ZTE launches the Blade V9 and Blade V9 Vita: budget-friendly wide screens, dual cameras

The ZTE Blade V9 is a shiny, shiny phone for sure. It sports a metal body sandwiched between two glass panels. On the back, we have a dual camera and a fingerprint scanner, while the front greets us with a 5.7-inch, 18:9 display with a resolution of 1440 x 2160 pixels.

Under the hood, an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 450 beats to the frequency of 1.8 GHz. The phone has two variants — 32 GB of storage with 3 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage plus 4 GB of RAM. This is all juiced by a 3,100 mAh battery.

In the camera department, we have a 16 MP main sensor on the back, assisted by a 5 MP secondary camera that picks up depth data. ZTE proudly boasts that the snapper can make magic in low-light scenarios and capture those shots in the club or under the stars with no issue. On the front, there's an 8 MP camera for detailed selfies.

The phone comes with Android 8 Oreo out of the box. A bit surprisingly, however, its data port is a micro-USB connector, which is a bit of a letdown. But hey, since we are talking about connectors from the past — you will be happy to know that the Blade V9 does feature a 3.5 mm headphone jack.

The Blade V9 Vita is mostly the same phone, though slightly smaller and underpowered, but also cheaper. Its 18:9 display has a 5.45-inch diagonal, its processor is an octa-core, 1.4 GHz Snapdragon 435, and its storage variants have been bumped down to 16 GB memory with 2 GB of RAM or 32 GB of memory plus 3 GB of RAM. Surprisingly, however, the handset sports a slightly bigger battery — 3,200 mAh. The cameras on the Blade V9 Vita are a 13 MP main snapper with a 2 MP assistant on the back and a 5 MP one on the front.