It was nearly a whole month ago when ZTE announced its CSX program which seeks to gather ideas for its upcoming smartphones by crowdsourcing them. As part of the CSX program, you could submit any ideas you may have had or anything you’d like to see on the company’s smartphones – the only requirements were that the idea was technically possible by 2017 and that the end product was affordable enough for the majority of consumers. Some of the current ideas are relatively normal such as a phone with a glass body or wireless charging. Others are more interesting such as a modular design or a smartphone with a 100% screen to body ratio.
Now, the company appears to be ready to further embrace the program and has announced that it is moving its CSX program into the second phase. As part of the second phase, submissions have now closed but you can head over to the company’s forum, which it calls the “Z Community,” and vote for your favorite ideas – some of which are already in progress while others are still being researched. This voting system is the new addition in the second phase.
After the second phase is complete, ZTE will go on to pick three ideas on September 11th, which will be the basis of the final design. As part of the eventual third phase, members of the community will have the ability to submit technical sketches based on the winning ideas, with the best designs chosen by ZTE. Lastly, in October the company will allow the community to vote for the best one. Aside from creating the product that the community votes on, the company will be rewarding the members who end up creating the final designs with a trip to CES 2017, where they will join ZTE and be acknowledged by the company for the part they played in the creation of the final device, most likely one that will form part of ZTE’s Axon line. The program as a whole is an interesting idea and something that will surely increase the anticipation for the device and, hopefully, the likely hood of a consumer purchasing the product if they feel they’ve played a part in the development process.