After announcing the Blade Spark smartphone in the US market last month, Chinese smartphone manufacturer ZTE on Wednesday expanded its “Blade” series smartphone portfolio with the launch of an another budget-oriented handset, “ZTE Blade Z Max” in the US tech market. The new ZTE Blade Z Max is the successor to the company’s previous Blade X Max, which was launched in May this year. Carried a price tag of US$ 129 (approximately Rs. 8,300), the ZTE Blade Z Max is now listed on US telecom operator MetroPCS for pre-register, while the same will be made available for purchase in the US starting August 28 (Monday) in Black colour option. The main highlights of the Blade Z Max are its gigantic 6-inch full-HD display, Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS and a denser 4,080 mAh battery. Sadly, the Shenzhen-based company has made no official announcements about the pricing details and availability of the ZTE Blade Z Max for other markets.
Commenting on the launch of ZTE Blade Z Max, Mr. Lixin Cheng, the executive vice president of ZTE Corporation, CEO of ZTE Mobile Devices and Chairman of ZTE USA, said, “The Blade smartphone series showcases the ability of ZTE to bring affordable premium devices to the masses and we are excited to bring this line to MetroPCS for the first time through the ZTE Blade Z Max.”
“The Blade Z Max brings top-of- the-line features and specs to consumers at a price point that provides unmatched value,” Cheng added.
In terms of design, the ZTE Blade Z Max comes with a sleek metal unibody design with metal frame all around giving it an overall premium look. The smartphone features a trio of capacitive navigation buttons and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor, located just middle of the rear panel of the handset. The volume up-down keys and the power/lock button are all placed on the right-hand edge of the device, while the speaker grille is situated on the rear end of the device. A 3.5mm audio socket and the microphone are seen at the very bottom edge of the device along with a USB Type-C charging port sitting in the middle. The rear panel of the handset houses a horizontally aligned dual rear camera setup, LED flash module and a fingerprint recognition button, while the top front panel features an 8MP selfie camera, sensors, and an earpiece.
As far as specifications are concerned, the ZTE Blade Z Max comes equipped with a mammoth 6-inch full-HD IPS display with a screen resolution of 1080×1920 pixels and a scratch resistance 2.5D Dragontrail glass coating on top. Under the hood, it is powered by a 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor clubbed with 2GB of RAM. In terms of storage, the Blade Z Max comes loaded with 32GB of internal storage, which can be further expanded by up to 128GB with a microSD card. On the software fronts, the device runs on Google’s latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system and a light custom UI skin running on top.
In terms of optics, the ZTE Blade Z Max sports a dual rear-facing camera setup that comes combined with one 16-megapixel primary sensor and one 2-megapixel secondary sensor. Both the rear cameras come accompanied by an LED flash module. On the front side, the handset features an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter for capturing selfies and making video chatting.
In terms of connectivity, the ZTE Blade Z Max offers various connectivity options including 4G LTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS, a 3.5mm headphone socket, and a USB Type-C port for superfast charging and data transfer. Sensors on the device include an Accelerometer, Fingerprint sensor (rear-mounted), Ambient light sensor and Proximity sensor. On the battery front, the new ZTE Blade Z Max comes packed with a decent 4,080 mAh battery that is rated to deliver up to 31 hours of talk time and up to 528 hours of standby time. The high-density battery also supports Qualcomm Quick Charge 2.0 technology for fast charging.
