ZTE has released mid-range smartphone, ZTE Blade A2 on June 6.We know they have announced its first blade phone, ZTE Blade A1 last year mainly for European and American market. Now the next model, ZTE Blade A2 has come with fingerprint scanner. And it has used metal back cover instead of plastic material this time with nice hand gripping. As a budget phone, ZTE Blade A2 has made big progress in its design and price at $100. So today we will make a review about this affordable smartphone.
Metal body
Design
ZTE Blade A2 use metal body which has higher level than ZTE Blade A1. Meanwhile, it has 2.5D curved screen which makes us operate more smoothly. And it has also processed well adopted for circular elements, to some extent, improving the overall quality of products in frame, camera edge and fingerprint scanner button, etc.
2.5D Glass
Speaker
Bottom
Fingerprint Button
Fingerprint Scanner
It’s very special that ZTE Blade A2 speaker chooses in the back and it is very clean at the bottom. It keeps the fingerprint scanner and improve the scanner rate. It reports the unlocking fingerprint scanner has 0.3s speed and increase 360 degress recognition. The fingerprint button can support unlocking with screen off, we can also unlock apps with screen on by setting. If you want to check maps, in general, you need to unlock the screen, find the map software and then open it. Since we have this function, it only takes one step. So it’s very practical for us.
In addition, ZTE Blade A2 fingerprint button also has 3D touch function. We have heard 3D force touch technology, but this is my first time to hear fingerprint has 3D touch function. Meanwhile, it has fingerprint payment, taking photos, taking calls, keep privacy, and other functions.
It has support 4G and VoLTE technology which has used in other high-end smartphones, too. The 4G LTE has fast downloading speed to 300Mbps. If you download a 2GB movie, you can only use 4G LTE to download it in one minute which is very attractive by games. Meanwhile, VoLTE has the big feature is that it can realize integration of data and voice. It brings better calling quality and reduce phone taking delay and offline. In all, Blade A2 has brought nice experience about this two features.
OS
ZTE Blade A2 runs mFavor 3.2 OS, same as Android OS which has many functions like a manager such as managing privacy, app lock, strange info stopping, virus killing and anti-lost of phone, etc. So these are necessary tools for users, especially Android phone.
Camera
Camera is not the main feature of ZTE Blade A2, but for a phone, it’s necessary. It has 13MP camera with PDAF focus. First let’s see the camera interface, it’s not simple in automatic mode but it has full functions and it also has special mode. You can see the photo sample, i take the photo in the morning, so the sunshine is not enough. The overall photo didn’t bring much surprise. But it shows very natural. Of course if you choose taking photos in nice light, it would be better. Meanwhile, it has 5MP front camera to take nice photos for beautification.
Hardware and Antutu Test
Antutu Test contrast
In Antutu test contrast, ZTE Blade A2 powered by MT6750 processor has 38,781 scores, which is higher than Snapdragon 616 and MTK6735 Quad core processor. About GeekBench test, ZTE Blade A2 single core has 685 scores, Multi core has 2746 scores. Although it can’t compete with high-end smartphones, ZTE Blade A2 with cheap price and can still win.
GeekBench Contrast
Battery
ZTE Blade A2 is equipped with MTK6750 Octa core processor, so we can relax about its power consumption. In addition, it is built in 2500mAh battery, although it’s not so large in its capacity, the overall performance seems good. After charging the phone full, we test online video, games, play weibo, and other apps for 2.5 hours, and 8 hours standby, the rest power has 63%. So it can be used for one day without problems.
You can see the picture about power consumption. So this kind of state of battery is just like phone with 4,000mAh. So Blade Z2 has impressed us in its battery life.
Conclusion
As second generation fingerprint scanner smartphone, ZTE Blade A2 has still used fingerprint ID and improved in other aspects in its fingerprint. In additon, this metal body phone has also impressed us in photo taking, battery life, and 4G LTE, VoLTE function. Most importantly, it sell only at $100, which is worthwhile to have a try.