it's been a little while since I've seen
zce much less held one in my hand which
is why I was actually kind of excited
when this particular film made it onto
my doorstep hey it's Josh magar from
Android Authority what's going on
everybody and it's time to unbox and get
my first impressions on the ZTE zmax for
t-mobile alright here we are with the
ZTE zmax now we have a pretty colorful
box right here and as you're going to
see right on the corner here it is made
for t-mobile so I did have a t-mobile
card SIM card available with this box
and it was already perforated out so the
SIM card should already be inside of
this particular phone so we're just
gonna go ahead and jump into the actual
phone itself or the contents of a box
rather so get the things out of the way
and we have a nice big plastic bag right
here with the 5.7 inch device right here
and I'm gonna go ahead and take that out
of the plastic in a little bit but let's
see what else we get inside of the box
CTE bringing you closer as it says right
there and we're gonna go and get that
middle part out of the way and we have
some pretty big pieces of plastic here
even some bubble wrap right there which
is kind of interesting but as far as the
other peripherals go what we're going to
have inside this box is a micro USB
charging cable if I'm not mistaken along
with the plug adapter there you go the
plug adaptor for us plugs and of course
the charging cable we also get a tool
for removing the SIM card or the SIM
tray rather and another card with the
t-mobile SIM in it so I'm gonna double
check if the t-mobile SIM is already
inside of the phone but it looks like we
have an extra one here if I so choose to
use it a couple of manuals right here
especially for t-mobile documentation
which will just leave over on the side
and here we are the 5.7 inch ZTE zmax
well we do have a rounded feel on the
back but I'll go ahead and remove first
thing I noticed and I'll go ahead and
remove the plastic here and then we'll
get go ahead and get into the initial
thoughts
alright here's the actual device itself
like I said already there's a bit of a
curve over on the sides that kind of
move into the backing and it does allow
it to sit pretty nicely in the hand
right here the gripping on the sides is
not quite as ideal because they're not
flat obviously so you're going to have a
little bit of a curve downward on your
thumb and fingers over on the other side
but that's just the initial thought when
it comes to the field we'll go ahead and
just remove the plastic right here there
you go it's a really simplistic backing
really it has just a ZTE logo right
there with the camera optics up top and
then a slit on the bottom for the actual
speakers if you look over on the sides
we have the power button over here on
the right side along with the SIM tray
and if we move over to the other side we
have the volume rocker with the micro SD
card slot alright here we are we didn't
exactly have a setup that we had to do
we'll just go ahead and jump right in
you can long press the screen to unlock
so it's not a swipe we don't really have
a swipe here but you have to just sort
of hold it there I'll show you that one
more time it's a bit of a different lock
screen that we have here just hold and
there you go so what we have here is
Android 4.4 our at least as it says in
the box we're going to take a look at
that in a bit
that icon on the top right right there
that says 4G LTE is all the confirmation
I need to say that there's already a
t-mobile SIM in here so we're gonna go
ahead and get started pretty quickly we
already have some t-mobile messages
right here so we are good to go in that
regard head back so we have capacitive
keys here on the bottom and that
includes a menu button right here well
go ahead and jump into the system
settings and just take a look a little
bit at the software version so it looks
like it's 4.4.2 so it is KitKat it is a
somewhat older version of KitKat but
that's alright 4.4.2 and it looks like
it keeps a pretty stock looking Android
right here as you te doesn't really seem
like they're really changing the formula
too much social if we look over here we
have the notification drop-down with the
quick settings right here that includes
some added buttons right here that
aren't necessarily found in the real
stock Android if you're looking for a
good mid range entry or just something
that really kind of works gives you the
bare essentials at the very least when
it comes to your Android device does eet
EEZ mix might
it so we're going to take even further
looks at this phone before we get into
our full review as far as the look and
feel of this device I do think that it's
a pretty nice looking device but you can
already see it in my hand it's kind of
large and it does come with a 5.7 inch
display but as I turn on the screen
right here you're going to see that
there's actually quite a bit of bezel
around that display that otherwise
actually looks quite nice but the
problem is when you already have 5.7
inches in the screen and you add a lot
of girth on the top and bottom and then
if you look in the sides here you have a
pretty good bezel right there actually
makes this phone a little bit unwieldy
and with that curve on the sides that
leads to the back this one's a little
bit unwieldy I have to admit it's not
the worst looking device it actually
looks pretty nice like I said already
but being able to just get around with
one hand it's definitely not something
you're gonna be able to do easily with
the zmax
you will be using this with two hands
probably in landscape more often than
not but otherwise it's a nice black
slate design and I do it to give it some
credit for actually looking pretty
attractive to further the fact that this
is a mid-range
offering we do have an 8 megapixel
camera on the back with 1.6 megapixels
in the front facing camera now I did
take a look at the interface a little
bit one of the few places so far that
I've seen that has changed that ZTE has
changed from the original stock like a
feel of Android and it does provide you
quite a few different modes including a
manual mode that did provide quite a few
options in order for you to change the
shot to what you needed to be as far as
camera quality goes we're obviously
going to be waiting for our full review
to show you that but that is just a
quick look at the ZTE zmax in my case
for t-mobile and I'm pretty excited to
take a look at this because ZTE is a
phone company that I haven't really
really played with their phones in a
little while and with this one coming on
my doorstep I just knew I had to give my
first impressions on it and show them to
you so keep it tuned to Android or Atia
for these zmax full review as it's going
to be coming soon and for all of our
other coverage you can see a couple
videos over on the side and make sure
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