“ZTE Axon Pro” could have been a killer phone

The Chinese telecommunications company ZTE wants beat Samsung in it’s market share of handheld devices. That's why the company made the “ZTE Axon Pro”. It's the company's first phone "designed in the U.S. for the U.S.," Jeff Yang, ZTE vice president of technology and partnerships at ZTE USA, boldly announced in July.

You might want to have a quick glance about “ZTE Axon Pro” Specifications in GSM ARENA here:

The Axon Pro is a premium quality Android smartphone with all of the latest technology, but with a price that's lower than other flagship phones. Where iPhones and Galaxy phones can cost $600-plus, Axon Pro is only $450 and easy affordable for smartphone lovers. As there was no cheap Nexus last year, there were a ton of great Android smartphones at the $300 and under price point.

The Axon Pro promises premium design, fast performance, killer cameras and incredible sound. ZTE had the right vision. But unfortunately, it picked the wrong processor, and as a result, the entire phone experience goes right out the window.

The Axon Pro is built with metal and plastic. The back is made from three pieces: two plastic pieces on the top and bottom and an aluminum plate in the middle. The Axon Pro has a 5.5-inch IPS display with a 2,560 x 1,440 (QuadHD) resolution. Like the LG G4's screen, the Axon Pro's screen is tack sharp — it's pixel heaven. The very very subtle curve on the edges of the display is also lovely. More phones should have this; it makes swiping so much better feeling.

The Axon Pro is armed with all of the latest and greatest specs you'd expect from a flagship phone, but having the best specs doesn't always mean a great experience. The phone uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor. It's a really fast processor — Qualcomm's fastest — but it's a flawed chip. The 810 has been slammed for its overheating issues. Its problems have ruined entire phones like the HTC One M9 and LG G Flex 2. The Axon Pro uses version 2.1 of the 810 chip, which is supposed to run cooler, but the phone still runs warm and sometimes hot. Most of the unwanted heat comes from the top half on the back of the phone.

It gets unusually warm just from being used lightly. No matter what I did — stream minute-long YouTube videos, browse the web on Chrome, scroll through Facebook and take photos — the phone got really warm.
The heating issues are especially noticeable when you're trying to juggle a bunch of apps at once or playing games. Smartphones usually get warm when running 3D games like Asphalt 8: Airborne and Brothers in Arms 3, but the Axon Pro also gets warm when playing simpler games like the new Angry Birds 2.

The Axon Pro runs Android 5.1.1. Lollipop with a ZTE skin on top. It's one of the less offensive skins because it's so light; the icons are different and there's a weird shortcut menu (activated with a swipe up from any screen that's not your lock screen) that shows your music, a favorite contact, your steps and sports highlights from Yahoo Sports. The latter is especially odd since it's not very customizable, only shows those four things, and you can't get rid of the sports highlights if you're not a sports fan.

It's so great to see smartphone makers finally putting great cameras into their flagship phones.
The Axon Pro has a 13-megapixel camera on the back with an f/1.8 aperture (just like the LG G4), but it's also got a secondary 2-megapixel camera that sits above it to help capture 3D depth for re-focusable photos. The front camera is an 8-megapixel one. The shutter is very quick and the photos themselves have good color and sharpness. There were a few times where the overheating from the processor prevented the camera from saving photos into the camera roll, but it's mostly really great.

Despite what it looks, the Axon Pro has a single front-facing speaker. It's not as loud as the BoomSound speakers on the One M9, but it's certainly nice that it projects sound at you instead of away from you. ZTE also brags about the Axon Pro's ability to play and record Hi-Fi audio, thanks to its built in digital-to-audio converter and analog-to-digital converter.

ZTE Axon Pro Review by PhoneArena

 

Experience in a nutshell:

The Good

Large, high-resolution QuadHD display • Long battery • Good back camera • Gently curved display edges • Costs less than other phones with these specs • Front-facing speaker

The Bad

Phone runs warm all the time • Imperfect 'premium' design • Gimmicky depth-of-field camera • Thick and heavy

The Bottom Line

The ZTE Axon Pro could have given more expensive flagship Android phones a run for their money, if the processor didn't overheat.