ZTE just announced its latest sub-$150 smartphone for Cricket in the Blade X Max. This is the first “Blade” smartphone to make its way to Cricket. There are plenty of Blade smartphones outside of the US, and recently they launched the Blade V8 in the US as an unlocked smartphone. The ZTE Blade X Max includes a 6-inch full HD display, and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, along with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. There is also a micro SD card slot available for expanding storage. It also is packing a rather large 3400mAh battery, which should keep the Blade X Max going all day long. Additionally, it does support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 2.0 for quick charging up of that large 3400mAh battery.
According to ZTE USA’s executive vice president, Lixin Cheng, the “Blade series has been very successful overseas for the past eight years and we are excited to bring it to Cricket Wireless customers here in the US through the ZTE Blade X Max.” This is just the latest smartphone from ZTE aimed at the budget-conscious out there looking for a new smartphone. The ZTE Blade X Max is going to be available tomorrow May 12th for just $149 at Cricket Wireless. It’ll be available at Cricket Wireless stores as well as through their website. This is one of the cheapest smartphones out there, and it’s likely the cheapest 6-inch device on the market.
ZTE is offering up the Blade X Max with Android 7.1.1 Nougat, which is currently the latest version of Android available. That’s a great look for ZTE, especially since smartphones in this price range don’t typically get updated to future versions of Android. It should be receiving security patches though, which is definitely more important. There’s also a rear-facing fingerprint sensor for the Blade X Max, along with a 13-megapixel camera on the back for taking great images. With Cricket, you can get 1GB of data for just $30/month, or you could get unlimited data for just $60/month or $55 with the $5 autopay credit. That’s a great pairing for the ZTE Blade X Max.