ZTE has introduced a new smartphone to its Blade family called the Blade V7 Plus, though its key features don’t exactly represent the most cutting-edge tech out there. For instance, the new phone still runs the legacy Android 6.0 Marshmallow OS and features the 8-core MediaTek MT6753 chipset under the hood, a system that was launched in 2015 for the mid-range market. The Blade V7 Plus also sports an S-IPS 5.2-inch display panel with a 1080 x 1920 resolution and features 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage, a combination that would be typically seen in older phones. The “Plus” in the device’s name is meant to represent a slight upgrade over its predecessor in the form of a fingerprint scanner squeezed into the rear panel of the handset and a larger, 2,540mAh Lithium-ion battery. The back panel also includes a 13-megapixel camera that comes with an LED flash and support for autofocus and phase detection autofocus. The camera can take full HD pictures and videos and should generally prove to be a serviceable imaging tool. Meanwhile, the phone also boasts a 5-megapixel front shooter for selfies and video calls.
Other features of the Blade V7 Plus include a memory card slot intended to expand the phone’s memory capacity by up to 128GB. The SoC of the handset sports eight Cortex-A53 cores and the Mali-T720 MP3 GPU for graphics rendering, with the former operating at a maximum frequency of up to 1.3GHz. The Blade V7 Plus’ connectivity options include support for Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, HSDPA, HSUPA, EDGE, Bluetooth 4 Low Energy, and FM radio, in addition to GPS, A-GPS, and GLONASS compatibility for navigation purposes. It is worth mentioning that the Blade V7 Plus has a clean OS installed, which means that there are no extra overlays or themes that ship with the device. The phone is 146 x 72.5 x 7.95mm in size, making it a relatively compact offering. The Blade V7 Plus will soon go on sale in Russia and Australia in Platinum Grey and Ion Gold color options.
ZTE’s Blade V7 Plus is the latest addition to its suite of Blade smartphones and is meant to succeed the Blade V7 and Blade V7 Lite which were launched at Mobile World Congress last year. In late 2016, ZTE also unveiled the dual camera Blade V8 and will likely introduce more related products later this year.