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A little over two months ago, ZTE sponsored my trip to Beijing, China to

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attend the launch party for the Axon 7.

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Some stuff about their new flagship impressed me with the hands-on feel of

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the device and the jaw-dropping specs relative to the price being among them,

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but other things didn't. The speakers in my engineering sample couldn't go full

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volume without significant distortion. And the camera was a generation or two

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behind other top tier flagships, making

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it tough to call it a legitimate flagship killer, regardless of the

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price. But since that time, the software

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has been tweaked, the hardware has even been tweaked, and perhaps, just perhaps,

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my own opinion has been tweaked. Let's

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see by just how

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much Tunnel Bear is the simple VPN app

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that makes it easy to browse privately and enjoy a more open internet. To try

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Tunnel Bear for free, check out the link in the video description. So, I feel

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like I have a responsibility to open with this. The Axon 7 is not going to

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win every battle today, but it's

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$400 carrier unlocked with no contracts

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or other obligations attached to it with almost every other device that I'm going

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to compare it against coming in at $300 to $400 more than that for a 64 gig

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variant, which is the Axon 7's base model. So then with that aside, like

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pretty much every other flagship, it packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU, 4

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gigs of LPDDR4 RAM, and an Adreno 530

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GPU. The 3250 mAh battery is decidedly

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average given its 5.5 in screen size, but quick charge 3.0 know over a type-C

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USB port is very welcome, as is the

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satisfying tactile lock and volume rocker button arrangement, noise

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cancelling microphone, and an elongated SIM tray that can hold either a second

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SIM or a micro SD card for additional

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storage. None of the obvious cost cutting measures are here really. The

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outer chassis is an all aluminum affair that makes wireless charging impossible,

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but looks and feels good, albeit more slippery than I'd like in the hand. NFC

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and dualband AC wireless are accounted for. And the rear groove under the 20

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megapixel rear camera and dual LED flash is a fingerprint reader that while not

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in my preferred position on the front of the phone where I can reach it lying

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flat on a desk, is lightning fast and very accurate. Around front, under the

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aggressively noise reduced 8 megapixel selfie camera is the meat and potatoes

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of the Axon 7's standout features,

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including one that wasn't present when they gave me a pre-production device 10

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weeks ago. The 5.5 in screen is a

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fantastic looking Corning Gorilla Glass 4 topped

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2560x440 AMOLED that looks awesome from

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any angle in any conditions and may or may not contribute to the outstanding

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battery life that I experienced using this device as a daily driver, which

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I'll discuss a little bit more later. It's flanked on both sides then by some

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of the loudest and best positioned cell phone speakers that I have ever

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encountered. The last thing here then something that took me a couple of days

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to get used to then I absolutely loved

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is the capacitive buttons that replaced the onscreen buttons in the early

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sample. I mean, yes, yes, capacitive buttons have definitely been done

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before, but what makes these ones better than others is actually something quite

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subtle. Look what happens with another capacitive button equipped smartphone.

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There's almost nowhere to hold it in landscape, and others are even worse.

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ZTE gets around this maybe accidentally because they were trying to shoehorn the

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buttons in in the last month of product development by fitting them into a

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slimmer than usual strip that makes the chin bar a perfect size for comfortable

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typing in spite of that speaker placement and by squeezing them in

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towards the middle of the phone making accidental button presses much less

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likely while typing and holding the phone in landscape mode. It's a minor

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tweak, but it makes a huge difference in the day-to-day use. Well done. On that

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note, it's been a long time since I've rocked a 1M7 or a 1 M8, and it's easy to

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forget how much you miss nice loud front-facing speakers. Sitting on a desk

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next to me playing music, it actually doesn't make much of a difference. But

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when watching video, the Axon 7 holds its own against pretty much anything as

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a content consumption device. I'm a little disappointed that the last few

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volume levels are basically the same when listening to music due to some

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dynamic range reducing tricks that help with distortion, but at least they

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solved the distortion problem in some way. As for headphones, ZTE makes a lot

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of claims about the phenomenal 3 and a half millimeter output of the Axon 7,

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but I guess the S7 must be pretty good as well, since aside from being able to

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push volume levels further past comfortable, I really couldn't hear the

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difference even with a pair of Bayer Dynamic DT990 Pro 240 ohm headphones.

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Moving on, then this is my first experience with my favorite ZTE's

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Android skin. So, I've got some comments on that. Overall, I give it a B+.

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There's good stuff like right and left-handed modes for the nav buttons,

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the ability to uninstall apps directly from the home screen, the default

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setting configurator for a PC USB connection, so I don't need to be

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prompted every time, and the stellar default power management profile that

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managed to make the battery feel about 20% bigger in day-to-day use without

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affecting the way the device worked for me. And then there's mediocre stuff like

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the functional but slow auto call

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gesture and the clunky folder creation system for the home screen followed by

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some stuff that I would like to see addressed. The stock launcher is limited

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to a 4x4 grid size on the home screen. Please let me put my stuff on here.

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Thanks. The lock screen doesn't show notification details until you press a

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little bell way up in the top left corner. Something that isn't more

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secure. I'm not hiding my notification details. It's just more inconvenient

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because it's another button to press. Notification scrolling in landscape is

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kind of derp sometimes. And then finally, there's no fast launch camera

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gesture or configurable shortcuts at all

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for that matter. I don't care what the gesture is. Wiggle, double press, long

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press. Let me do something that doesn't require me to reach the lock screen and

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then press something in order to launch the camera. Which I guess leads us

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pretty well into the camera. Other reviewers are giving pretty mixed

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reports here and I think there are a few reasons for that. The specs are great. A

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20 megapixel sensor behind f/1.8 sapphire glass with optical image

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stabilization, 4K video capture, etc., etc. And still pictures under certain

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conditions are actually competitive with the Galaxy S7. I mean, it is easy to get

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some really nice comparative pictures out of this thing, especially with the

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manual mode finetuning. They just have some work to do when it

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comes to clear capture of moving subjects. These shots are from the

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Galaxy S7 and the Axon 7 in auto mode in

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the same lighting conditions. One of them is somewhat usable in a this is

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kind of crappy looking, but at least I captured the moment kind of way. And the

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other one is just kind of crappy looking. Not ideal if you're an avid

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shutterbug and most of your subjects, oh I don't know, say kids and pets are

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fastmoving objects. Which leads us then, I guess, to the bottom line. In a world

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where ZTE was the only Chinese brand targeting a similar experience at half

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the price of the Samsung's, HTC's, and

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Apples of the world, my conclusion would be very simple. Sure, it lacks water

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resistance, which is a key feature for me, but it carries a 2-year warranty,

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and it's an unbelievable piece of hardware for the price, as long as

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you're willing to compromise on the camera a little. What makes things more

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complicated is the existence of the OnePlus 3. So, it'll be up to you then.

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slimmer, sexier form factor with more polished software and from my

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experience, more usable camera or higher

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resolution, better screen, bigger sound,

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SD expansion, and phenomenal out ofthe-box battery management. That's not

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an easy decision for me, and I suspect it won't be for you either. So, I wish

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you the best of luck. Gee, Lionus, what was that great looking

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vinyl skin you had on the Axon 7 and some of the

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B-roll? Great question. You must be new.

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It's a Dbrand skin. Dbrand is your source for awesome vinyl skins. They're

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available for laptops, phones, tablets, consoles, game controllers, and more.

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The and more is like not a lot more. That's like most of what they do. and

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they use high quality authentic true textured 3M vinyl on every product. They

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feature unrivaled precision, great guides for how to put them on, and most

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importantly for people like me who have kind of a, you know, style flare. You

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know, we like to play around with different color combinations and see how

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great or how horribly they go together. Best thing is the Dbrand configurator.

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You head over to the site, that's dbrand.com. We've got it linked in the video description. And you just try out

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different skins and color combinations. You turn your device around. You look at

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what it's going to look like and boom, they ship worldwide. It's affordable.

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And once it's applied, it doesn't come off until you want it to. And when it

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does, it doesn't leave any residue. And it protects your phone from accidental

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dings and scratches while looking great

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or terrible. The choice is yours. So, check them out at the link in the video

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description. So, thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know

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what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the

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Axon 7 in the video description. Also

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linked in the description is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum, which you

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should totally join. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next.

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So, click that little button in the top right corner to check out our latest

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video over on Channel Super Fun.