Maybe the NOTCH isn't a bad idea!!! - ZTE Axon 40 Ultra
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2023-05-05
·
2,803 words · ~14 min read
0:00
Jono, it also does the selfie camera.
0:02
Oh, cool.
0:03
Look at this.
0:03
What?
0:04
Look at this.
0:05
There's six screens on this right now.
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I'm back.
0:08
We saw this and we were interested enough,
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had to get it in to try it.
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The ZTE Axon 40 Ultra.
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I have actually not touched a ZTE phone in a long time.
0:20
They're actually using the Sony IMX787,
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which is a sensor that as far as I know,
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isn't in a phone that I've actually tried out at all.
0:29
Do you remember when phone boxes were this big still?
0:31
The phone that we just did in our previous video,
0:33
the Xperia, it was just the phone in the box.
0:36
And this looks like there's actually an unboxing experience.
0:39
So why don't we take a look?
0:41
Packaging is nice.
0:42
Oh yeah, there's our SIM tool.
0:44
Oh, hey.
0:46
I find it funny that like all Chinese manufacturers' phones
0:49
just include this kind of like cheapo plastic TPU case
0:54
with their phones because they know no one
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is really gonna be making cases for their phones.
0:58
Like yeah, there'll be certain places.
0:59
This is, I believe a 65 watt charger.
1:03
It's actually, this is a heavy brick.
1:05
Yep, 65 watts, cool.
1:06
That's actually pretty awesome.
1:07
I mean, it's, it's a hefty boy.
1:10
Look at the shape of this.
1:12
This literally looks like corded AirPod.
1:17
It's a headphone jack.
1:18
Yeah, it's a headphone.
1:18
Oh yeah, so that's, I've completely forgot
1:20
that headphone jacks are just not, yeah, this phone.
1:23
Wait, hang on.
1:25
I don't think this has a headphone jack on it.
1:28
There's a Type-C.
1:29
Type-C to headphone adapter.
1:32
What?
1:34
Are you serious?
1:36
You took the headphone jack off your phone,
1:38
but you included a set of wired earphones with an adapter?
1:43
That's just silly.
1:44
And the last thing in the box is a pretty standard,
1:46
but nice looking Type-C to C cable.
1:49
Okay, let's take a look at the phone physically.
1:51
This is a very large camera bump.
1:53
We will get back to this.
1:54
David, do you notice anything?
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There's no selfie hole punch.
1:58
Oh buddy.
1:59
On the display.
2:00
And there's no raised from the top of the phone selfie camera.
2:05
This is apparently a third generation
2:08
in-screen selfie camera on this display.
2:12
If you guys want to know how the first two generations
2:15
of the selfie camera performed,
2:16
you can check out Linus' coverage of those videos here.
2:19
I could get used to that, right?
2:20
Like this looks really good.
2:22
So this is a 6.8 inch, 2480 by 1116 display.
2:27
No notch, very impressive.
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It is curved.
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So some of you might like that.
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Some of you might hate it,
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but physically the phone feels very flagship,
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very premium, nice soft touch metal.
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And it's got kind of like a glistening metal finish
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that looks pretty anti-scratch.
2:46
Like it doesn't even pick up fingerprints,
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which is really nice actually.
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Like nothing.
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Yes, glossy phones look great in marketing images
2:54
and they feel good in the hand,
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but then you'll look at the back
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and you feel disgusted with yourself.
2:59
But not on this phone.
3:00
On the left of the phone,
3:02
we have absolutely nothing but antennas, which is nice.
3:05
I actually don't mind that at all.
3:07
It feels good.
3:07
And on the right of the phone, we have your standard volume.
3:10
Can you even see?
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Look how thin that is.
3:12
We have your standard volume rocker and power button.
3:14
Let's see if this is already a program shortcut.
3:16
If I double press the power button, does it?
3:18
Nope, it locks the phone.
3:19
But there's no double tap for open camera,
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at least not by default.
3:22
I'm not sure.
3:23
I'm sure you could also just customize that.
3:25
Top of the phone, there's a sensor and a speaker on here,
3:28
with also two antenna bands.
3:30
On the bottom, we've got your SIM tray
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and your type C connector with another speaker.
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I mean, that's kind of it physically.
3:37
This camera bump is gigantic, as I mentioned.
3:40
So I'm about to play a couple of videos
3:41
and try some sound on this phone.
3:44
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3:47
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4:06
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4:07
This display looks really good.
4:09
I'm not looking at it side by side to anything,
4:11
but just right off the bat, it looks good.
4:24
Side by side to the iPhone,
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it's obviously not really living up to it,
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but on its own, it doesn't sound bad.
4:32
I'm not an audio expert by any stretch,
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but this is just my assessment of it.
4:35
The mid range sounds pretty good.
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I would not be upset
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that this is what my phone speakers sound like.
4:40
Totally adequate.
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You wouldn't miss anything.
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I don't think I have a final price on this phone yet,
4:44
but it is around 799 USD, which actually is not bad.
4:50
It's really nice these days that flagship phones,
4:53
especially, don't skimp on battery
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because this phone has a whopping 5,000 milliamp hours.
5:00
This thing is running a Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.
5:03
So we saw this in the most recent video.
5:04
So we saw this in the most recent video.
5:05
It's an Xperia phone as well.
5:07
I want to talk about this.
5:09
This camera bump, this massive,
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like look at this thick boy camera bump
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is 64 megapixels on each one of these cameras.
5:18
And then they also have this periscopic,
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but it's a periscope design,
5:24
which is actually really interesting.
5:25
And it's a 91 millimeter focal length.
5:27
So it's your telephoto.
5:28
Higher resolution on a phone, in my experience,
5:31
has not led to better photos.
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You don't necessarily have to be
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able to really want a lot of pixels
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in a sensor that is this size.
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Cause this is still a smartphone,
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mobile sensor size camera on this phone.
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It's not a one inch sensor.
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It's not like a two thirds inch sensor.
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So you're really packing in a lot of resolution
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and potential noise using such a high resolution sensor
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on a phone.
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Anyways, let's take a, we got a pro mode.
5:58
We got a street mode.
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What's camera friendly?
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The slow motion mode on this phone,
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it's got 240 FPS, 480 FPS, 960 FPS.
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And 1920 FPS.
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I'm trying the 1920.
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When you hit record,
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it only actually rolls for about five seconds.
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And then it just processes the video.
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So let's take a look there.
6:22
Oh, okay.
6:25
So the 720P 1920 FPS is kind of garbage tier.
6:30
The 240 FPS is not amazing, but respectable.
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The detail is not crazy, but it's not awful.
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I've seen worse.
6:39
Three, four years ago,
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we couldn't even say that most phones have slow motion.
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And now they do.
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I can't test this right now,
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but if you pointed this thing at the big dipper,
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it would show you that like spoon outline
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that is the big dipper.
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So that's kind of cool.
6:53
Wow, there's two pages guys.
6:54
Look at this.
6:56
So there's all of these ones,
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but then you go over and there's more.
7:01
Panorama, vlog, art, camera, Hitchcock.
7:03
Hitchcock?
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Hitchcock on his own mode?
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Good for him.
7:06
What does that mean?
7:07
What does this mean?
7:08
What, what?
7:10
Is it gonna be birds everywhere?
7:12
Oh, it is the vertigo thing.
7:14
Wait, is it?
7:15
Is it?
7:16
It is.
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It totally is.
7:18
Oh, that's so funny.
7:19
Oh, and it's using like digital zoom to compensate.
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When you're, Hitchcock did this thing.
7:23
It's like the dolly zoom where you dolly in on the camera,
7:26
but you zoom in at the same time.
7:27
And it gives it this like surreal effect
7:28
where the background only moves,
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but the subject stays in the same place.
7:34
It's kind of gimmicky, but they're fun.
7:36
Let's see what the pro mode is like.
7:38
It's seems okay.
7:40
You got raw, histogram, focus.
7:43
Okay.
7:44
Everything I'd expect from a manual camera.
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Pretty basic though.
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So yeah, this is one of the modes I want to check out.
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Multi-camera.
7:49
Let's see.
7:50
Whoa.
7:52
In the corner of my display,
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there is both the wide and telephoto images of the cameras
7:59
and the primary camera that I'm looking at is the main one.
8:01
So let me just take this photo
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of David.
8:07
Yeah. Okay.
8:08
So I have all three images.
8:09
That's kind of cool.
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It didn't expose the wide angle particularly well.
8:14
Okay. I know you guys can see my display.
8:16
Jono, it also does the selfie camera.
8:18
Oh, cool.
8:18
Look at this.
8:19
What?
8:20
Look at this.
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There's six screens on this right now.
8:24
I mean, I can imagine if you like,
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like you're pranking somebody, you're walking up to them.
8:27
And then you want to see your reaction for whatever reason.
8:30
You have that.
8:31
Select. Oh, select at least two cameras.
8:33
Okay. So you have to select.
8:35
I'm going to do selfie and the primary.
8:39
You can only use three at the same time,
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which is totally reasonable.
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So I'm going to do primary.
8:43
Let's do selfie and ultra wide.
8:46
I wasn't recording.
8:48
You saw it in the screen cap,
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but I was not technically recording.
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Now I'm recording.
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So this is what the selfie camera looks like.
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And then this subsequently is also what my rear
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and ultra wide are seeing at the exact same time
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as I'm looking at the selfie camera.
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This is a good time to get in.
9:05
So the selfie camera, because guys ZTE,
9:10
I can completely appreciate how hard it might be to put a half
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decent camera through multiple layers of display and glass.
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That challenge is incredibly apparent
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because here's me taking a selfie and it is a bloomy mess.
9:32
Oh man. It is blurry.
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It is washed out.
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I think it's also applying like a softening filter
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or maybe that's literally just the softening that you'd get.
9:44
You know what, Jono, I'm going to hand you this phone.
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So Jono's going to take a selfie.
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Oh my God. It's so bad.
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And then David's also going to take a selfie.
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And I want to look at the skin tone
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because this, the facial recognition AI on this phone
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is supposed to really do a good job
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not making the skin tones look awful.
10:02
Oh, Jono, you don't look this pale.
10:05
Oh my God.
10:06
Look at the right of this photo.
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You can see the stand is fringing like crazy.
10:10
So this doesn't handle reflections very well
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because obviously when you're using a camera
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through another piece of glass, that isn't just the lens.
10:18
It's, it's a tough thing to do.
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It's not an easy thing to do.
10:21
David, I don't think you're this white.
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You're actually, you have more warmth
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in your face than this photo.
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It doesn't even look like you're in focus.
10:28
Just to give the selfie camera a full chance,
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I've turned the beauty mode off.
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If I smile.
10:35
Hey, that's kind of cool.
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That's kind of interesting.
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What does it classify as a smile?
10:38
Oh, okay.
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If I hold my smile, it just keeps taking photos.
10:45
I've never, that's hilarious.
10:47
Okay, I'm turning that setting off.
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It's not taking photos.
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There we go.
10:54
Oh my God.
10:55
Okay, stop taking photos.
10:56
Oh, okay.
10:57
I'm smiling too much.
10:58
No, stop.
10:59
I can't turn it off.
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I warn you not to turn the smile setting on for your phone.
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It'll just take a million photos
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if you're a person that smiles a lot.
11:09
It still doesn't look that good.
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I can conclude that the selfie camera
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on this phone is not amazing.
11:15
It is, yeah.
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I mean, I can see it with my eyes.
11:19
So when you look, when you're looking for it
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and you hold the phone at a certain angle, you can see it.
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But it's very minor.
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You generally won't be able to see it.
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But we also have 8K video.
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And I believe we have 8K video on every single one of these
11:35
because they're all 64 megapixels.
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4K 120 FPS.
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4K 60 FPS, normal 4K and 8K.
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So I'm going to go to 8K.
11:45
Oh, cool.
11:46
Oh, you can even shoot HDR.
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You want to do HDR on your phone, you can.
11:49
There's a gentleman cleaning his Mustang over there.
11:53
Oh, there's also zoom.
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That's kind of a nice touch.
11:58
I can't tell at all how this looks on the phone.
12:01
It would be, stabilization though is surprisingly decent.
12:04
Like I'm not really trying to walk that steady
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but it's not doing a bad job.
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So I'm just testing the macro mode.
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It's two to one apparently.
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And I'm pretty impressed.
12:17
Oh, there's a little bit of a flare.
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How close I can get.
12:22
I mean, that looks not bad actually.
12:24
Make sure to turn off the watermark
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because I've got a watermark of the phone
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on every single one of these photos.
12:30
So this is an overcast just photo in our parking lot.
12:33
And it's actually not bad.
12:34
The detail is pretty good, respectable.
12:37
It's like a little bit crunchy
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in certain parts in the contrast.
12:40
The overall exposure,
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the auto exposure did a pretty good job.
12:43
And when you're not like pixel peeping
12:45
it's actually a pretty sharp photo.
12:47
Going over to the next one.
12:48
Honestly, also pretty good.
12:50
You zoom in and you start to see like a little bit of noise
12:53
and the detail is maybe not good in every spot.
12:58
Like the Volkswagen logo here is a little bit mushy
13:02
on the widest part.
13:03
This is the wide angle.
13:04
This is the ultra wide.
13:05
Pretty respectable.
13:07
Here's the primary camera.
13:08
Also pretty sharp, decent performance.
13:10
I mean, again, this is broad.
13:11
It's not daylight
13:12
but there are cameras that don't perform well
13:13
in this setting either.
13:14
So quick photo of a leaf from outside.
13:17
See how it handles this color.
13:18
It looks okay.
13:19
It's a little bit processed looking in the center leaf here.
13:23
It's a little bit more yellow
13:24
than I think it actually was in person.
13:26
Let's check out this macro mode.
13:29
I think this is maybe one of our better examples in focus.
13:32
You actually get quite a like dramatic bokeh
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just cause you're so close in this macro mode.
13:37
So it actually is, it's a pretty good shot.
13:40
Sharpness is not bad.
13:41
Not a lot of cameras can focus this close.
13:45
The Sony IMX77 sensor in this phone is pretty good.
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And the processing on the rear cameras,
13:52
not overly aggressive.
13:54
Some maybe minor issues with the color
13:56
in terms of like plants and it seems hit and miss
14:00
with humans.
14:00
For 799 US, if you're in the Chinese market
14:03
or you're the type of person who likes importing phones,
14:08
I can't say that this is a bad pick.
14:09
It actually feels like a pretty decent value.
14:11
If you can get over how big this camera bump is,
14:14
I don't think you'd be disappointed with the cameras.
14:16
Honestly, I actually like these cameras
14:18
better than my OnePlus cameras.
14:20
And the experience and the processing
14:22
is less egregious than my current phone.
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Good job ZTE.
14:26
This is not a terrible phone.
14:27
I mean, this is not a review.
14:28
It's the first impressions,
14:29
but my first impression is this is not bad.
14:32
So good job.
14:33
Thank you guys for watching.
14:34
If there are any other phones that we haven't covered
14:36
that you really, you feel like the camera,
14:38
especially on them is really interesting.
14:40
Let us know in the comments down below.
14:41
Have a great day.