Gadgetory

the Hong kong-based new mobile maybe one of the younger smartphone brands but that hasn't stopped them from releasing a few affordable offerings with a 4G LTE equipped u.s. model the z8 is the company's latest attempt to deliver an affordable mid-range smartphone this is Bailey Stein with Android authority and this is my full review of the new mobile z8 when it comes to design the z8 offers a somewhat standard looking body the glossy plastic rear cover has a faux metallic look and tapers off at the edges to provide a comfortable feel in the hand it does resist fingerprints very well although it is a bit difficult to remove while removing it will grant you access to a microSD card slot to sim card slots and a user replaceable battery actually getting the cover off can prove to be a challenge the side power and volume buttons do provide a good amount of tactile feedback but I do wish that the power button was positioned to slightly lower along the right side of the phone although it is on the slightly thicker side at nine point four millimeters the phone still feels very nice in the hand it also weighs an average 146 grams in addition to the silver plastic band running along the sides of the z8 there's also a plastic chin on the front of the device instead of using a traditional notification LED new bubble has actually integrated a light directly into the plastic chin it's a very unique addition and the breathing effect is undeniably pretty sweet the three capacitive keys on the bottom are illuminated but some users may be disappointed by the non-standard layout there's also an 8 megapixel wide-angle front-facing camera to the left of the earpiece the z8 5.5 inch 1080p gapless IPS display looks excellent with great viewing angles unfortunately the maximum brightness is still relatively dim which causes poor sunlight readability my unit did arrive with an LCD bright spot out of the box and while new mobile confirmed that this would be covered under their standard two-year warranty it does raise some concerns in addition to those drawbacks I also found that it easily collected finger prints which may annoy some users thankfully new mobile will be releasing a tempered glass screen protector with in the next few weeks which will hopefully make this less of an issue featuring the octa-core 64-bit mediatek mt6752 processor clocked at 1.7 gigahertz the new mobile z8 as a solid performer the benchmark scores closely follow the Asus zenfone 2 and day-to-day performance was very good during my testing it just feels as fast as in sun phone - and the stock Android software experience makes the overall experience buttery smooth there is two gigabytes of RAM which should be enough for most users coupled with a mali t760 GPU the z8 is able to play most games without any issues the new mobile z8 supports 802 11 AC Wi-Fi GPS and Bluetooth 4.0 unfortunately the Wi-Fi signal wasn't as strong as I would have liked in addition to sometimes dropping the Wi-Fi connection completely the z8 speeds were slightly slower than they were on comparable devices it might not be an issue for some users who have smaller homes and or stronger Wi-Fi routers but I do feel that it is worth mentioning the GPS signal also struggled to lock in doors and did sometimes take a moment to obtain a GPS lock while outdoors once it obtained a lock however I didn't have any issues luckily it does fully support HSPA+ on AT&T and t-mobile with 850 1900 and AWS 1700 2100 band support although it does include support for dual SIM 4G LTE bands 2 4 7 and 17 it is missing damn five for AT&T and been 12 for t-mobile out of the box new mobile has assured me that they are working with t-mobile to add been 12 VN over-the-air update which should be ready very soon the phone should work in the majority of coverage areas but I was actually unable to receive 4G LTE on the AT&T network in some areas because of the missing band 5 the rear speaker on the new mobile z8 is very loud although it does sound a tad distorted the 2615 milling head power user replaceable battery sadly provides disappointing battery life new mobile released a firmware update to address the shortly after my first day of testing which started at 7:30 a.m. and ended at 3:00 p.m. with two and a half hours of screen on time after the update I was able to get the phone to last until about 5:00 p.m. with three and a half hours of screen on time it's an improvement but I still don't think it's going to be enough to last through a full day of use for the average Android enthusiast the 13 megapixel Sony rear camera on the za produced a good amount of nice-looking images autofocus can be a bit slow but it does capture images fairly quickly there can be a lack of saturation in some images but that's mostly noticeable when comparing the images with the zenfone 2 which tends to actually over saturate it also has some exposure issues where if you tap on a light object the exposure drops significantly or vice-versa all of the images I took however were very sharp and detailed low-light performance is where the phone really struggles though even with the flash on just to give you an idea here's the same shot with a zenfone 2 with flash on and here's the image with the za with flash off and the zenfone 2 with flash off once again new mobile confirm that they will try their best to improve image processing through future for more updates the camera app is just the open source media tech app so there's really nothing different from other media tech devices there are a few modes as well as settings to adjust things like white balance and ISO running a near stock Android 5.0 lollipop out of the box the za provides an excellent software experience new has added a few gestures as well as a clear all apps button in the multitasking view but has otherwise left the software completely stock the launcher is very similar to the Google now launcher except without Google and the Google keyboard is default out of the box there's absolutely no bloatware which is quite frankly refreshing it does have double tap to wake draw over camera shake for flashlights similar to Motorola's chop for flashlights flip to mute and wave to me all worked very well but shake for flashlight is currently limited to just the lockscreen new mobile will expand this however with a software update coming within the next few weeks speaking of updates new mobile has also promised an android 5.1 update although there is still some uncertainty regarding an Android M update the company's current software efforts are an early indicator that an update may be likely the new mobile z8 is available officially through new Mobile's website as well as various resellers including Amazon Best Buy Target and HSN you can pick up the 32 gigabyte variant for $2.99 in either black or white now or wait for the 16 gigabyte black variant the 16 gigabyte variant will be available in early August through new Mobile's website for 249 you can always expand the storage with a micro SD card as well up to 64 gigabytes the new mobile z8 is a very solid offering from a company relatively new to the US market while its positives include an excellent display quality great performance and a stock Android experience there are a few notable drawbacks the Wi-Fi signal could be stronger the audio output does sound a bit distorted and the battery life is very poor unlike other smaller smartphone producers within the US it seems that new mobile is very dedicated to improving the device further with software updates and after-sales support on the other hand with today's growingly competitive market it's still difficult to recommend this device that's especially the case if you're a moderate to heavy user and need your phone to last for a full day of use all in all the z8 is a very laudable first attempt and I look forward to seeing how much new mobile will evolve their products over time thank you for watching this video and 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