Being a household name takes a lot of work in the mobile space, especially when there are so many companies competing for a piece of the pie. That, of course, is something that has eluded ZTE tie-after-time here in the US market. In its latest quest to try and break free from that stigma, the company is banking that a run in the entry-level market with its new phablet smartphone in the ZTE ZMAX, will yield fruitful rewards in giving its name some substance amongst consumers. Even now, it’s still rare to find a budget oriented phablet, but the ZMAX surely gains attention with its outright cost of $252 – so will it be enough to get people to take notice of it?
The package contains:
microUSB cable
Wall charger
Start guide
User manual
Design
The ZTE ZMAX is as generic looking as they come.
Indicative of its low pricing, the ZTE ZMAX’s design doesn’t spark the imagination. Aesthetically, it’s pretty generic looking with its hard lined look, all-plastic black body, and tapered edges. Naturally, it’s a handful to operate due to its immense size, a quality that’s emblematic of any phablet, but the plastic material makes the phone rather slippery.
As for the placement of its physical buttons, they’re in locations that are ideal for a tablet – like how the power button is on the right side of the phone, and the volume controls on the left. Other ports around its body include its microUSB port, various microphones, SIM slot, and microSD slot. Interestingly, they’ve opted to outfit the phone with capacitive Android buttons, as opposed to having them incorporated into the interface.
Large in size, its specs might not impress, but it has enough pleasing qualities to like.
Sporting a massive sized 5.7-inch 720 x 1280 TFT display, there’s no denying that it fits the mold of what we’d expect to find in a phablet – where we’re given a sizable real estate to work with. Chiming in with 720p resolution, it might not appear super sharp upon close inspection with its pixel density count of 258 ppi, but it’s still nonetheless usable from a normal viewing distance. Meanwhile, there are other qualities about the screen that surprisingly give it a favorable tone – like its color temperature of 7000 K, 441 nit brightness, and 2.05 gamma value. However, there’s visible distortion at wide viewing angles, and it’s not entirely accurate with its color reproduction. For all intents and purposes, the display is usable and we’re genuinely pleased by the qualities produced by this affordably priced phone.
The numbers below represent the amount of deviation in the respective property,observed when a display is viewed from a 45-degree angle as opposed to direct viewing.
The CIE 1931 xy color gamut chart represents the set(area)of colors that a display can reproduce,with the sRGB colorspace(the highlighted triangle)serving as reference.The chart also provides a visual representation of a display's color accuracy. The small squares across the boundaries of the triangle are the reference points for the various colors, while the small dots are the actual measurements. Ideally, each dot should be positioned on top of its respective square. The 'x:CIE31' and 'y:CIE31' values in the table below the chart indicate the position of each measurement on the chart. 'Y' shows the luminance (in nits) of each measured color, while 'Target Y' is the desired luminance level for that color. Finally, 'ΔE 2000' is the Delta E value of the measured color. Delta E values of below 2 are ideal.
The Color accuracy chart gives an idea of how close a display's measured colors are to their referential values. The first line holds the measured (actual) colors, while the second line holds the reference (target) colors. The closer the actual colors are to the target ones, the better.
The Grayscale accuracy chart shows whether a display has a correct white balance(balance between red,green and blue)across different levels of grey(from dark to bright).The closer the Actual colors are to the Target ones,the better.
Always the one to please purists, the ZTE ZMAX is running a mostly stock Android 4.4.2 KitKat experience out of the box. In fact, the only thing not stock is the camera app, which we’ll detail a bit later on. Clean looking and packing all of the core functions of Android, the experience here is simple, straightforward, and uncomplicated. Out of everything, our only reservation is finding out how quickly ZTE is willing to push out future software updates to it. In comparison to other notable phablets, the ZTE ZMAX lacks the depth of productivity tools and software features to keep the on-the-go user satisfied. Sure, the spacious sized screen offers some advantages, like being able to see more of an email or document, but it doesn’t go beyond from the diversified features set that we get from other phablets.
Typing up messages is a breeze using the default, stock Android keyboard, since the layout is spacious and its responsiveness is good in keeping up with our rate of input.
Processor and Memory
Don’t expect the snappiest performance with this, but it suffices for basic things.
Due to its low cost, it should be no surprise to anyone that the ZTE ZMAX opts to pack an entry-level processor – a quad-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 8926 SoC paired with 2GB of RAM and the Adreno 305 GPU. Basic tasks are handled with no frills at all, but its performance begins to crumble against more processor intensive stuff. It’s most noticeable with games, as missed frames are evident in its performance.
Accompanied with 16GB of internal storage, which translates to 11.64GB of usable space out of the box, that’s a tally we’re satisfied with – more so when that tally can be supplemented thanks to its microSD slot.
Although its performance isn’t the best, the ZTE ZMAX at least suffices enough when it comes to surfing the web. It’s partly due to its speedy 4G LTE connection, large screen, and effective navigational controls.
Thankfully, this GSM-enabled smartphone bears all of the essential connectivity features we expect to find in a modern phone – like aGPS, Bluetooth 4.0, dual-band 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, and NFC. Heck, it even offers support for Wi-Fi calling through T-Mobile!
Camera
It’s decent looking with its results.
Armed with an 8-megapixel main camera, it’s nothing too extravagant, but it serves its purpose. From the looks of it, the camera app is one of the few non-stock Android things with the experience. Impressively, the interface is loaded with manual controls and several shooting modes to please the most demanding shutterbug. From usual staples like HDR and panoramic modes, we’re also given secondary modes such as interval and blink detection.
Generally speaking, its quality is decent enough to accept. It’s far from perfect, that’s for sure, since there are certain elements that prove distracting. First, it’s pretty slow to focus, and when it does, the camera is sometimes too slow in capturing the snapshot – resulting in many images coming out blurry. On top of that, dynamic range isn’t handled evenly, which results in certain areas being overexposed. Under low lighting, there’s a fair amount of noise and softer details.
Our reservations are the same with its 1080p video recording quality, where it’s pretty slow to focus and seems rather finicky with its exposure.
Multimedia
Great for watching videos, we’re impressed to find that ZTE sprinkles a multi-tasking element with it.
Of course, the stock Android experience means that we’re given the Google Play Music app for all our music listening needs – albeit, ZTE’s own music player is available as well. Emitting its audio through the rear firing speaker, it delivers an output of 70.9 dB, which sounds rather sharp in tone to the ear.
Largely because of its gigantic screen, the ZTE ZMAX is an ideal thing if you plan on watching a lot of videos. Not only do they play smoothly and look good on the phone, but ZTE offers a multi-tasking element where the video is overlaid on top of whatever we’re doing. It’s nice gesture, of course, but there’s a slight hitch to the phone’s overall performance.
More times than none, you’re going to ask you callers to repeat themselves frequently.
Voices through the earpiece exhibit a subtle robotic tone, but its volume output is ample enough to discern our callers under noisy environments. However, that’s not the case with the speakerphone – not only because of its weak output, but also due to the hollow voices it produces. On the other end of the line, though, our callers have no complaints about the rich and clear voices they’re given.
Battery
A big phone deserves a big battery! And boy is it long lasting.
Stuffed inside its body is a massive sized 3400 mAh battery, which permits us close to two days of normal usage from a full charge. No doubt, it’s pretty darn good, but it even reaches a great mark in our battery benchmark test – where it achieves an impressive tally of 10 hours 53 minutes.
We measure battery life by running a custom web-script,designed to replicate the power consumption of typical real-life usage.All devices that go through the test have their displays set at 200-nit brightness.
Looking at the overall package, we can say that the ZTE ZMAX is as generic as they get, but for a phablet, we’re content to know that it’s accompanied with an affordable price tag of $252 outright. Certainly, it’s the least features rich phablet we’ve come across, as it mostly provides a stock Android experience. Then again, for those looking for a competitively priced phablet that won’t break the bank, it provides enough quality elements to give consumers a valuable offering they can surely grow to love.
Software version of the review unit: Android Version: 4.4.2 Baseband Version: P892T57B01 Kernel Version: 3.4.0-g9b6969a-00468-g8a5deba
Pros
Inexpensively priced phablet
Impressive battery life
Mostly stock Android experience is simple & intuitive
Multi-tasking element when it comes to playing videos
Camera app has a lot of useful shooting modes & manual controls
Cons
Generic looking design
Zero software features that would enhance the experience
Slow focus & snapshot with the camera, which results in blurring
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