ZTE’s flagship phone the Axon 7 will finally launch in Australia this month after an extensive period of testing.
ZTE has announced the launch on their Australian Facebook page advising that the launch has been pushed back to the end of October due to ‘high global demand and specific requirements for the Australian market’. Testing of the phone included tweaking software and radios for the much vaunted Band 28 700MHz network here in Australia.
The Axon 7 packs a mean punch when it comes to hardware with a 5.5″ QHD resolution display, Snapdragon 820 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage with microSD card slot and 3,250 mAh battery. ZTE has priced their flagship level phone aggressively at $699 – though somewhat above the $399USD ($520AUD) price tag the phone has in the US.
Full Specs:
| Key Specifications: | ZTE Axon 7 Australia |
|---|---|
| Release date | October 2016 |
| Screen size | 5.5-inch |
| Screen technology | AMOLED |
| Resolution | 2,560 x 1,440 |
| PPI | 534 |
| Rear camera | 20MP |
| Rear aperture | f/1.8 |
| Front camera | 8MP |
| Front aperture | f/2.2 |
| Chipset | Snapdragon 820 |
| Core config | 2 x 2.15 GHz Kryo + 2 x 1.6 GHz Kryo |
| RAM | 4GB |
| Storage | 64GB |
| MicroSD | Yes, up to 128GB |
| Battery | 3,250 mAh |
| Battery removable | — |
| Connector | USB C |
| Headphone Port | Yes |
| Headphone Location | — |
| Speaker Configuration | Front |
| WIFI standards | 802.11 b/g/n |
| Bluetooth standards |
|
| NFC | Yes |
| Location |
|
| Android OS | Android 6.0.1 |
| Vendor skin | — |
| Dimensions | 151.7 x 75 x 7.9mm |
| Weight | 175g |
| Colours |
|
The Axon 7 will go on-sale in ‘Iron Gold’ with pre-sales starting on the 17th of October, with ZTE advising potential customers to get in fast due to stock being extremely limited.
If the $699 price tag is a little too expensive for your tastes, you can always try your luck on their Facebook page where they have launched a competition to give one away.
Good specs, initial reviews have been good, not sure why everyone expects the lot and still pay chips for it?!
The price doesn’t sit right with me. $599-$649 would have hit the sweet spot and still be higher than the USD $399 + our 10% GST which takes it to $572 AUD.
Obviously Australia is a totally different market when compared to the US, and I’m sure ZTE expects to sell less of them here, thus asking a bit more for them.
Does anyone know what ROM we get here? Is it the clean Vanilla Android ROM, or their over the top skinned to death ROM some Asian countries get?
Cheers
It’s their “over the top skinned to death ROM”.
Yikes… I don’t mind certain skins from some vendors but having seen reviews of the Axon 7 with their skin, I don’t think I could do it. Sure, a launcher could fix most of the day to day, but it would haunt me knowing my phone has a terrible stock experience. I was tempted by the Oppo R9 Plus, but Oppo doesn’t seem keen to update their line past Android 5.1.1 for some reason and there are underlying issues with notifications and bluetooth with their new line :/ Sticking to my trusty Huawei Mate 7 till something better comes along.… Read more »
If you’re able to handle EMUI, you’ll be fine with ZTE’s skin.
Not sure about that, apart from the lack of app draw on both, having watched many reviews of the Axon 7 with MiFavor it looks unpolished and clunky and the fact that they hijack app icons with their own that don’t even align properly etc… is really annoying. A launcher with a custom icon pack should fix that but I’m not sure how to get stock app icons back, as even a launcher wont fix that? Are there any custom icon packs that bring back stock icons? :/ EMUI looks more sophisticated with darker cleaner colours without a lot of… Read more »
The hardware looks great. Right up to the point at which it seems to only be available in gold…
What is ZTE like for software updates? Especially monthly security updates?
My sentiments too
I don’t know that I’d call the pricing “aggressive” when there’s a $180 difference between purchasing it in Australia versus from overseas. Also, ZTE hasn’t advised whether it will facilitate the bootloader being unlocked on this variant, and if it does, it voids the warranty anyway. Those on Whirlpool who have the phone advise that the UI is terrible and that installing CM in the future is a must, so $700 for a phone with zero warranty seems like a bad deal when you can purchase the OnePlus 3 for around $600. It comes with more RAM, a warranty, vanilla… Read more »
This phone looks good but still out of my price range. All I want is a Quad Core phone with at least 2GB of RAM, NFC, Wireless AC and a fingerprint reader. Not too fussed about screen size or speakers. Can someone recommend one? This is for my daughter.
I bought my daughter a 2nd hand Samsung S6 and she is very happy with it. Has all the features you are asking for and can get one for around $400 on Gumtree. If the S6 is still too expensive, you can pick up a nice S5 for around $250 these days. Plenty of fancy pink cases and accesories for them too, as girls love styling their phones…
Thank you for the tip. The S5 was my fall back position on this. Just wanted to see if there was some other option.
The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 Pro Special Edition comes with band 28 support, a Snapdragon 650, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 4,050mAh battery, a rear facing fingerprint scanner and a 5.5″ LCD display. MIUI isn’t great, but you can flash CM on it. There’s a thread on Whirlpool about it and I wrote a guide on how to flash it.
It’s priced at around $260 from places like Vickmall, Geekbuying and AliExpress.
Thank you for the tip. I will look into this. No Australian resellers?