ZTE is in the process of expanding its presence in the highly competitive American smartphone market, and it has begun widening its reach by selling its newest smartphone through various online retailers.
Following the launch of the ZTE Axon Pro in the United States on July 27, ZTE is now making its flagship handset available through Amazon, eBay and Newegg to customers in the U.S. All retailers offer an unlocked version of the GSM-only device for only $449.98, which is a few hundred dollars less than the most popular manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung and LG sell their devices for.
The phone is only available in one color on Amazon, phthalo blue, but Newegg offers both phthalo blue and silver chromium variants. ZTE's eBay store offers the Axon Pro in all three variants, including ion gold. Newegg seems to have run out of stocks of the phone, but both Amazon and eBay still have some units available, so people who are thinking of getting one might do well to take up the offer immediately. Currently, the phone is bundled with a pair of JBL in-ear headphones, but it's not clear if ZTE will stop selling the headphones after some time.
As we reported earlier, ZTE is now the fourth-largest smartphone vendor in the U.S., but the Chinese brand is looking to widen its horizons beyond selling low-end to mid-range handsets reserved for lower-income users. The company has a lot in its way of capturing the high-end user base, which is cornered by Apple and Samsung, but ZTE hopes a brand new flagship smartphone catered towards the premium market can help secure its position in the U.S. market.
On paper, the Axon Pro can certainly live up to flagship ideals. The handset, which runs on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop out of the box, is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 chipset and 4GB of RAM to give it PC-like performance capabilities. Storage is at a decent 32GB and the Sharp-manufactured 5.5-inch Quad HD AMOLED display has a resolution of 1,440 x 2,560 pixels.
At the back is a dual-lens camera that has 13MP and 2MP image sensors. It is similar to the dual-lens camera found on the HTC One M8, which lets users change the focus of an image after it has been snapped. The camera is also capable of taking 4K videos, a feat that not many flagship smartphones can do. In front is an 8MP shooter, which is also considerably larger than many front-facing cameras on many flagships today.
ZTE also touts the "high-fidelity" sound produced by the Axon Pro, whether the user is listening to the speakers or through headphones. The company claims the phone can produce sound the way they were meant to be heard, but of course this claim has to be put to the test.
