WEBVTT 00:00:00.150 --> 00:00:03.470 - The big deal today with the ZTE Axon 30 5G 00:00:03.470 --> 00:00:09.410 is that this is gonna be our first look at a 2nd generation under-display camera. 00:00:09.410 --> 00:00:13.980 If you guys remember, the 20 5G was actually the first phone 00:00:13.980 --> 00:00:17.540 with an under-display camera that actually made it into production. 00:00:17.540 --> 00:00:22.590 And this one claims that it has taken everything that they learned from that first attempt 00:00:22.590 --> 00:00:28.840 and made it even better. Now, right out of the gate, the specs don't actually sound better. 00:00:28.840 --> 00:00:31.920 In fact, we're going from a 32-megapixel front facing camera 00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:35.330 to just a 16-megapixel front facing camera, 00:00:35.330 --> 00:00:40.810 but ZTE claims that the pixel density of the display in front of the front facing camera, 00:00:40.810 --> 00:00:44.330 as well as a special secondary driver 00:00:44.330 --> 00:00:48.690 for that portion of the display makes it so that it is far less noticeable 00:00:48.690 --> 00:00:52.520 in day-to-day use. Let's do our unboxing experience first, 00:00:52.520 --> 00:00:55.710 and then we're gonna dig right into the front facing camera. 00:00:55.710 --> 00:01:01.080 So inside the box, ZTE has not followed the industry trend 00:01:01.080 --> 00:01:02.833 of not including a power adapter. 00:01:04.250 --> 00:01:09.670 Actually, wow, this thing feels robust. 65-watt power adapter. 00:01:09.670 --> 00:01:10.520 It's a heavy boy. 00:01:13.490 --> 00:01:19.760 Nice thick USB Type-C to Type-C power cable. And of course, oh, look at that, that's adorable. 00:01:19.760 --> 00:01:22.930 They still include a Type-C to headphone jack. 00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:27.240 SIM removal tool and a pretty basic case. 00:01:28.980 --> 00:01:33.410 Basic is the kindest word that I can have for it. Okay, let's put this on and totally 00:01:33.410 --> 00:01:37.520 ruin the fantastic, gorgeous finish of this phone. 00:01:37.520 --> 00:01:43.540 We're not gonna do that. And, yeah, we're gonna appreciate this for what it is. 00:01:43.540 --> 00:01:47.509 Oh, that's weird. Oh, it's a peel. 00:01:47.509 --> 00:01:52.118 Okay. It's like that is a really weird color there. 00:01:52.118 --> 00:01:56.720 (chuckles) Okay. There we go, that's more like it. 00:01:56.720 --> 00:01:57.770 There's one here too. 00:02:00.220 --> 00:02:04.120 Here we go. Look at that. 00:02:04.120 --> 00:02:08.373 microSD and nano-SIM, dual-SIM if you prefer. 00:02:09.670 --> 00:02:13.150 USB Type-C for charging, got a speaker here. 00:02:13.150 --> 00:02:19.020 Now that's interesting, our headphone speaker is extremely slim. 00:02:19.020 --> 00:02:23.850 I'm gonna have to check later to see if it has stereo sound. On the left side, there's nothing, no buttons. 00:02:23.850 --> 00:02:28.020 So you'll never be trying to press the lock button or the volume rocker on the right 00:02:28.020 --> 00:02:31.080 and accidentally mash something over on the left-hand side. 00:02:31.080 --> 00:02:34.140 At the top, we've just got a secondary microphone there 00:02:34.140 --> 00:02:38.060 for noise canceling. I don't see an IR emitter. Sometimes you find those on phones 00:02:38.060 --> 00:02:42.530 that are more intended for the Chinese or Indian market. 64-megapixel main shooter. 00:02:42.530 --> 00:02:46.750 You've actually got a total of four cameras on the back, uses a Samsung sensor. 00:02:46.750 --> 00:02:50.253 And then moving around to the front, okay. 00:02:51.889 --> 00:02:56.040 (laughs) That's pretty impressive. Andy, can you see it? 00:02:56.040 --> 00:02:59.330 - [Andy] I can't. - Oh, wait, well, that doesn't help. (Andy laughs) 00:02:59.330 --> 00:03:02.720 Okay, how about now? Can you see it? 00:03:02.720 --> 00:03:05.750 Where is it? Is it on the side? Is it in the middle? Where is it? 00:03:05.750 --> 00:03:09.290 - [Andy] I can't really see it at all. - [Linus] Okay, I gotta get the old one out here 00:03:09.290 --> 00:03:14.290 because that is hard to spot. 00:03:15.010 --> 00:03:18.600 The old one actually, you can see it defaults to having a black bar at the top, 00:03:18.600 --> 00:03:24.197 so that it can mask it. It's a lot harder to see it. I'm gonna have to just go ahead and fix that. 00:03:24.197 --> 00:03:28.830 Can you make it out? - [Jono] Oh, yeah! - [Linus] Yeah, there it is. 00:03:28.830 --> 00:03:31.850 But what about in my left hand? - [Andy] No, nothing. 00:03:31.850 --> 00:03:38.920 - Now to my eye, I can see it, but instead of looking like kind of a green spot, 00:03:38.920 --> 00:03:45.410 it just looks like there's a series of kinda like banding, right? 00:03:45.410 --> 00:03:51.710 If you've got a low bit rate video clip that you're watching and there's some colors that instead of, you know, 00:03:51.710 --> 00:03:57.030 blending together nicely, they have kinda these bands, it looks like a really subtle 00:03:57.030 --> 00:04:02.070 kind of white banding effect, just in a little rectangle up at the top of the device. 00:04:02.070 --> 00:04:06.110 I'm willing to bet that if I give it to you at an angle and you'll be able to see it a bit better. 00:04:06.110 --> 00:04:09.850 Oh, it's crazy hard to spot. I'm not expecting it to be easy. 00:04:09.850 --> 00:04:13.380 And then here, just for the sake of having a similar comparison shot, 00:04:13.380 --> 00:04:18.660 let's get the Fold out here. It's super noticeable. Thanks to Jackery for sponsoring this video, 00:04:18.660 --> 00:04:23.220 their Explorer 1500 Portable Power Station has enough juice to keep all your devices 00:04:23.220 --> 00:04:28.280 powered and connected. Its enormous 1500-watt-hour capacity 00:04:28.280 --> 00:04:31.680 and 1800-watt output rate allows up to seven devices 00:04:31.680 --> 00:04:36.620 to be plugged in simultaneously. It takes only 4 hours to recharge from 0 to 80%. 00:04:36.620 --> 00:04:40.200 And you can get 10% off with code LinusTechTips 00:04:40.200 --> 00:04:44.950 at the link down below. What's interesting about this then is that given 00:04:44.950 --> 00:04:47.990 that while I'm enjoying fullscreen content, 00:04:47.990 --> 00:04:51.678 I didn't find the Fold particularly distracting in day-to-day use. 00:04:51.678 --> 00:04:56.510 I'm expecting this to be the kinda thing you forget about. 00:04:56.510 --> 00:04:59.940 At least, that is until you open up your camera app. 00:04:59.940 --> 00:05:04.280 So let's have a look at what the performance of this front facing camera looks like. 00:05:04.280 --> 00:05:08.112 Oh, image quality enhancement, 00:05:08.112 --> 00:05:11.640 it is advised to turn it on for better results. 00:05:11.640 --> 00:05:15.871 What looks like is mostly a sharpening filter. 00:05:15.871 --> 00:05:20.140 (camera shutters) See? There's a processing delay there. 00:05:20.140 --> 00:05:26.650 It says, "picture quality is improving." Their sharpening filter is clearly doing 00:05:26.650 --> 00:05:30.350 far more than just sharpening. 00:05:30.350 --> 00:05:34.250 That is markedly better than what I was expecting 00:05:34.250 --> 00:05:40.290 looking at the initial preview here. In the preview, it looks like I've got Vaseline smeared over the lens. 00:05:40.290 --> 00:05:45.512 Okay, let's see what happens if I don't turn on the processing here. 00:05:45.512 --> 00:05:51.030 (camera shutters) No delay, but it looks super soft. 00:05:51.030 --> 00:05:55.140 I gotta try more, like an apples to apples comparison. Okay, I'm gonna take the exact same picture 00:05:55.140 --> 00:05:59.494 and stabilize this. (camera shuttering) 00:06:02.674 --> 00:06:06.810 That is like a two steamboats processing delay, 00:06:06.810 --> 00:06:10.100 but that difference is crazy. 00:06:10.100 --> 00:06:14.790 My eye color looks way more natural. My shirt, instead of looking 00:06:14.790 --> 00:06:19.910 like it's reflecting off of something, it's true to life. 00:06:19.910 --> 00:06:25.780 Now, we can definitely find problems. Look at this, this orange smudge 00:06:25.780 --> 00:06:31.870 over on the side of the frame. Oh, that's from this light source on the lamp back there. 00:06:31.870 --> 00:06:35.043 Can they see that in the a cam? - [Andy] Yeah. - [Linus] Interesting. 00:06:35.043 --> 00:06:40.120 I'm willing to bet that we wouldn't have that same problem if we were using the rear camera. 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:43.799 Let's go ahead and turn it around and I'll take a picture of myself here. 00:06:43.799 --> 00:06:47.050 (camera shutters) Okay. Oh yeah, nothing. 00:06:47.050 --> 00:06:51.860 Oh, that's stupid face I'm looking. What am I even doing? Let's compare it to last gen here. 00:06:51.860 --> 00:06:58.290 This button is the AI button, when you switched to the rear camera, this enhanced one. 00:06:58.290 --> 00:07:04.740 So it's probably using the neural processor in the Snapdragon 870 to accelerate that upscaling. 00:07:04.740 --> 00:07:09.740 Meanwhile, the Axon 20 5G doesn't have a similar function. 00:07:11.660 --> 00:07:14.670 There is simply no way about it. 00:07:14.670 --> 00:07:18.460 You can see that ZTE and Samsung are struggling 00:07:18.460 --> 00:07:22.900 with the same things here. You can see that same kinda high contrast look 00:07:22.900 --> 00:07:26.680 in both of these images, but the difference is that ZTE 00:07:28.070 --> 00:07:34.040 has figured out how to fix it and Samsung is just giving you that result 00:07:34.040 --> 00:07:38.480 out of the front facing camera. See? You can really see that same kinda dark eyes 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:42.100 kinda haunted look, Andy? Man, that is cool. 00:07:42.100 --> 00:07:45.620 Okay, let's talk about some other key specs. It ships in two varieties 00:07:45.620 --> 00:07:52.220 with 8 gigs of RAM and 128 gigs of storage or with 12 gigs of RAM and 256 gigs of storage. 00:07:52.220 --> 00:07:56.490 So it's 2460 by 1080, it's got a 4200-milliamp-hour battery, 00:07:56.490 --> 00:08:01.210 and it supports 65-watt charging. And of course, includes a power adapter 00:08:01.210 --> 00:08:05.120 that is capable of delivering that. I don't believe it has any support for wireless charging, 00:08:05.120 --> 00:08:09.330 but it is an OLED display and has other traditionally high-end phone features 00:08:09.330 --> 00:08:12.830 like support for 128 hertz refresh rate, 00:08:12.830 --> 00:08:16.430 not to mention that it samples the actual touch interface 00:08:16.430 --> 00:08:21.390 at 360 hertz, so it feels extremely responsive. 00:08:21.390 --> 00:08:24.650 And that does pan out in practice. 00:08:24.650 --> 00:08:28.930 Now let's go ahead and consume some HDR content here. 00:08:28.930 --> 00:08:35.380 It's not blindingly bright, but definitely bright enough to have a solid HDR viewing experience. 00:08:35.380 --> 00:08:38.610 Gesture controls, gesture navigation by default, 00:08:38.610 --> 00:08:42.820 so if you're into that, then go for it. And if you're not, then you can always change it. 00:08:42.820 --> 00:08:45.930 Oh yeah, we should try out the in-display fingerprint reader. I mean, this is so crazy. 00:08:45.930 --> 00:08:50.860 This was like holy grail technology, not that long ago, under-screen camera, 00:08:50.860 --> 00:08:54.100 under-screen fingerprint reader. So you've got absolutely no interruption 00:08:54.100 --> 00:08:57.118 to your content whatsoever. Okay, let's try that out. 00:08:58.740 --> 00:09:04.350 Those have gotten really invisible. Let's try and unlock it with my meat mitts now. 00:09:04.350 --> 00:09:09.060 Oh, I missed. Right there, okay, reasonably fast. 00:09:09.060 --> 00:09:13.680 So you can just have an auxiliary Wi-Fi network 00:09:14.580 --> 00:09:17.630 and it'll default to 2.4 full range 00:09:17.630 --> 00:09:20.710 and 5 gigahertz for performance. 00:09:20.710 --> 00:09:25.370 Huh? I don't know if I've seen that before. 00:09:25.370 --> 00:09:28.800 I didn't notice any kind of horrible vivid mode 00:09:28.800 --> 00:09:32.200 out of the box and actually looks like they ship in standard mode, 00:09:32.200 --> 00:09:38.290 which is really nice to see. Screen refresh rate, yeah, let's switch between 60, 120. 00:09:38.290 --> 00:09:43.290 Actually, it looks like it's in 60 right now, 00:09:43.470 --> 00:09:49.300 browsing the menu. So if you want maximum smoothness, it looks like you're gonna wanna turn on 120 hertz manually. 00:09:49.300 --> 00:09:52.960 I kinda want us to try the selfie camera outside. Can I just go do that and come back real quick? 00:09:52.960 --> 00:09:57.680 - [Andy] Sure. - All right, I'm gonna do that. Now on the Fold 3, we noticed a thing 00:09:57.680 --> 00:10:03.690 where if there was strong backlighting on the subject, we could see this kind of a rainbow effect. 00:10:03.690 --> 00:10:07.580 So maybe if we have something like a white car behind me, 00:10:07.580 --> 00:10:09.080 we'll have problems with that. 00:10:11.039 --> 00:10:14.370 Oh, there's kind of like a haze around it. 00:10:14.370 --> 00:10:20.430 Yeah, that's interesting. It's not to nearly the same degree that we saw with the Fold 3 though. 00:10:20.430 --> 00:10:26.000 Let's try taking some pictures here. I'm gonna turn on the processing in our parking lot here. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:29.410 So you can see this video is definitely on process. Wow, it is bright today. 00:10:30.730 --> 00:10:34.410 How does someone manage to close their eyes when they are the one taking the picture? 00:10:34.410 --> 00:10:40.290 Okay, but seriously, it was just really bright out. The haze goes away to a very significant degree. 00:10:40.290 --> 00:10:44.580 It's like, it's not amazing, but it's serviceable. 00:10:44.580 --> 00:10:47.690 And when you consider that you can watch fullscreen content 00:10:47.690 --> 00:10:52.870 with absolutely no interruption whatsoever. That is a compelling selling point. 00:10:52.870 --> 00:10:56.450 It's freaking awesome. Like, look at this. Even when there's like a bright light, 00:10:56.450 --> 00:11:02.470 right where you would notice it, it is way better than the one on the Fold. 00:11:02.470 --> 00:11:07.160 Look, I vowed to wait out the notch, all right? 00:11:07.160 --> 00:11:13.073 I won. I lasted. Note 9 daily driver, no notch. 00:11:13.930 --> 00:11:18.930 I now have multiple, multiple devices to choose from 00:11:19.890 --> 00:11:25.660 that I don't have to put up with that ridiculous bullet wound in my screen. 00:11:25.660 --> 00:11:30.630 This is fantastic. It's a good time to be a Linus. 00:11:30.630 --> 00:11:34.653 I would just watch everything in like widescreen like this, for sure, just cause I can. 00:11:36.940 --> 00:11:41.350 I mean, I think it's fair to say, ZTE is a full generation ahead of Samsung on this. 00:11:41.350 --> 00:11:44.880 And Lord only knows where Apple is on this technology. We don't know yet. 00:11:44.880 --> 00:11:48.140 Did this thing ship with AnTuTu on it? AnTuTu Benchmark. 00:11:48.140 --> 00:11:53.080 For those of you wondering, the Snapdragon 870 is basically an 865, but newer. 00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:56.670 Here, we'll do a quick Geekbench benchmark. Okay, check this out. 00:11:56.670 --> 00:12:00.340 982 single core, 3157 multi-core 00:12:00.340 --> 00:12:03.790 that should give you guys some idea of where the Snapdragon 870 falls 00:12:03.790 --> 00:12:07.780 compared to the 865 or the 865+. Now I don't wanna pretend 00:12:07.780 --> 00:12:12.560 that this is all sunshine and rainbows. Something that I noticed on our review unit, 00:12:12.560 --> 00:12:17.190 which tends to be a handpicked one, not to say that it is better, 00:12:17.190 --> 00:12:21.940 but it's typically not defective is that I've already got some separation 00:12:21.940 --> 00:12:26.320 between the back of the housing and the front. 00:12:26.320 --> 00:12:31.913 Maybe that was when I was putting that case on or something. Let me just see if it'll click back into place here. 00:12:33.518 --> 00:12:38.470 Oh, there it goes. - [Film Crew Member] There we go. - I guess that's pretty much it. So Riley, go ahead and shoot TechLinked 00:12:38.470 --> 00:12:42.250 and don't forget to subscribe and subscribe to TechLinked, it's a good show.