Talking about the specifications, the biggest expectations from the ZTE Blade A2 Plus are from the battery life, as the phone comes with a 5000mAh battery. On paper, it comes with VoLTE support. It has an octa-core processor, 4GB of RAM and a 13MP PDAF camera. But do these specifications really work when it comes to performance? Is this phone as good in performance as its price? Let’s find out.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus design and build
The build quality of the phone is good due to the use of metal. However, the design looks a bit ordinary and boring. This phone does not attract the attention of the user, so the ZTE Blade A2 Plus is not for those who like to show off their smartphone in public places. We found the phone a bit heavy to hold in the hand and also a bit bulky to keep in the pocket. Due to the big battery, the thickness of the phone also increases a bit and it measures 9.8 mm and weighs 189 grams.
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus is completely occupied by the display and below it are backlit, capacitive navigation buttons. The white backlight in the home button also works as a notification light but it is very dim, making it impossible to see in daylight. The rest of the buttons are on the right side and there is a SIM tray on the left. The phone comes with a hybrid SIM slot and can accommodate either two SIM cards or one SIM card and one microSD card (128 GB). The phone has a headphone socket on the top and a USB port on the bottom.
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus has a fingerprint sensor, dual-LED flash, and a primary camera at the rear. The fingerprint sensor is placed on the phone just like the Honor 8 (Review). The fingerprint sensor on the rear is placed above a physical button that can be pressed in different ways to perform a variety of shortcuts. This can be customized by going to the Super Key menu in the Settings app.
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus sports a 5.5-inch IPS display with full-HD resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The display panel produces good colours and offers good viewing angles. The phone comes with MiraVision optimization to enable features like dynamic contrast and blue-light filter. The glass on top of the display also comes with curved edges, which makes the phone grippy.
In the box, we find a 13.5 watt charger, SIM ejector tool and an instruction manual. The packaging of the phone is very simple which shows that ZTE has tried its best to keep the price low. Apart from the good build quality, the Blade A2 Plus is a very standard looking smartphone with nothing to excite about aesthetically. The phone is quite bulky and it is not thin either so it may not appeal to some people.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus specifications and features
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus is powered by the MediaTek MT6750T octa-core processor. We have also reviewed the Vivo V5 with the same processor. We got average results in benchmark tests. During normal use, the user interface runs quite well but the phone stutters when using multiple tabs in Chrome and when using the camera. This is a bit strange for a phone with 4GB RAM as we did not face any such problem in other smartphones with the same processor.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus has 32 GB inbuilt storage. For connectivity, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, FM radio and USB OTG are provided. Talking about sensors, only accelerometer and proximity sensor will be available. The phone supports VoLTE along with 4G.
The MiFavor 3.5 OS on the phone is based on Android Marshmallow. The skin isn’t the best interface we’ve used. The phone’s drop-down notification shade has editable toggle switches that allow you to change the theme colour, wallpaper, icon size and transition effects when you swipe up from the bottom. The Settings app has a stock Android design and access to gesture and motion triggers for tasks. There’s the ability to switch the function of both capacitive buttons and the phone can be set up in a leather case. Other functions include Family Mode which replaces existing icons with larger fonts for easier use. There’s also an activity tracker called Sleep, like Samsung, and a self-service app called ZTE Cares. The phone comes pre-installed with a number of third-party utility apps, but luckily all of these can be deleted as needed.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus performance
The Blade A2 Plus is a good phone for everyday use. The touch response of the display could have been better. The fingerprint sensor works well and can be used as a shortcut to various functions. The phone does not have the best processor for multitasking and there are noticeable lags in the phone. The rear of the phone also heats up quickly when playing games such as Rayman Adventures.
The stock video and music player plays most files with ease, including flac. The audio quality from the loud speaker is quite average but the sound output from earphones is decent.
The 13-megapixel rear camera is the weakest link in the phone as its performance is disappointing. Despite having PDAF, the focus speed is very slow in daylight and it is not usable in low light conditions. Taking macro shots with the camera is also quite a challenge as locking the subject is a tough task. Landscape shots in daylight come with a lot of detail but the colours look dull which gets worse when HDR is enabled. Photos taken in low light have very little detail and colours.
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus’ 8-megapixel camera takes decent selfies in good light but don’t expect too much from it. The maximum video recording resolution is 1080p but the framerate is not very stable and hence the videos look very bad with very low detailing and poor colours. The camera app is pretty basic as it only has picture-in-picture and panorama modes. And there is no special mode for videos like slow-motion. You get an option to apply filters on the phone and there is also a gesture mode for taking selfies.
Battery life is the highlight of this phone. The battery life of the ZTE Blade A2 Plus will not disappoint you. In our loop test, the phone lasted for 14 hours and 48 minutes. On a single full charge, we were able to use the phone for two days with normal use. The Blade A2 Plus supports MediaTek’s Pump Charge feature and with the included adapter, we were able to charge the phone up to 25 percent in 40 minutes. While this is not as fast as OnePlus’ Dash Charge or Qualcomm’s latest Quick Charge technology, something is better than nothing.
Our verdict
On paper, the specifications make it look like a very good phone for Rs 11,999. However, the reality is very different. By making this phone an online exclusive, ZTE has certainly priced the phone very well. But the main selling point of the Blade A2 Plus is its good battery life. Overall, it is a decent smartphone.
It’s certainly not as good an all-rounder as the phones offered by Xiaomi. And we would recommend choosing Xiaomi over ZTE. Alternatively, you can also go for the Asus Zenfone 3S Max, which we recently reviewed and offers pretty good performance for the price.
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