Gadgetory

the axons in your brain typically helped deliver sensations throughout your neurons those can include taste touch and emotions like surprise and we were surprised when Chinese manufacturer ZTE made a move this year that brought a competitive unlocked smartphone stateside as Huawei is determined to seriously catch up in the US across 2016 we end 2015 with a look at what the ZTE axon pro did to shake up our conceptions of a budget focused phone maker did it succeed in getting the company name out I'm Jules Wong you're on pocket now and the answers in our video review the axon design language is American made specifically Seattle based design firm T help to decorate the triangle tracks along the speak grilles and cameras we'll get to those in just a bit and giving the sim slot and buttons all the right exposures and all the right treatments to that effect the volume up contact as well as the dedicated shutter trigger get the grid of triangles for a subtle refinement of style aero class aluminum coloured falen blue on our unit is bounded together with black polycarbonate end caps for a more balanced less slippery feel in hand a special antimicrobial pane of Gorilla Glass 3 stands up from the body pulling out of its top and bottom edges it houses the capacitive keys which are reassigned Bowl but must be used and a sharp made quad HD LCD spanning across five and a half inches the greens get a little more favored in the gamut but it's otherwise a pretty accurate display that can keep very dark or glow like the Sun silicon comes in the form of a Snapdragon 810 processor there's four gigabytes of RAM and non expandable storage options of 32 or 64 gigabytes for phone that prides itself on high fidelity audio there's only one front facing speaker on this device so ZTE got this one half correct there are also two special DAC chips that enable 32-bit playback and just for giggles we have the JBL a13 earbuds included with early bird orders all that sound where gets a heaping dose of Dolby Digital sound tuning with different preset configs and Emanuele II cues to bump up the bass or pick up more throaty tones there's a reason why Dobies been around for a long time and we're glad to hear so many ingredients put together for a relatively affordable but nice in-ear listening experience elsewhere on Android 51 1 ZTE takes a more aggressive approach to skinning the OS compared to other OEMs without going overboard though that includes a couple of themes but no theme store there are bloat apps including two fitness apps but there are only five of them total and you can disable them right from the app drawer the rather lacking zSpace info page takes over the Google male nav swipe shortcut but that can also be shut down and there's no option to see your battery percentage which means you'll have to get a third-party app for that the axon Pro includes a task manager so you can track how it handles CPU and RAM and disappointingly it does so rather poorly details after we take a look at the pictures this thing takes speaking of just tap the dedicated shutter button twice any time you want and you're in the V finder if this weren't ZTE and instead HTC we'd be talking about a duo camera setup but instead we'll settle for saying that a two megapixel focus assist sensor is paired with a 13 megapixel camera on back apertures wide autofocus is fast and you can get shutter speed down to 190 thousandth of a second the front ciders got eight megapixels on it when testing out the somewhat confusing bouquet mode where you can adjust the focus after the fact well it works just as mediocre li as on the HTC One m8 after effects seem to choke on blurring out the clothes in subjects sometimes - other than that we have a pretty meh shooter overall there is no stabilization and even with phase detection the autofocus just doesn't want to behave sometimes you might have a tough kill added in the door GART even in the dim and during the day you'll find negotiating with the Sun or sky to be a tough proposition occasionally the phone does favor blowing highlights out just a little bit video spools up to 4k it does a decent job as far as we can tell stepping back a bit you could definitely grab some decent snaps from this camera just don't expect much more from it we had a hard time taking calls with our axon Pro unit they'll have to hunt for the earpiece once in a while since it's offset to the right noise cancellation was either too aggressive or just not working at all one of our test callers reported that he couldn't hear us for a 20-second stretch of time using the phone as a phone was challenging to say the least t-mobile speeds around Greater Boston have been average gaming performance with the 810 has been smooth and warm but not hot while multitasking has generally been a smooth experience Ram prioritization issues occasionally strike up you should be able to listen to a podcast while scrolling social media or some web pages but at some point the podcast app just gives up the ghost this isn't what a phone with four gigabytes of RAM should do for a non-removable 3000 milliamp hour battery on a heavy streaming media diet the screen was lit for three to three and a half hours over an eight-hour day on average ZTE solar investment in the US market has taken a lesser position as the axon Brandt has been replastered for use in yes China and we really don't know what to expect from axon around these parts in the near future so given how far we is so ready to put up a fight in the US with facilities and a CES launch it's going to be critical for ZTE to take step two with some contemplation how the next phone will look feel run and most importantly spread despite writer to the contrary for ZTE to change the smartphone game in the u.s. it will either need network carriage or an irresistible product so how does step one set this all up well the axon Pro hasn't exactly loud us with its price tag the software hardware combination well potent and pleasantly plain might prove to be a problematic long-standing drain and while there has been a software update to address a major complaint about the cameras we're still left wondering where the commitment is to marshmallow that is part of the axon Passport promise ZTE made to customers and it's a good promise to the company just needs to follow up on it and after all this talk about security holes in RAM management fixes we're in doubt as to whether we can recommend buying this phone to you and when you put it next to the Moto X or the oneplus 2 well you might be happier paying less if the company wants better traction for the axon 2016 better be a better year for ZTE in the USA and that actually means paying better attention to all of the competition we hope to get to you more coverage of ZTE at CES this year in Las Vegas so follow us on pocket now at pocketnow.com and everywhere we are social app and for all of the pocket now team I'm Jules Wong at point jewels on Twitter more from us later