Gadgetory

ZTE delivered a seriously impressive mid-range er this year with the axon seven this company is on a mission to drive high quality phones to even lower price points and the follow up gadget we're playing with today is the little brother axon 7 mini getting it out of the box this is still a very nicely accessorized device for such a low price point we of course get the folder of papers we won't ever read a set of ear pods style buds and of course a charger and a cable we're always happy to see a phone which is fully ready to use out of the box in the hand this phone doesn't much feel like the many options of old this device represents a modest size reduction from the main axon 7 a 5.3 inch screen and nearly identical thickness to the full sized axon which is only about 4 millimeters taller and wider than this mini this is tricky territory where many manufacturers have struggled in the past when a company delivers such a beast of a phone at a low price point reaching lower price points often means making compromises which some people might feel are too aggressive we're all emotionally holding our phones to higher and higher standards every year in terms of style even though you're spending $100 less it's exciting to see almost no difference in terms of build quality and design a metal phone body the soft HTC style graceful tapers the chamfered front edge to catch some light at an angle it still looks a bit like a surprised minion but overall this phone's looks punch way above the price tag and even for having forehead and chin speakers the screen occupies more than 70% of the front face as mentioned we still retain the front stereo speakers in addition to the rear mounted fingerprint sensor and the card tray which supports either two Sims or a sim and a microSD this chipset is definitely not a powerhouse and this lack of horsepower resulted in one of the longest first boots we've seen in testing the initial setup runs quick though and were dropped right into ZTE skin the software here recall some of the organization which we haven't always enjoyed on HTC in LG skins it's just similar enough to stock Android that there shouldn't be too many missteps getting around the phone but just different enough in design and it takes a little time to get used to where things are after loading up some apps happily our initial use has been relatively snappy of course we have some concerns just how much of a mini is this many many generations of smaller sibling phones in the past represented severe compromises with the main axon representing such a great bargain what exactly did ZTE trim here to get to that lower price point looking ahead to our future review and some possible comparisons will definitely be examining the audio situation where the axon 7 was a monster were skeptical that the mini fully inherited that audio prowess while there were some flaws to deal with the bigger axon camera also represented some ambitious moves delivering h.265 compression support which we know this phone's chipset can't handle and speaking of that chipset just how much of a performance downgrade might we find here especially as the newer Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 has shown some nice improvements over this older generation of mid-pack processors this is a company on the rise building a fanbase of folks who like inexpensive power user gadgets so we have a lot to look at here will ZTE continue building that reputation or will this phone prove to be an overly compromised companion you'll just have to stay tuned for our future review as always thank so much for watching be sure to subscribe to this channel for more videos like these and help us out with some sharing on your favorite social networks for PocketNow i'm juan carlos bag now some gadget guy on twitter and instagram and i will catch you all on the next video you