ZTE is getting ready to release in our country one more Blade Series device. It’s called Blade G and it will surely increase the competition in the budget smartphone market (devices under 200€). The Blade G ZTE lent me is the blue one, and I think you’re gonna love it. The device has been constructed entirely by plastic parts with a soft finish but on the side you will find a metallic bezel that makes it look a bit pricy.
On the right side of the device you will find the volume rocker and on the top side of the Blade G you will see the On/Off switch that’s not so easy to locate when you’re in a hurry. Somewhere there you will also see the audio jack of the device and on the bottom of the smartphone there’s a micro USB 2.0 for charging and data transfer purposes.
The left side of the smartphone has no hardware keys for us. If you want to gain access to the SIM and microSD slots on the back, you will have to remove the battery cover in order to see the 2000 mAh Li-Ion battery. If you want to remove it though, you will have to remove a small metallic part that holds it in place, so be careful.
Obviously you can use a microSD card (up to 32GB) but if you don’t you will have to do with just 4GB of storage (out of which only 1.9GB is available). So I advise you to buy a microSD card and solve all of your storage problems at once.
The Blade G packs a dual core Qualcomm MSM8225 chipset (Snapdragon architecture ARM Cortex-A5 with Adreno 203 GPU) running at a speed of 1.2GHz and uses 512MB of RAM.
I’d prefer obviously if the Blade G offered 1GB of RAM, but this is something that all the relevant smartphones offer so I guess I’m mad with all manufacturers in this price range smartphones.
On the back of the device you can find a 5.0MPixel camera with autofocus function. It’s a typical 5.0MPixel camera that will surely satisfy your basic needs, along with its LED flash and macro mode support. It can shoot 480p videos and 2592×1944 pixel resolution photos, but in both cases (photos and videos) I noticed digital noise that was more in the photos. I guess ZTE will probably solve this during a future firmware update.
Screenshots from the UI
Screenshots of the benchmarking results
The display of the device has a 4.5 inch diagonal, and supports 480 x 854 pixels resolution (WVGA) It has a 271 ppi but it didn’t manage to impress me. It’s not as bright as I thought it would be and its viewing angles are not that great especially if you use it in open spaces under direct sunlight. In any case it’s a budget display any way you look at it so just take this into consideration when you buy the device.
Photo samples @ maximum resolution
The device also packs a GPS receiver, along with A-GPS support, Bluetooth, WiFi, WiFi Hotspot and an FM Radio with RDS. Its dimensions measure 133 x 67 x 9,2 mm, and it weighs 140 gr. It runs on Android 4.1.2 obviously. To sum up, I’d say that Blade G relies on its large 4.5 inch display as its major selling point in the market of under 200€ smartphones. It’s quite well equipped so if you’re on the lookout for an affordable smartphone with a price under 200€ then ZTE Blade G may be the device for you!
