October 21, 2012 at 21:09ZTE V970 - a strong middle peasant from China
On September 27, the Chinese company ZTE, known primarily to routers for the Russian consumer, held a presentation at which it presented several models of its smartphones, which it brings to the Russian market. The most interesting of them personally seemed to me the flagship ZTE Grand Era. However, in the process of drawing after the presentation I did not win it, but the ZTE V970, which I would like to report on the experience of using in this review.
So, the ZTE V970 is a strong middle peasant in the line of smartphones presented by ZTE. It is based on a 2-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, has a 4.3-inch display with a resolution of 960x540. True, here the RAM is only 512 MB, which is close to the Android ICS, on which the device works. Yes, and the built-in flash memory is only 4 GB, but there is a microSD slot with which the flash memory can be expanded by another 32 GB.
However, the full characteristics of the smartphone can also be viewed on Yandex.Market , so I won’t be so annoying to dwell on them, but I will immediately turn to my experience using this device.
What I liked literally in the first hours of using the device was its ergonomic qualities. The smartphone is superbly assembled. In the hand, it feels like a solid and self-contained object. Due to the back cover of textured rubberized plastic, the device does not slip at all in the hands. There are no even hints of any backlashes or creaks. Everything is fitted tightly, like stones in a megalithic masonry of pyramids.
The performance of the device does not cause any complaints. Of course, I did not run super-heavy games on it, but on the other hand, the smartphone is clearly not intended for them. Rather, it is a business device from just below the average price segment, or rather from a section of up to 10 thousand rubles. For all daily tasks, its performance is enough. I did not observe any inhibitions when receiving mail, messages, browsing (with normal Internet).
The video player plays files with a resolution of 720p, however, I would still advise against using this resolution. Firstly, the QHD display does not make it out, and secondly, when viewing such files, it sits literally before our eyes. I’ll return to the battery, but for now I’ll say that in my experience the best resolution of video files for viewing on ZTE V970 is 640x480.
5MP camera is quite suitable for use. She shoots widescreen video with a resolution of 720, she knows how to photograph both with an aspect ratio of 16: 9 and 4: 3.
Here is a test video shot on the ZTE V970:
And here are examples of photos taken on a smartphone in various conditions.
If by themselves these photos cannot claim any kind of artistry, then if you use the instagram, the camera will definitely fit and distinguish it from the camera of the most flagship smartphones.
There is no physical camera control button here. All camera control takes place only through the touch interface. Settings are not distinguished by anything fundamental, therefore it is better to look at them in screenshots than to describe in words.
And now back to the battery, whose capacity seems to look quite adequate at the present time: 1650 mAh. However, the capacity itself, especially in the case of smartphones on android, by and large does not mean anything. It all depends on the degree of software optimization for a particular hardware. Not to say that this optimization is bad here, but the fact that the smartphone is voracious is for sure. The capacity indicated above with active use lasts for 6 hours, while watching a video of 640x480, for 4-4.5 hours. I have never had a situation in which the ZTE V970 would work for me without recharging all day long as the main and only smartphone. But, if I had another device with me that I would use for the Internet, using ZTE only for calls and SMS, then the battery capacity was enough for a day and a half. However,
Now, for the Android ICS itself, which is installed in the ZTE V970. Formally, this is assembly 4.0.3, but the fact is that it is a so-called naked or pure android without additional settings, which, in my subjective opinion, are rarely successful. The only innovation on the part of ZTE in the interface concerns the lock screen. And one more strange circumstance should be noted in this connection: on the smartphone case, not 3 touch buttons as it should for ICS, but 4, as required by the Android 2xxx version. However, this does not particularly affect the user characteristics of the smartphone. It’s much more noticeable that these buttons do not have a backlight.
Well, in the end, about the main drawback of this smartphone. Not surprisingly, it concerns the display. Display resolution can be misleading, because the display is not the only resolution. In this case, a TFT-matrix is used, but the brightness of the display is so low that it’s not so much in the sun, but in plain daylight, it fades significantly. It is a pity, but apparently the use of a cheap and not too high-quality display has led to such a democratic price for the device.
Be that as it may, the smartphone still turned out to be quite acceptable, especially for its money: 7-10 thousand rubles.
You can watch the video review of the ZTE V970 smartphone here:
So, the ZTE V970 is a strong middle peasant in the line of smartphones presented by ZTE. It is based on a 2-core NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor, has a 4.3-inch display with a resolution of 960x540. True, here the RAM is only 512 MB, which is close to the Android ICS, on which the device works. Yes, and the built-in flash memory is only 4 GB, but there is a microSD slot with which the flash memory can be expanded by another 32 GB.
However, the full characteristics of the smartphone can also be viewed on Yandex.Market , so I won’t be so annoying to dwell on them, but I will immediately turn to my experience using this device.
What I liked literally in the first hours of using the device was its ergonomic qualities. The smartphone is superbly assembled. In the hand, it feels like a solid and self-contained object. Due to the back cover of textured rubberized plastic, the device does not slip at all in the hands. There are no even hints of any backlashes or creaks. Everything is fitted tightly, like stones in a megalithic masonry of pyramids.
The performance of the device does not cause any complaints. Of course, I did not run super-heavy games on it, but on the other hand, the smartphone is clearly not intended for them. Rather, it is a business device from just below the average price segment, or rather from a section of up to 10 thousand rubles. For all daily tasks, its performance is enough. I did not observe any inhibitions when receiving mail, messages, browsing (with normal Internet).
The video player plays files with a resolution of 720p, however, I would still advise against using this resolution. Firstly, the QHD display does not make it out, and secondly, when viewing such files, it sits literally before our eyes. I’ll return to the battery, but for now I’ll say that in my experience the best resolution of video files for viewing on ZTE V970 is 640x480.
5MP camera is quite suitable for use. She shoots widescreen video with a resolution of 720, she knows how to photograph both with an aspect ratio of 16: 9 and 4: 3.
Here is a test video shot on the ZTE V970:
And here are examples of photos taken on a smartphone in various conditions.
If by themselves these photos cannot claim any kind of artistry, then if you use the instagram, the camera will definitely fit and distinguish it from the camera of the most flagship smartphones.
There is no physical camera control button here. All camera control takes place only through the touch interface. Settings are not distinguished by anything fundamental, therefore it is better to look at them in screenshots than to describe in words.
And now back to the battery, whose capacity seems to look quite adequate at the present time: 1650 mAh. However, the capacity itself, especially in the case of smartphones on android, by and large does not mean anything. It all depends on the degree of software optimization for a particular hardware. Not to say that this optimization is bad here, but the fact that the smartphone is voracious is for sure. The capacity indicated above with active use lasts for 6 hours, while watching a video of 640x480, for 4-4.5 hours. I have never had a situation in which the ZTE V970 would work for me without recharging all day long as the main and only smartphone. But, if I had another device with me that I would use for the Internet, using ZTE only for calls and SMS, then the battery capacity was enough for a day and a half. However,
Now, for the Android ICS itself, which is installed in the ZTE V970. Formally, this is assembly 4.0.3, but the fact is that it is a so-called naked or pure android without additional settings, which, in my subjective opinion, are rarely successful. The only innovation on the part of ZTE in the interface concerns the lock screen. And one more strange circumstance should be noted in this connection: on the smartphone case, not 3 touch buttons as it should for ICS, but 4, as required by the Android 2xxx version. However, this does not particularly affect the user characteristics of the smartphone. It’s much more noticeable that these buttons do not have a backlight.
Well, in the end, about the main drawback of this smartphone. Not surprisingly, it concerns the display. Display resolution can be misleading, because the display is not the only resolution. In this case, a TFT-matrix is used, but the brightness of the display is so low that it’s not so much in the sun, but in plain daylight, it fades significantly. It is a pity, but apparently the use of a cheap and not too high-quality display has led to such a democratic price for the device.
Be that as it may, the smartphone still turned out to be quite acceptable, especially for its money: 7-10 thousand rubles.
You can watch the video review of the ZTE V970 smartphone here: