Smartphone review ZTE Blade X3 - a new reality

    Hello Giktayms! It’s time for all of us to come to terms with the fact that the price of equipmentthe world will never be the same. Unfortunately, smartphones “for $ 100” have become significantly more expensive in rubles, but at the same time more popular. Chinese online stores continue to offer a wide range of smartphones of all sizes and varying degrees of performance, but there are always nuances. They are described not only by me and in brief are reduced to two points: expectation and guarantee. If for some reason you need a phone right now, waiting from China makes no sense, if the phone is broken, sending it back to an Asian online store will be problematic. For those who do not want to resolve such issues, the Russian market offers other options. One of the major players from the Middle Kingdom - the company ZTE has been known for a long time and maintains prices at a sane level. At the time of publication, the ZTE Blade X3 is available



    at a price of 8990 rubles in white .

    What is the main thing in the phone? Someone will say: “Screen.” and it will be right, someone will say: “Battery.”, someone will vote for the design. In a modern device (I think that Anton Pavlovich Chekhov will not be offended) everything should be fine: the processor, the operating system, and the case. Cho is offered on the characteristics of the case with the ZTE Blade X3? A fairly large screen - 5 inches with a resolution of 1280 * 720 (not enough), Android 5.1 out of the box (which’s good here), two SIM cards, a good passport battery, only 8 gigabytes of internal memory and 1 gigabyte of RAM (and what did you want for more than $ 100?), support for LTE, a quad-core processor from Mediatek and a built-in flashlight main camera 8 MP + front camera 5 MP. All of this can be found onmanufacturer’s website or on a protective sticker on the screen (after purchase).





    I have a fashionable gold-colored device on the test, white phones are now on sale. Externally, the phone does not attract attention with elaborate bends and curls, an ordinary smartphone of classical forms. Noteworthy is the lack of physical buttons on the front panel, some might not like it, although Sony Xperia users have long been accustomed to it. The buttons are equipped with a blue backlight and respond to pressing a vibration feedback. You can reassign the "Back" and "Menu" keys programmatically, they are simply indicated by dots without special icons.



    The reverse side of the ZTE Blade X3 is prosaic: the camera's eye, flash, it is also a flashlight, speaker grill. Nothing more, and no need. There is a shipping protective sticker with serial numbers and IMEI, which is easy to remove and leaves no residue.



    On the edges of the apparatus are located:
    • top: 3.5mm headphone jack
    • bottom: microUSB connector, which is offset from the center
    • right: power button and volume buttons
    • left: nothing






    Under the back cover there are two SIM card slots, one microSD card slot (32 gigabytes are declared maximum, but 64 gigabytes are supported), a 4000 mAh battery (screws are screwed and a warranty seal is glued, that is, in fact, the battery is not removable) . The connector on the left is for mini-SIM1 with LTE support, on the right is for mini-SIM2 and a memory card (they are located one above the other and are not aligned, that is, you can use both a second SIM and a memory card at the same time). The second SIM supports 2G network operation and is accordingly suitable only for voice communication.









    The package includes everything you need: a network charger, a USB-microUSB cable, a microUSB-OTG cable, a warranty card and an instruction manual in Russian. A nice bonus is the OTG cable, which, without additional costs for new flash drives, will make it possible to slightly increase the phone's memory, and the need for such an event will arise (I remind you that the built-in memory is 8 GB, but there is a microSD slot). By the way, in Blade X3 there are additional features: when you connect another smartphone or action camera via an OTG cable, you can use ZTE as a powerbank, and you can connect not only USB flash drives, but also external hard drives that do not require additional power.

    Ergonomics


    The most subjective part of the review that cannot be measured by any tests. The device lies comfortably in the hand, a little thick (if compared with the Apple iPhone 6 for example), is easily controlled with one hand (for a person of my size), build quality is 5, there is no play, the lid does not creak.

    Screen


    The screen resolution is 720p, not enough for the flagship, but enough for a 100-dollar phone for every day, pixels are noticeable, color reproduction is high-quality (IPS matrix is ​​used), the backlight is able to work in a severe gloomy St. Petersburg without any difficulties, but in the bright sun it will not be very comfortable, the screen will fade significantly. The type of protective glass is not described in the documentation, with a two-week use, there were barely noticeable scratches, which gave reason to think about purchasing a protective film, it will probably come in handy if you plan to actively use the phone. By the way, the film will also reduce the number of fingerprints on the screen, since there is no oleophobic coating.

    Software, software and all-all-all


    A screenshot with information about the current firmware says that Android 5.1 is really installed and at the time of testing the version out of the box is the latest available. The pluses include the pre-installed Kingston WPS office suite. The device is stuffed with a quad-core Mediatek MT6735 with a clock frequency of 1 GHz or so. Temperature sensors work correctly, while working in an LTE network, the phone heats up, but is not critical. The Mali-T720 graphics core is familiar to entry-level phones. AIDA64 echoes CPU-Z in terms of filling, says that the device does not have root access, it says that the pixel density on the screen is 320 dpi.












    The regular launcher is very modest, but at the same time very leisurely, you can play a little with predefined themes, change the wallpaper and desktop icons, but I would recommend installing Yandex Launcher immediately and getting a faster and more convenient interface. However, I do not insist on choosing a shell, among my favorites Aviate still appears, maybe someone will like another option.



    Performance testing


    There is no arguing against numbers. The Finnish company Futuremark offers two test packages - PC Mark for Android and 3DMark for Android - which I gladly drove to the ZTE Blade X3. Unfortunately, I could not compare with other owners, my result was the first on this device, but you can compare directly with the flagships or the phones assigned to them directly online. For example, the iPhone 6 Plus is six times faster, and about six times more expensive, and OnePlus 2’s geek favorite is 7.5 times faster. Geekbench 3 showed a result of 1408 points for multi-core mode and three times less for a single-threaded test.







    Another popular Vellamo test - the graphs show that the ZTE Blade X3 tops are not quite noticeable, although in some subtests the lag from ASUS Zenfone 2 or Meizu MX4 does not look catastrophic. Passmark - Gourmet and LTE Performance Testing. Not the very center of the city, but in the zone of reliable reception - indicators 18/35 can be considered quite worthy. AnTuTu impartially says that there is still much to be done, and there is no need to hope for a miracle. The phone’s performance is enough for everyday use, but don’t expect it to become a replacement for a game console or desktop computer.










    Battery


    With active use (really active: social networks, photos, music) the device will last for a day, no more. If the smartphone spends some time in your pocket (on the way to work, from work, on the table during the day) - then the batteries will easily last for two days.

    Camera


    About the camera, I want to say the following: the settings are the same as in most Android phones, to get a wider range, put VSCO or other third-party applications, the shooting quality is average, here is an example of a photo taken on a sunny day: without HDR, with HDR, in side lighting .





    Final conclusions


    Low productivity and a balanced set of characteristics are complemented by an adequate price. No, this is not the “cheapest smartphone with LTE” and not the most productive phone in the world. This is a harsh middle peasant, that phone, which is pleasant to use, but which you have to put up with.

    Pros:


    • Large capacity battery for daily use
    • Adequate price
    • The latest version of Android out of the box
    • Decent quality main camera
    • Quality assembly
    • Two color options
    • LTE support


    Cons / may not like:


    • No headphones included
    • Low performance for games
    • Easily screen
    • 8 GB of memory

    Also popular now: