Chinese tech giant ZTE is reportedly planning on releasing the new Grand X View 2 tablet in Canada today, July 12, through local carrier Bell. The slate will be accompanied by a price tag of $179.99 CAD which translates to roughly US$139 at today’s conversion rate, however as far as the tablet’s specifications are concerned it appears that the ZTE Grand X View 2 has been downgraded in several areas compared to its predecessor. This includes a lower-end SoC, half the amount of RAM, a display with a lower pixel count and more.
According to a recent report from MobileSyrup, the upcoming ZTE tablet will house a Qualcomm Snapdragon 210 SoC featuring four CPU cores clocked at up to 1.3GHz. However, considering the fact that the aforementioned chipset is rated at a maximum frequency of 1.1GHz per core, it’s likely that the slate will be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 instead, whose four ARM Cortex-A7 cores operate at a frequency of up to 1.3GHz. Either way, as long as the chipset will be part of the Snapdragon 200 family, it will also carry an Adreno 304 graphics chip. Other hardware details include 1GB of RAM, 8GB of on-board memory expandable by up to 128GB through a microSD card slot, and an 8-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800. Reportedly the tablet also accommodates a 5-megapixel main camera coupled with a 2-megapixel front-facing sensor, it runs Android 7.1.1 Nougat out of the box, and is powered by a 4,620mAh battery.
In contrast, the original ZTE Grand X View which was released in 2015 was equipped with an 8-inch display featuring a higher resolution of 1920 x 1080, a more powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 system-on-chip, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of on-board memory. It also made use of a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter paired with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, and was powered by a similarly sized 4,620mAh battery. As yet there’s no telling why the ZTE Grand X View 2 has been downgraded, but nevertheless, the new model will carry an appropriately lower price tag compared to the original model, which was initially launched for $240. As of this writing, Bell has yet to make an official announcement regarding the tablet’s release in its stores, but if these latest reports are accurate then more details regarding specs, pricing, and availability should emerge by the end of the day.