A little over two months ago, ZTE sponsored my trip to Beijing, China to
attend the launch party for the Axon 7.
Some stuff about their new flagship impressed me with the hands-on feel of
the device and the jaw-dropping specs relative to the price being among them,
but other things didn't. The speakers in my engineering sample couldn't go full
volume without significant distortion. And the camera was a generation or two
behind other top tier flagships, making
it tough to call it a legitimate flagship killer, regardless of the
price. But since that time, the software
has been tweaked, the hardware has even been tweaked, and perhaps, just perhaps,
my own opinion has been tweaked. Let's
see by just how
much Tunnel Bear is the simple VPN app
that makes it easy to browse privately and enjoy a more open internet. To try
Tunnel Bear for free, check out the link in the video description. So, I feel
like I have a responsibility to open with this. The Axon 7 is not going to
win every battle today, but it's
$400 carrier unlocked with no contracts
or other obligations attached to it with almost every other device that I'm going
to compare it against coming in at $300 to $400 more than that for a 64 gig
variant, which is the Axon 7's base model. So then with that aside, like
pretty much every other flagship, it packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 CPU, 4
gigs of LPDDR4 RAM, and an Adreno 530
GPU. The 3250 mAh battery is decidedly
average given its 5.5 in screen size, but quick charge 3.0 know over a type-C
USB port is very welcome, as is the
satisfying tactile lock and volume rocker button arrangement, noise
cancelling microphone, and an elongated SIM tray that can hold either a second
SIM or a micro SD card for additional
storage. None of the obvious cost cutting measures are here really. The
outer chassis is an all aluminum affair that makes wireless charging impossible,
but looks and feels good, albeit more slippery than I'd like in the hand. NFC
and dualband AC wireless are accounted for. And the rear groove under the 20
megapixel rear camera and dual LED flash is a fingerprint reader that while not
in my preferred position on the front of the phone where I can reach it lying
flat on a desk, is lightning fast and very accurate. Around front, under the
aggressively noise reduced 8 megapixel selfie camera is the meat and potatoes
of the Axon 7's standout features,
including one that wasn't present when they gave me a pre-production device 10
weeks ago. The 5.5 in screen is a
fantastic looking Corning Gorilla Glass 4 topped
2560x440 AMOLED that looks awesome from
any angle in any conditions and may or may not contribute to the outstanding
battery life that I experienced using this device as a daily driver, which
I'll discuss a little bit more later. It's flanked on both sides then by some
of the loudest and best positioned cell phone speakers that I have ever
encountered. The last thing here then something that took me a couple of days
to get used to then I absolutely loved
is the capacitive buttons that replaced the onscreen buttons in the early
sample. I mean, yes, yes, capacitive buttons have definitely been done
before, but what makes these ones better than others is actually something quite
subtle. Look what happens with another capacitive button equipped smartphone.
There's almost nowhere to hold it in landscape, and others are even worse.
ZTE gets around this maybe accidentally because they were trying to shoehorn the
buttons in in the last month of product development by fitting them into a
slimmer than usual strip that makes the chin bar a perfect size for comfortable
typing in spite of that speaker placement and by squeezing them in
towards the middle of the phone making accidental button presses much less
likely while typing and holding the phone in landscape mode. It's a minor
tweak, but it makes a huge difference in the day-to-day use. Well done. On that
note, it's been a long time since I've rocked a 1M7 or a 1 M8, and it's easy to
forget how much you miss nice loud front-facing speakers. Sitting on a desk
next to me playing music, it actually doesn't make much of a difference. But
when watching video, the Axon 7 holds its own against pretty much anything as
a content consumption device. I'm a little disappointed that the last few
volume levels are basically the same when listening to music due to some
dynamic range reducing tricks that help with distortion, but at least they
solved the distortion problem in some way. As for headphones, ZTE makes a lot
of claims about the phenomenal 3 and a half millimeter output of the Axon 7,
but I guess the S7 must be pretty good as well, since aside from being able to
push volume levels further past comfortable, I really couldn't hear the
difference even with a pair of Bayer Dynamic DT990 Pro 240 ohm headphones.
Moving on, then this is my first experience with my favorite ZTE's
Android skin. So, I've got some comments on that. Overall, I give it a B+.
There's good stuff like right and left-handed modes for the nav buttons,
the ability to uninstall apps directly from the home screen, the default
setting configurator for a PC USB connection, so I don't need to be
prompted every time, and the stellar default power management profile that
managed to make the battery feel about 20% bigger in day-to-day use without
affecting the way the device worked for me. And then there's mediocre stuff like
the functional but slow auto call
gesture and the clunky folder creation system for the home screen followed by
some stuff that I would like to see addressed. The stock launcher is limited
to a 4x4 grid size on the home screen. Please let me put my stuff on here.
Thanks. The lock screen doesn't show notification details until you press a
little bell way up in the top left corner. Something that isn't more
secure. I'm not hiding my notification details. It's just more inconvenient
because it's another button to press. Notification scrolling in landscape is
kind of derp sometimes. And then finally, there's no fast launch camera
gesture or configurable shortcuts at all
for that matter. I don't care what the gesture is. Wiggle, double press, long
press. Let me do something that doesn't require me to reach the lock screen and
then press something in order to launch the camera. Which I guess leads us
pretty well into the camera. Other reviewers are giving pretty mixed
reports here and I think there are a few reasons for that. The specs are great. A
20 megapixel sensor behind f/1.8 sapphire glass with optical image
stabilization, 4K video capture, etc., etc. And still pictures under certain
conditions are actually competitive with the Galaxy S7. I mean, it is easy to get
some really nice comparative pictures out of this thing, especially with the
manual mode finetuning. They just have some work to do when it
comes to clear capture of moving subjects. These shots are from the
Galaxy S7 and the Axon 7 in auto mode in
the same lighting conditions. One of them is somewhat usable in a this is
kind of crappy looking, but at least I captured the moment kind of way. And the
other one is just kind of crappy looking. Not ideal if you're an avid
shutterbug and most of your subjects, oh I don't know, say kids and pets are
fastmoving objects. Which leads us then, I guess, to the bottom line. In a world
where ZTE was the only Chinese brand targeting a similar experience at half
the price of the Samsung's, HTC's, and
Apples of the world, my conclusion would be very simple. Sure, it lacks water
resistance, which is a key feature for me, but it carries a 2-year warranty,
and it's an unbelievable piece of hardware for the price, as long as
you're willing to compromise on the camera a little. What makes things more
complicated is the existence of the OnePlus 3. So, it'll be up to you then.
slimmer, sexier form factor with more polished software and from my
experience, more usable camera or higher
resolution, better screen, bigger sound,
SD expansion, and phenomenal out ofthe-box battery management. That's not
an easy decision for me, and I suspect it won't be for you either. So, I wish
you the best of luck. Gee, Lionus, what was that great looking
vinyl skin you had on the Axon 7 and some of the
B-roll? Great question. You must be new.
It's a Dbrand skin. Dbrand is your source for awesome vinyl skins. They're
available for laptops, phones, tablets, consoles, game controllers, and more.
The and more is like not a lot more. That's like most of what they do. and
they use high quality authentic true textured 3M vinyl on every product. They
feature unrivaled precision, great guides for how to put them on, and most
importantly for people like me who have kind of a, you know, style flare. You
know, we like to play around with different color combinations and see how
great or how horribly they go together. Best thing is the Dbrand configurator.
You head over to the site, that's dbrand.com. We've got it linked in the video description. And you just try out
different skins and color combinations. You turn your device around. You look at
what it's going to look like and boom, they ship worldwide. It's affordable.
And once it's applied, it doesn't come off until you want it to. And when it
does, it doesn't leave any residue. And it protects your phone from accidental
dings and scratches while looking great
or terrible. The choice is yours. So, check them out at the link in the video
description. So, thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know
what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the
Axon 7 in the video description. Also
linked in the description is our merch store, which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum, which you
should totally join. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next.
So, click that little button in the top right corner to check out our latest
video over on Channel Super Fun.