ZTE Blade D/Chat 4G — Review

Design and Materials

Both variants of the Blade D are made from polymer plastic, but they do come in different colours — the Blade D is entirely white, and Coles’ Chat 4G is completely black.

Colour to one side, both devices comes with a 5” TFT display which provide 480 x 854 pixels. This isn’t a huge resolution, and the pixel density isn’t great (around 195), but for an entry-level smartphone, it’s more than adequate.

On the front of the Blade D is a 2MP front-facing camera, front-facing earpiece speaker, and the standard front-facing sensors to detect when the phone is against your head or in a pocket. ZTE’s trio of capacitive buttons are on the lower front, including a central home button, a back button to the left and a multitasking button to the right.

The ZTE Blade D has the usual MicroUSB charging port on the bottom, and a microphone just to the left. On the right hand side is the power/standby button and a volume rocker, with a 3.5mm headset/audio jack on top of the phones.

Looking at the rear of both devices and located on the right hand side corner is the 5MP rear facing camera with the single LED flash located right next to the main camera.

In the centre rear of both devices is the usual ZTE branding and in the right hand rear corner of both devices is the rear facing speakerphone, although there are little small dimples located on each side to ensure the devices aren’t completely flush against anything and muffle the sound too much.

Screen

As noted above, the 5” TFT displays on the ZTE Blade D variants isn’t all that great; the size is good, but the resolution is rather low. On top of this, the colours aren’t exactly vibrant, and the pixelation on fonts was especially pronounced. A 1mm bezel around the edge of the display also isn’t exactly brilliant, but it could be worse.

As with some other devices I’ve reviewed lately, the ZTE Blade D variants do attract quite a number of fingerprints on their displays, and this is because there doesn’t appear to be an oleophobic coating applied which we normally see on more expensive / higher end devices. A screen protector might have helped this somewhat, but unlike more mid-range devices, ZTE’s entry-level phones don’t come with a screen protector in the box.

The good thing with fingerprints is that they’re easily wiped off, so really it’s not a big deal.

Battery life

With a 2,200 mAh Li-Ion battery, our expectations were not overly high, but equally, the Blade D variants are somewhat lesser consumers of power than more powerful smartphones. This combined means that with reasonable usage, both phones would last the full day with anywhere between 20% to 40% in the tank.

However, everyone’s usage is different, and if you use these devices heavily, you may find that a mid-afternoon charge is in order. If you’re like most people, you’ll have opportunities to do this around you — at your desk at work, in the car on the way home, or with a charger stashed near the couch.

All day battery is great, but when it doesn’t quite work, there’s always an easy way around it.

Camera

The Blade D variants come with a 5MP rear facing camera. This isn’t an especially high resolution, but it’s enough to take reasonable photos to share with your friends and family, to use on social media and the like. While you probably wouldn’t want to use this resolution for printing photos, it’s perfectly capable for just about everything else.

At first, the shutter lag was a little noticeable, and focus isn’t especially quick, however once you get used to it, it’s more than acceptable for a phone that’s under $80.

Looking at picture quality, while at first they might seem to be ok, colours do seem to be a little washed out and there is a fair bit of noise. This is probably to be expected, given the lower quality camera sensor being used. That said, as noted above, pictures taken on either device pass the social media test when uploaded and shared with friends on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

The 2MP front facing camera can take reasonable selfies, though they do tend to look a little grainy at best. Also, lighting can be an issue so it is best advised should you wish to take selfies with either device, to be in a well lit room or get someone to take a photo using the rear camera.

Despite the entry-level status, there are also settings within the camera to allow for you to manually select from the following camera modes: Auto, sport, panorama, sunset, night, candlelight, backlight, beach, snow (which let’s be honest, may not be used much here), HDR, landscape and portrait modes.

There are also filter settings should you wish to manually select from one of the pre-installed filters within the camera and upload them straight to your social media pages or share them via MMS, email, etc.

Connectivity

Connectivity wise, both the Blade D and the Chat 4G come with the standard Bluetooth version 4.0 which enabled strong connection to my Android Wear Watch, Chromecast and Bluetooth speakers.

Both devices also come with the usual WiFi specifications such as WiFi 802.11 b/g/n and the connection for both devices was quite strong when connected to my home WiFi network.

Network Connectivity wise, both the Blade D and the Chat 4G utilise and are locked to the Optus Network and also take advantage of the network’s 4GPlus spectrum. Below is the network connectivity spectrums for both devices:

• 2G: 900, 1800 MHz
• 3G: 900, 2100 MHz
• 4G: Band 3, Band 7, Band 28

Both devices come with GPS (supplemented with A-GPS), and it works just as it should.

Sadly, though, NFC is not included, so if you’re looking for a cheap smartphone to use with your bank’s tap-and-pay app, or if you’re anticipating the release of Android Pay for Australia, you might need to look at a different phone.

Sound

Sound wise, there isn’t really much to talk about here, given the rear facing speakers aren’t all that powerful and sound can seem muffled. At full volume when listening to music, clarity can also be lost. This is where I do believe front facing speakers can be far superior but again budget is a factor when it comes to these kind of devices.

Also it is unsure whether HD Voice is active on both devices, as I really didn’t notice this feature being active; it most likely isn’t available.

Performance

Probably the area where most entry-level devices suffer is in performance stakes, and while the ZTE Blade D variants can handle the benchmark tests we’ve applied, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that the benchmarks simply aren’t very good. We’ve long said, though, that benchmarking really doesn’t mean an awful lot in terms of real-world usage, and equally, a $80 device simply shouldn’t be expected to work as quickly or as well as a phone costing more than 15 times as much.

For the use-case for these devices — phone calls, messaging, emails, some social media and taking some photos about the place — there’s really not too much to complain about. In fact, really the only area where the lesser performance really does show is when gaming. When intensive processing or graphical manipulation is needed, the ZTE Blade D can start to slow down.

For less intensive games though, like Angry Birds, Family Guy: the Quest or Simpsons Tapped Out, the performance was perfectly adequate, though the TFT display made more graphic-intensive games a little harder to play.