ZTE SPRO 2 Review

Introduction

There’s just so much tech already crammed into the sleek bodies of our mobile devices that every inch of real-estate is maximized, leaving very little room for any added luxuries. Projectors are uncommon in smartphones, but they do exist – evident by past things like the LG eXpo and Samsung Galaxy Beam. Don’t get us wrong, the concept is undeniably cool, where a projector is somehow fashioned into a smartphone, but sometimes the end result is just a lackluster experience with the projector. Rather than attacking it from the same angle as some other folks, the ZTE SPRO2 does it the opposite way. Essentially, what we have here is a projector meeting a smartphone, and not the other way around.

Design

Right from the onset, there’s no denying that ZTE first wanted this thing to be a dedicated projector, which is plainly made obvious by its boxy design. Unlike traditional projectors, though, this is far more compact in size and weight – giving it that mobile attachment, if you want to take along with you. However, for a smartphone, it’s nowhere on the same level that would allow us to put it in our back pocket. And it’s pretty heavy for a mobile device at 19.4 oz, but to be fair, it is packing along a monster sized 6300 mAh battery – while most of the components that make up a smartphone and much more.

Around the back end of the unit, it carries a host of ports that give it added versatility over most mobile devices. Specifically, we have its power port, USB 3.0 port, microSD card slot, SIM slot, 3.5mm headset jack, and a full-sized HDMI port. The latter is especially useful, seeing we can connect another device, like a video game console, so it can be connected to the unit’s projector. Rounding out its features set, it packs a quad-core 2.3GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 MSM8974 processor, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, dual-band 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 4.0 with EDR. The only thing lacking here is a camera of some sort.

Display

On its façade, it’s dominated by a 5-inch 1280 x 720 touchscreen, which is set up in a landscape format. Surprisingly enough, it bears some pretty good qualities that make it usable – it’s detailed enough, bright, sports decent viewing angles, and colors are on the neutral side. Beneath that, we have the usual trio of dedicated Android buttons – with the physical power button further down.