ZTE Blade V7 Lite, Part 1 (The unboxing)

 ZTE, an unfamiliar brand to some smartphone users is making a noticeable entrance to the smartphone market in hope of getting a fair shares comparing to other well known China brands.

Blade V7 Lite would serves as a consumer's appealing appetizers where some minority adopters will take the bait and if the product does performs as claimed, they will carry the banner to the rest of the market.

Similar market strategy applies to company like Huawei when they first introduced the Huawei Honor smartphone series starting with Honor 3C. Today, the Honor brand is able to stand firm on their two feet, literally speaking to compete with the big boys in the smartphone market.

So, I personally foresees ZTE is adopting these strategy as well in hope to create brand awareness with its decent specification and affordability to reach to consumer without burning a hole in their pocket.

Lately, there are many new choices of brands which are less well known BUT the price category is between RM 499 - 599 with similar decent specs.

There are the:
1) Alcatel brand with the Flash 2 & Flash Plus 2
2) Even the TP Link (If not mistaken their core product is making network devices, is joining the bandwagon by introducing their first smartphone called Neffos C5
3) Wiko (a French company) with its uFeel lite. and not forgetting
4) Xiaomi Redmi series phones

Above all the brands, I've chosen the Blade V7 Lite.

Their official website ZTE Devices Malaysia does not provide direct online purchases and those who wish to buy online will need to order them via Lazada Malaysia.

The price is RM499.00 and it comes bundled with free exclusive ZTE smart casing, screen film protector and TPU clear casing. How can anyone resist such a bargain with lots of special features which I will explain in my next title.

In Malaysia, the device comes with specification as below:
- Mediatek MT6735P Quad Core 1.0 Ghz
- Runs on Android Marshmallow
- Screen size 5.0" HD IPS with 2.5D
- 16GB Internal memory w/ 2GB DDR3 RAM
- Camera 13.MP w/ flash (Back) & 8MP w/ flash (Front)
- Battery 2500 mAh
- Weigh 135g



Let's get right into the unboxing part first!

This is the front display box. (Reminds me of Viewsonic) 

The Blade V7 Lite I've order is the silver color with white color panel. My previous smartphone was a total greyish and blackish at the front. So, its time to switch to a refreshing outlook!

The protective film covering the screen was kinda cool as if it is the actual UI because the blue stickers covers 100% of the display. After removing the film, I'm still keeping the film, though.

Okay! Let's see what else beneath the phone inside the box?

Overview of the accessories

Surprisingly, I would thought the charger included will be the UK type adapter (Type-G w/ 3-pin) instead it comes with Type C w/ 2-pin charger. No big issues.

 The earphone has a decent quality, It is not those output that sounded like empty box banging on your ears. I personally do not like too much bass sound and this earphone does provide some sound clarity. Unfortunately, with such price ZTE is skimping on extra ear rubber buds.

The cable charger on the micro-USB part was kinda tight when inserting to the phone. 

In order to make sure whether it is the cable plug fault, I've tested on other charging cables and all of them fits the same, i.e. very very tight! However, it does plug in and charge the phone. Hopefully, the virginity will wear off after a few plugging. 

Last device found in the packaging is this sim card slot steel pin.

Well built solid pin that does injects the slot hassle free. Though any paper clips will just get the job done.

 The seller decided to send me the gold ZTE smart casing. And the reason they name it Smart casing, there's a reason behind it. I'll explain that a bit later.

 Besides the original Smart casing, together with the packaging are these TPU clear casing and regular screen protective film.

First holding impression, the phone feels light (135g) on hand.
Even lighter than my current Honor 3C.

There are many reasons as to why this is my choice of new phone to own. One of them is the Edge curve screen (2.5D) which is gaining popularity among Chinese phone makers.

Measuring at 7.9 mm thickness which is slightly thicker than Iphone 6S+ (7.1mm). This is the left side with the volume rocker. The volume button seems not tightly fitted. Since this phone has some features that requires you to shake it, you will notice the volume button has a slight little clattering sound, i mean noise which is a bit irritating to hear.  

The bottom side is the microphone and the charging point. 

The other right side is the Power button and the sim card and the Micro-SD slot.

Despite having dual nano sim slots however, one have to forgo the microSD card should an user uses both the slots for Sim cards. Having said that, one of the sim slot, namely "Sim2" only support up to 2G only!! While the "Sim1" supports right up to 4G. So, it is better off putting one Sim which is capable of running latest speed and another slot with microSD.

The top part with 3.5 mm earphone jack.

This is the rear view. Well protected with clear film and printed are the care instructions for power button and the back cover which is non removable. The phone comes with finger print scan at the back. (More on the finger scanning part later)

 At the bottom part are the two speakers with printed wording in between that reads

"Designed by Munich Design Center". It's like an extended branding which lifted up the ZTE brand status by having German designer crafting this little masterpiece. 

One of the upsetting part is the speaker sound. I must say the sound coming out from the speaker is way too low! Even after performing the update with Android 6.0 which has 3rd party audio software installed (AKARMYS OptimSpeaker), the result was still too weak by my standard.

As a matter of fact, the speaker on the right is not producing any sound at all. In fact, the right speaker is there for the sole purpose of a complementary symmetrical speaker design. 

"Are you pretty really damn sure?" you may asked. Since I'm not a techie, i'm might giving wrong information.

Well, in order to find out that I'm not getting a defective product or my ears are having hearing problem, I've contacted ZTE Malaysia for confirmation. Regrettably, the answer is unfavourably true. (See below response from ZTE)   

Sigh.....! This is the first smartphone I had with a dummy speaker.

The home screen has 3 LED blue lit touch buttons. Normally, there are markings/indicators/logos showing the home button, back button and a menu button on a typical Android based smartphone.

Whereas for this Blade V7 Lite, there are no signs of those indicators, just 2 dots with one round circle in the middle. There is a good reason as to why ZTE puts simplicity in this area. There are no indicators so that the "back" and the "menu" buttons (either left or right) can be used  interchangeably.

(see below for what i meant by used interchangeably)

I would say this a cool feature to have on ZTE because I understand some android phone makers does not standardize between this two buttons which confuses its user once he/she switch brand without realizing the home buttons are different.

Okay, before you switch on the phone, the screen does look like a border-less as if the display is spreading over the edge. Well, yet another disappointment that you will find a thick black bezel framing the screen (see below).