14 DAY TRIAL // After releasing its flagship smartphone, the Axon 7, late last month, ZTE now unveils the Blade A2, which is basically a very affordable handset, but with impressive specs. It comes with a full metal body and a fingerprint sensor, a feature that isn’t always provided on a device priced under the $100 mark.
The ZTE Blade A2 is available through China Mobile, one of the biggest carriers in the world. It’s the successor to the Blade A1, which was launched late last year and also featured a fingerprint sensor.
The new device comes with a 5-inch 2.5D screen and a resolution of 720 x 1280 pixels. At its core, it has MediaTek MTK6750 SoC coupled with an octa-core 1.5GHz COU and a Mali-T860 MP2 520MHz graphics processing unit.
The processor is definitely more powerful than that of its predecessor, the Blade A1, but the ZTE Blade A2 seems to have the same RAM capacity and internal storage. More specifically, it guarantees 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, expandable to 128GB using a microSD card.
Fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone in under 0.3 seconds
The smartphone runs Android Lollipop 5.1 with Mifavor 3.2 UI on top, which should be satisfactory, considering that it falls in the entry-level range of phones. However, it does have some features that bring it close to the mid-range level, and one of them is the fingerprint sensor.
The 3D fingerprint sensor is placed on the rear side below the camera and has the capacity to unlock the device in just 0.3 seconds with the 360-degree fingerprint recognition feature.
ZTE Blade A2 comes with a 13MP rear camera with LED Flash and PDAF features, as well as a 5MP front-facing snapper. It incorporates a 2,500mAh battery, which is actually less powerful than the 2,800mAh battery found on the Blade A1.
The smartphone measures 143.8 × 70.2 × 7.9mm and will be available in gold, silver and grey color options. The ZTE Blade A2 carries a price tag of $91 for the dual 4G variant and $107 for the model that will be compatible with all Chinese phone networks. The device will be available starting June 15 on JD.com.
