14 DAY TRIAL // Back in July, Chinese company ZTE unveiled its first Axon-branded smartphone in the United States. The device arrived with a 5.5-inch capacitive touchscreen display with support for QHD resolution (2560 x 1440 pixels) and a Snapdragon 810 processor, plus 4GB of RAM under the hood.
ZTE also introduced several variants of the Axon, including the Axon Lux and Axon Pro. Still, ZTE thinks that customers might benefit from another variant, so it has recently put out the Axon Elite, another high-end device which shares a lot of its specs with the models we previously mentioned.
The new phone made a debut at ZTE’s IFA 2015 display booth with a 5.5-inch 1080p LCD display (1920 x 1080 pixels) with 2.5D glass and the same Snapdragon 810 processor one can find running things inside the “regular” Axon (as seen at Les Numeriques).
ZTE is offering 3GB of RAM with this model plus 32GB of internal storage (expandable via microSD card slot). On the imaging front, there’s a 13MP+2MP camera combo sitting on the back, plus an 8MP front-facing camera for selfies and conference calls.
The ZTE Axon Elite is riddled with sensors
The device is kept alive by a 3,000 mAh battery with Quick Charge function. Like the other models from the Axon lineup, the Axon Elite features an abundance of biometric sensors including fingerprint reader, voice control and eye scanner. The phone is based on Android 5.0.2 Lollipop with MiFavor 3.2 on top.
As we told you above, the Axon Elite was displayed at IFA but will be launched in a variety of markets across the globe. France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom will be getting it first and you can expect to see it arrive on September 25 with a €420 / $468 price tag. Later on, ZTE will launch the phone in Turkey, Mexico, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Russia and the Philippines.
It’s surprising how many Snapdragon 810 handsets we have seen at IFA 2015 so far. Sony’s entire Xperia Z5 lineup relies on this controversial platform, and hopefully, reports of overheating problems won’t start spreading like wild fire over the net from now on.
Qualcomm is expected to unveil Snapdragon 820 before the end of the year, with the first smartphones bundling the platform expected to arrive in March 2016.
