This new budget smartphone from ZTE is actually the Blade D6 that was launched last year. And the phone that has now been launched in India as Blade V6 has all the specifications and features similar to the old Blade D6. Launched at Rs 9,999, this smartphone seems expensive today because it is a year old, but maybe the Blade V6 can attract us with its features.
Design and build
The design of the phone attracts attention the moment you hold it in your hand. And this is the reaction we got from everyone we handed the phone to. The phone is 6.8mm thin and weighs just 122 grams. Apart from this, the grip of the phone is very good which makes it feel like an iPhone when held in the hand.
The phone is comfortable to hold and the buttons are easy to reach. The fit and finish of the buttons is not the best as the buttons are a bit wobbly and the power button was a bit of a hassle in our test unit. According to the company, the 5-inch HD IPS display offers good brightness in daylight. There is no scratch protection on the display so you will have to be extra careful during everyday use. The resolution is also just HD and not full HD. There are capacitive buttons at the bottom of the display which are equipped with blue light.
The Blade V6 has a metal frame and rear but it does not come with a unibody design. The hybrid SIM tray is on the left side and the phone supports 4G for Indian bands. But only the first SIM slot supports 4G while the second SIM slot supports 2G only. You can expand the internal storage up to 64GB via microSD card if you use only one SIM.
A mono speaker is provided on the rear. This phone has a 13 megapixel rear camera with dual-tone LED flash. As expected, being an old model, the phone does not have a fingerprint sensor.
When you buy the Blade V6, you will get a standard 5-watt charger and a data cable in the box. The quality of the accessories that come with it is very good and should last a long time.
Specifications and Features
I wish ZTE had put in a little effort to update the processor before launching this phone here. The Blade V6 is powered by a basic quad-core MediaTek MT6735 processor. The phone has 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. These specifications are decent for Android Lollipop and we could see the effect in our benchmarking tests as well. The phone performed well in our benchmarking tests. Other specifications include Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, USB OTG, GPS, and FM radio.
Having an older chipset in a phone is not a big deal if the price of the phone is taken into consideration. But the software is a hindrance. The Blade V6 runs Android 5.0.2 which is two versions older than the latest version of Lollipop, which is now two versions older than the latest Android. To make things worse, there hasn’t been an update to fix the security flaws since November last year. This is especially troubling after hearing about the number of hacks and security issues on the Android platform.
The stock launcher offers a single-layer layout on the phone’s home screen which is quite confusing due to the poor choice of icons. Thankfully, you can make things much easier by switching from the stock launcher. For those who prefer the back button to the right of the home button, ZTE has provided an option to swap the function of the capacitive button.
Many third party apps come pre-installed in the phone. Some of these, like two music players, cannot be uninstalled. Apart from this, you can send files and messages through ad-hoc network with EliveShare. Chatz is also a messaging service, Every Stripe live wallpaper, Hubi News, Shazam, Google apps and AVG antivirus come pre-installed.
Like the music player, most of these apps cannot be removed. These include ZTE’s iShow app which plays a video of your choice when you unlock the phone. Most of these apps are such that you will hardly ever use them but you cannot get rid of them.
Performance
The performance of the Blade V6 is quite fast and the phone works very quickly. Apps launch very fast and multi-tasking can be done without any problem. The phone does not heat up even when playing games. The call quality of the phone is not very good and we had trouble hearing during calls even at full volume and the microphone is also very weak.
Media playback is good on the Blade V6 and the phone can handle high bit-rate Full HD videos with ease. Audio performance is also not bad and this is thanks to the presence of Arkamys sound. Despite being a mono speaker, the volume level is good which makes watching videos a great experience.
The 13-megapixel camera on the phone takes detailed macro photos in daylight but landscape shots are average. The detail level is also not great, especially in the objects that are in the picture. Photos are not very good in low light, especially when there are only one or two lights, but apart from this, the camera does not work well if you take a landscape photo of a street. Focus and store speed are also a problem with low ambient light.
The front camera works great for selfies but only in good light. The camera app is similar to the Android app that we have been seeing in every budget smartphone for a long time. Apart from this, there are Face Beauty, Panorama, Live Photo and HDR and Gesture Shot. The camera app has filters and a long press on the shutter button activates the burst mode.
The 2200mAh battery on the phone helped us run the phone for a full day. In our video loop test, the battery lasted for 8 hours continuously and 7 hours on video, which is not bad.
Our verdict
It’s not really clear why ZTE has launched this model now, especially since an upgraded variant of the phone was already launched at the Mobile World Congress this year. The Blade V6 is priced at Rs 9,999 and is currently available only at Hotshot retail outlets in Delhi.
Apart from the beautiful design and excellent battery life, there is no reason to buy this phone. Outdated software and security are two big flaws and these are reason enough not to buy the phone.
The Xiaomi Redmi 3S Prime (Review), Asus ZenFone Max (2016) (Review) and Le 1S Eco smartphones offer better performance and features at a lower price.
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