Chinese telecommunications firm ZTE?s bid for smartphone consumer share in the Philippines has been met with disappointing results.
Though popular for their pocket Wi-Fi, routers, and other wireless telecommunications offerings, they can’t seem to entice the Filipino consumers with their mobile phones. Part of this, in my honest opinion, was how ZTE’s name was dragged into controversies in recent years.
ZTE plans to change this mindset towards their company when they launched different offerings of smartphones including the midrange phone ZTE Grand X Quad V987.
Will Filipino consumers finally open up to the ZTE brand as much as they are looking now into other China-based companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi?
What’s in the box?
- Phone
- USB Wall Charger and Cable
- Headset
- Manuals
- Specifications and performance
The Grand X Quad V987 features a Mediatek MT6589 chipset powered by Quad-core Cortex-A7 clocked at 1.2 GHz. Combine that with the 1GB RAM and you have a very capable device.
Most games and apps like Facebook would run with little-to-no lags. Internal storage is only 4GB but can easily be extended with a microSD as the phone supports up to 32GB microSD.
The Grand X Quad has a 5-inch HD display with IPS screen technology. With its 1280X720 resolution and 294 ppi pixel density, the images are rendered sharp and colors are vivid.
With OGS or One Glass Solution implemented, the gap between the LCD and glass is almost non-existent making it look like there’s no gap at all which I really liked.
When cranked up, the display is very bright and quite legible even outdoors. Also, the device can be easily operated using one hand.
The Grand X Quad sports an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash at the back and a 1.3 megapixel camera in front. The main camera also has HDR, panorama, and beauty modes.
Although results will not blow anyone away, I was quite happy with the pictures produced by the device especially on broad daylight. The LED flash is quite powerful enough to enable the Grand X Quad to capture good photos on low light situations. Don’t expect too much on the front-facing camera for clear selfies though.
The Grand X Quad has a 2500mah battery and is quite exceptional, lasting us more than a day with Wi-Fi always on and moderate usage of texting and calls.
This is quite remarkable given the screen size it has to power and how bright the LCD can be set. The phone runs on Android Jellybean out of the box with no clear indication from ZTE if it will be upgraded to Kitkat or Android L.
For benchmark geeks out there, the ZTE Grand X Quad scored 13913 on Antutu Benchmark, 43.4 on Nemark2, and 3727 on Quadrant.
Other notable specification includes FM Radio support, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n which supports Wi-Fi-hotspot, ability to set power on and off, and dual-SIM with dual standby.
At the time of this writing, the ZTE Grand X Quad retails for P5,990.00 on online shops. It is distributed locally by MSI-ECS.
Pros
- Affordable device for its specifications
- Sharp and vivid screen
- Very capable phone that can run HD games with little-to-no lags
- Fits most hands
- Long battery life
- Dual SIM with dual-standby support
Cons
- Build quality is not the greatest with the use of plastic
- Front-facing camera specification is outdated
- Location of USB Port (left lower hand side) which makes holding the phone while charging somewhat uncomfortable
- ZTE’s decision to place the power button at the top of the device
