We’ve been hearing more and more from ZTE lately. They’ve been trying pretty hard to make a splash in the US market. Typically their phones have been found on pre-paid or no contract carriers like Boost Mobile and MetroPCS in the US. We’ve seen a few recent devices from ZTE make their way onto Sprint as well. But the Chinese manufacturer it looking to steal the show next month at CES. They are rumored to be introducing a high-end device. Which if they do, means it’s for one or more of the US carriers, since CES is primarily an US show. Unlike Mobile World Congress in February.
According to ZTE’s new Global Chief Design Director, Hagen Fendler, “It will kind of be a starting point of a new design era for ZTE”. Although Fendler did decline to offer more details on the new phone that’ll be on display at CES in Las Vegas in early January. He did suggested that it would be separate from the “Nubia” brand, which ZTE started teasing back in late October with a 5-inch display, which is said to arrive in China later this month.
Hagen Fendler said “The Nubia brand is a second brand, which we use to address the high-end in parallel to this activity”. Fendler came to ZTE 3 months ago after previously being in charge of handset design for rival Huawei Technologies. Huawei is another Chinese manufacturer that is also trying to make a huge splash in the US market.
So a high-end ZTE device, what kind of specs should we be looking for? Well the ZTE Nubia Z5, which is going on sale later this month, is rumored to be featuring:
- Quad-core Snapdragon S4 pro processor
- 2GB of RAM
- 13MP camera
So if we see those specs in this ZTE device at CES next month, I’m not sure you can really call it “high-end”. We’ve been seeing the Snapdragon S4 Pro/2GB of RAM combo on quite a few phones lately, and it’s going to turn into the same old same old. Hopefully at CES we don’t see all these new devices with relatively the same specs, we’d especially like to see something different. Maybe ZTE can bring that to the table. I know it would shock quite a few people, in fact probably most people.
Who’d be willing to pick up a ZTE device, if it hit the right carrier, in a few months? Let us know in the comments.