Gadgetory

hey what is going on guys lon here from Android authority and this is the ZTE live pro or the sprint live Pro and it's an Android device an external battery a Wi-Fi hotspot and a projector all bundled into one but the biggest question is is this something that you would even want or need and is this something that you would find yourself using quite often well that's what we're here to find out so let's go ahead and take a closer look at the ZTE live pro so let's start with the hardware of the ZTE live pro because that's probably the easiest place to start with a device like this but in terms of its design it's just a square essentially it's made entirely of plastic and it's kind of large and thick but I don't think that's going to be too big of a deal since you're probably not gonna be holding it in your hand for long periods of time it's certainly still small enough to fit into a book bag and whatnot on the bottom there's little rubber feet to keep it from sliding around when sitting on a table and there's also a tiny kickstand for propping it up when using the projector on the left side you've got a couple of buttons a power button and a button for turning the power bank on and off there's also a dial for adjusting the focus of the projector and you'll also find your SIM card and microSD card slot hidden underneath a plastic flap on the backside is where all your peripherals are located so you've got your 12 volt power input for charging the live pro a USB port HDMI and a 3.5 millimeter headset jack which you can use to hook up external speakers which I would recommend because the built-in speaker doesn't really sound all that good and it's not very loud either directly on top you've got your typical Android keys back home and menu but you'll also find a few extra there's a dedicated button to sleep and wake the display a button to turn on the projector and volume up and down keys on top you're also going to find a 4-inch display and it's got very low resolution coming in at 800 by 480 and it's got really bad viewing angles so when using a live pro as a normal Android device you're not going to get the most enjoyable experience but if you absolutely must you certainly can use it like an Android phone or tablet as it is running a full blown version of Android it's running on Android 4.2.2 jelly beans so a pretty old version of Android but it's a mostly stock build of Android and on a device like this I don't think you'll really need the latest version of Android anyways since it is a full-blown version of Android you can download apps watch videos and play games on it like you normally would on an Android phone or tablet the specs are just about as outdated as the operating system itself it's got a dual-core Snapdragon s4 and one gig of ram inside and it's good enough to do basic tasks on it but it's pretty obvious you shouldn't used a live Pro for any intense or graphically demanding tasks as it wasn't really designed for that purpose okay so we know the ZTE Live pro can be used like any other Android device but you can also use it as an external battery to charge your phone a Wi-Fi hotspot and you should get pretty decent speeds on Sprint's park network provider in a good coverage area but if you're buying a ZT Live Pro you're most likely buying it for its most unique feature the projector now please don't buy this if you're hoping to use this as some sort of home theater replacement it's only got a hundred lumen DLP bulb so it's not super bright and pretty difficult to see with the lights on but in a dimly lit room it works pretty well there's a few different ways you can use the live pro to project media but they all have their pros and cons the first way is obviously directly from the projector itself and this is probably the easiest since you don't have to connect another device the projector just basically shows whatever it is that you're currently looking at on the screen now this might be the most simple and easy way to use the projector but if you're planning on consuming media like watching movies and YouTube videos you're not going to be able to watch anything in HD simply because you're restricted to the resolution of the screen which again is only WVGA so if you want to watch a YouTube video you'll be stuck streaming at 360p resolution method number two is to wirelessly connect your phone or tablet to the live pro this takes a minute or two to do but once connected you can pretty much display anything whether it's your home screen a webpage photos or videos and you're not restricted to the resolution of the Live Pro either the problem with this method is there's a little bit of delay from when you interact with your phone or tablet to when it actually shows on the projector and not only is there a visual delay but the audio is also delayed as well so everything is going to appear out of sync if you're trying to watch a YouTube video or play a movie the third way and this is probably the best way in my opinion is to connect your device via HDMI so you can connect your laptop to it if you want and the live Pro does come with an HDMI cable included so you don't have to go out and buy one but the reason why I think this is the best option is because you can stream videos and movies and HD display photos or presentations and you don't have any issues with latency because it's directly plugged into the live pro now no matter which way you decide to play your media the most annoying thing about the live pro is how loud the fan gets when the projector is on and it's not so bad when you're not doing anything that requires any sort of audio but when you're trying to watch a video or a movie the sound of the fan does interfere with the audio when it comes to the battery life it's got a five thousand milliamp hour battery inside and has a power pack that's enough to get a few charges from it but as a projector that's just really not enough the most you'll be able to get out of this is about two hours which is just barely enough to get through a full length movie so if you plan on using this to watch a lot of movies with be prepared to have it plugged into an outlet so that it doesn't die on you in the middle of a movie the ZTE live pro is available now on Sprint for $300 on a contract or $450 outright and the price is a little bit steep in my opinion but I guess if you plan on using it a lot it just might be worth it but that is it for this review of the ZTE live pro it's an Android device a Wi-Fi hotspot an external battery and a projector all rolled into one making it sort of a jack-of-all-trades Android device anyways thank you so much for watching this review if you did enjoy it please give a thumbs up down below and also subscribe to the channel which is also down below and once you're done doing all of that make sure to check out the website at Android or thorium because we are your source for all things Android