Under-display camera phone

Paco Zheng — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 09:56:52 +0000

ZTE was the first manufacturer to mass-produce an Under-display Camera phone. And recently, the brand launched the latest generation of Under-display Camera phone— the AXON 30. We all know that the performance of the first generation Under-display Camera on Axon 20 was not perfect. So can the Axon 30 finally give us a complete full screen experience?

Let’s find out!

ZTE Axon 30 Review: Under Screen Display Camera

The experience of using this screen is excellent most of the time. Because there is no hole-punch, the full screen is particularly good when watching videos.

The front camera area performs almost identically to the other areas at normal viewing distances. So performance of the new generation Under-display Camera is much better than the Axon 20, and it’s finally a usable technology.

But! Be warned, if you’re being fussy, there’s a lot more to talk about this screen.

Why?

Well, the display is not really perfect. Not to mention that this screen can’t do 2k resolution. Since it has to add an Under-display Camera, it uses RGB Delta pixels, so the detail is a bit lower than Diamond-like pixels.

Secondly, there will be rainbow lines in the oblique view, and the Under-display Camera area will be easily visible under the influence of these rainbow lines. Even if you look at it from the front, some traces of the Under-display Camera can still be seen, at close range.

In low brightness, this will be even more obvious. Further, In extreme cases, you’ll find the appearance of tiny text around the Under-display Camera area. Since the chip controlling the Under-display Camera area can only control multiple pixels with a single circuit, the text edges will appear noticeably jagged. Of course, these drawbacks are rare in everyday use, so whether you would give up some high-end screen features for a full screen is entirely up to your own preference.

Axon 30 Review: Selfie Camera Quality

Now that we have talked about the quality of the screen, it’s time to talk about its front camera photo quality. If you’ve seen our MIX 4 Hands on Review, you’ll know how bad the Under-display Camera can be. Thanks to the AI processing, the front camera’s photo results are at the passing line. Although many details of the image have been lost, but at least the look and feel is not bad. But when it comes to video recording, which AI can’t handle, it’s probably only a little better than a laptop’s camera. So users who like to take selfies should choose other phones.

ZTE Axon 30 Review: Hardware & Gaming Performance

The Axon 30 features the Snapdragon 870 as its SOC, which we all have come to love. In Antutu Benchmark it scores 688,114, while in 3D Mark it gets a score of 4223, and in Geekbench 961 in single-core, and 3081 points in multi-core.

The Benchmark performance is conservative, but the gaming performance is not bad. PUBG basically runs at full 60fps throughout. While Genshin Impact does not run at full 60 fps, the frame rate curve fluctuates less and there is no frame lock. The average frame rate of 40.7FPS will still ensure a good gaming experience. Brightridge also performs similarly and has good temperature control. If you’re not looking for extreme frame rates, this phone is still pretty good for gaming.

ZTE Axon 30 Review Gaming

ZTE Axon 30 Review: Rear Cameras

The two large circles in the middle of the camera housing are inspired by the lights of a sports car. The top one is the 64MP IMX682 main camera, and the bottom circles are the 8MP Ultra wide lens, Macro lens and Depth lens respectively.

Main Camera

The main camera performs quite well in the daytime, with bright colors and the samples being clear. At night, the dynamic range is lower in normal mode and the details in the dark are no longer clear. But night mode improves this problem significantly and gives you very good photos at night.

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Ultra-wide camera

Ultra-wide lens and main camera tuning are basically the same, so it has the same problem at night. However, since Ultra wide lens does not have night mode, try to choose a place with better light for taking wide-angle photos at night.

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Macro Camera

The Macro lens of Axon 30 performs beyond our expectations and is much better than the Macro lens of other phones. The image quality is very good and the usability of the photos is very high.

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ZTE Axon 30 Review: Battery & Charging

The Axon 30 comes with a charger in the box, and the phone’s maximum charging power is 65w without wireless charging. It charges to 22% in 10 minutes, 65% in half an hour, and it takes 50 minutes to 100%. Although the body only weighs 189g, it comes with a plastic back and features a 4200mAh battery capacity in exchange. Half an hour of Tiktok consumed 6%, half an hour of 1080p video consumed 4%. One PUBG game dropped the charge further by 11%, while in Genshin Impact the phone lost 12%, and in Brightridge 13%. With this battery life, it looks like if you want to use this phone for an entire day without charging, then you must use your phone less.

Battery Life Usage Chart

ZTE Axon 30 Review: Verdict

So Why did ZTE release the Axon 30 as a phone? Because I think ZTE has big dreams. It set the starting price for a phone with the latest generation of Under-display Camera technology at $500. It’s obviously to popularize this new technology and make more people appreciate how enjoyable it is to have a full screen. We have to thank ZTE for providing an option for those who like to try something new and are on a budget.

So that’s all about our quick review of the ZTE Axon 30!