The ZTE Grand X is a big and bold
handset at an attractive price
Big screen
With a 4.3-inch screen, the ZTE Grand X is
roomy enough to be used for full web browsing and video viewing without being
too big in the hand
Search button
The Grand X retains the dedicated search
button long abandoned by most other manufacturers
Slow camera
There’s noticeable shutter lag that makes
using the main camera tricky, especially for shooting moving subjects
Vanilla Android
The Grand X is that rarest of beasts: a
phone running an un-skinned version of Android. It is simple, fast, responsive
and an absolute pleasure to use
Standard design
Budget devices tend to fall down in the
design department. This one offers nothing special with its standard and
functional, if a little boring styling
We’re not sure about the reason for the X
in this handset’s name, but Grand it certainly is. The ZTE Grand X is big and
bold, and for $320 some will regard It as a steal. There are some compromises
that have been made to meet the low price point, but on the whole this is a
phone with quite a lot in its favour.
ZTE is no stranger to smartphone
manufacturing, but generally makes phones for other people. Orange, T-Mobile
and Vodafone have all benefitted In the past and made ZTE's phones available as
their own branded handsets. The most famous of all, the Orange San Francisco
was a ZTE product, for instance. ZTE has now started to release phones under
its own name though, and the Grand X is a device with one eye on the higher end
of the market, albeit with a budget price.
Standard
design
So what you get here is a 4.3-inch screen,
Android 4.0 and a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, as well as HSDPA that can
cope with 21 Mbps download speeds. Not bad at all at the price, and clearly
every part of the specification sheet can’t be up to this standard.
You’ll notice one place in which
compromises have been made as soon as you get the handset out of its box. The
build is nowhere near as stylish as that of the top end, most expensive of
smartphones. The plastic chassis is a little flexible and our attempts to bow
the casing between two hands were successful. The back plate is rather thin
too, and overall this might not be the smartphone to choose if you don’t look
after your tech too carefully.
Visually there’s not a lot to endear you to
the ZTE Grand X, either. It has a slightly chunky build and rather average
looks, and with a fixed search button below the screen It seems like more of a
2010 design than 2012.
The 1GHz Tegra 2 dual-core processor Is
supported by just 512MB of RAM, which is arguably half of what you’ll need for
heavy continued use. We found the processor was able to cope with some decent
spec games, but once we had multiple apps running simultaneously, the phone did
start to slow down.
The large screen is impressive on paper
with 4.3 inches of viewing area and 540x960 pixels in total. It performed well,
although it isn’t outstanding. The TFT rather than AMOLED technology means
colours are a little duller than ideally we’d have liked, but web browsing,
video watching, email, eBook reading and even some catch up TV services were
all handled with aplomb.
We can’t say we felt much love for the
camera though. Video shooting is possible to 720p, when we expect top-end
smartphones to cater for 1080p these days (especially when there is a dual-core
processor on board), and the main camera’s five megapixels are now the average
rather than being higher end. We could live with that, and with the fact that
there’s no hardware button for the camera. But there are two factors that
seriously let the camera down. One is that image quality is pretty mediocre,
and the other, worse, is that there is serious shutter lag. We noticed the
latter most often when trying to take photos of moving subjects, when we often
missed the moment we wanted to capture. But you’ll need to be aware of it all
the time and maintain a steady hand for a second after you think you’ve taken
your photo. There’s a front camera too, incidentally, which fulfils its purpose
adequately.
Memory
The onboard storage is woefully short, so
make sure you've got a memory card to hand
Dual-core
The dual-core processor means the ZTE Grand
X is a good choice for gaming fans
Unlike many hardware manufacturers who like
to skin Android, here we have unadorned, naked Android 4.0. We rather like
that. The bare Android look is really quite good, and we found it easy to live
with. Normally this would make OS updates easier for the manufacturer to
deliver as well, although you shouldn’t buy this handset on the expectation
that you will receive them.
ZTE wasn’t able to resist customisations
altogether, and included its TouchPal Curve keyboard and its Swype like system.
We didn’t take to it, and if you’re the same you can disable it and go right
back to Android’s native keyboard.
ZTE
wasn’t able to resist customisations altogether, and included its TouchPal
Curve keyboard and its Swype like system.
Something you can’t control is the battery,
and here you might be disappointed. The 1650mAh cell is a bit underpowered,
especially if you find yourself getting into serious gaming. We squeezed out
only a couple of hours of gameplay from a single charge, although normal use
should get you through the day. Onboard storage is a bit thin too with only
about 1.5GB of the touted 4GB free on our review sample out of the box. You’ll
need a micro SD card to rectify this problem.
Information
Price: $318.4
Battery life
Suffers when : you’re gaming but gets you | through a day of more
normal use
Technical specs
Operating system...............Android 4.0
Processor...................................1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2
dual-core
Memory.......................................4GB storage (1.6GB
available)
Dimensions..............................127 x 64.6 x 9.9 mm
Weight..........................................110g
Display size...............................4.3-inch
Display resolution...............960 x 540 pixels
Expansion slot.......................micro SD
Performance
Nice and fast for a phone with a budget price tag
Design
Not particularly stylish to look at, with a slightly dated design
Features
Poor camera, light on internal memory and storage
Value for money
Android 4.0 and a large screen, but it’s not all rosy
Verdict
The price and core specs are very attractive, but check out what’s
missing before you buy
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