14 DAY TRIAL // Officially unveiled last week, ZTE Optik has just hit shelves at Sprint. Customers can purchase the slate for only $349.99 (270 EUR) outright or as low as $99.99 (75 EUR) with a new two-year agreement.
Although the ZTE Optik is not shipped with Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, the 7-incher is one of the most affordable Honeycomb tablets available on the market.
Available for under $100 on contract, the ZTE Optik is said to combine “3G mobility and Wi-Fi speed to deliver the connectivity you need to keep you and the family entertained on the go.”
The Optik’s 7-inch capacitive touchscreen supports 800 x 1280 pixels resolution and 16 million colors. Just like any other modern Android smartphone, the slate is powered by a dual core Qualcomm MSM8660 Snapdragon processor clocked at 1.2 GHz.
On the back, ZTE Optik sports a 5-megapixel camera with autofocus and video recording, while in the front there’s a secondary 2-megapixel camera for self-portraits and video calls.
Chinese manufacturer ZTE especially designed this tablet for entertainment, which makes it the perfect choice for “families on the move, dedicated Web shoppers, or social networking junkies.”
ZTE Optik measures 193 x 119.4 x 13.2 mm and weighs around 400g (battery included). Even though it’s not the lightest 7-incher, the Optik makes it up through multimedia capabilities.
In the connectivity front, the tablet offers Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support, along with built-in GPS with A-GPS and Wi-Fi hotspot. Unfortunately, there’s no word on an HDMI port, so we can assume that ZTE left this one out.
The Optik packs 16GB of internal memory, 1GB of RAM, as well as microSD card slot for memory expansion (up to 32GB). The tablet is powered by a 4000 mAh Li-Ion battery and offers 3G connectivity.
On a side note, there’s no telling of the Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet will ever receive an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade in the future.