ZTE Corporation is a Chinese multinational telecommunications equipment and consumer electronics company based out of Shenzhen, Guangdong. It may be one of the largest manufacturers of Android-powered devices globally, but isn’t really that widely recognized outside its home country. That’s because most of the company’s sales come from entry-level unbranded phones, launched on European carriers. In recent times, however, the company has been trying real hard to go beyond being just a white box manufacturer, something that doesn’t get them a lot of exposure to retail consumers. With a view towards doing just that, the company launched the ‘Nubia’ sub-brand last year, and also the all-new ‘Axon‘ brand that’s targeted first and foremost at the all-important US market.
While all that’s happening, however, ZTE’s original ‘Blade’ sub-brand remains as strongly-entrenched as ever, and the company continues to launch new Blade-branded devices in international markets. The latest smartphone to sport the moniker is reportedly the Blade D Lux, which has now been launched in Vietnam and Singapore. The handset is a lower mid-range phablet that costs 3.89 million Dongs ($173) in Vietnam and SG$239 ($166) in Singapore. The D Lux has only been launched in white, and it isn’t immediately clear if ZTE will introduce other color options in the future. While the company hasn’t given out any details regarding its global plans for the Blade D Lux, the device is expected to find its way to other markets worldwide at some stage nonetheless.
Coming to the hardware specs, the D Lux features a 5.5-inch 720p IPS panel with 2.5D curved glass display. The smartphone is powered by the Snapdragon 410 SoC that incorporates a quad-core 1.2 GHz CPU and an Adreno 306 GPU. The device comes with 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of built-in storage that can be expanded by up to 64 GB with the help of a microSD card. The mobile runs Android 5.0 Lollipop, sports a 3,000 mAh battery and supports a range of connectivity options, including 4G LTE, 3G HSPA+, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS. As for the cameras, the Blade D Lux comes with a 13-megapixel primary camera with LED Flash and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video chats.
