This week, thousands of journalists and industry analysts made their way to Berlin for the annual IFA show. While we haven’t seen as many big name devices this year, thanks to Samsung announcing the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 Edge+ a few weeks early. There are still plenty of goodies this time around. ZTE has actually announced the Axon Elite, as well as getting an award for their new Axon phone. And it has to do with the User Experience. In ZTE’s press release, they note that they are the only Chinese smartphone brand to receive a 2015 IFA Product Technical Innovation Award. Which makes this award a huge deal for ZTE, especially considering it relates to user experience.
The User Experience Gold Award was given to ZTE Axon Phone by the IDG and German Industry and Commerce Ltd. ZTE Mobile Device CEO, Adam Zeng had this to say about the award, “We are both honored and excited to receive this award for Axon, our new global flagship smartphone”.
Back in July, ZTE announced the Axon phone. It is their first global flagship device, and the most “premium” device the company has ever made. Made of an aluminum unibody, along with a 5.5-inch QHD display and featuring HiFi Audio, it’s a pretty amazing smartphone. I’m actually working on my review of it, and so far I’m really enjoying the phone. In China, Europe and Asia-Pacific, the Axon phone is the first phone that can be unlocked with three different biometric authentication options. This includes eye-scan, voice control and fingerprint. Now these versions haven’t made it to the US just yet, but hopefully will soon in the next version of the Axon phone.
It’s a huge honor for ZTE here, as it shows them that they’ve done something right when it comes to the user experience. Reviewers like myself, have been telling manufacturers to stick to vanilla Android and ZTE finally did it with the AXON Pro, and now the awards are beginning to pour in. It will be interesting to see how the Axon Pro 2 stacks up when that’s announced, likely, next year.