It must be humbling walking through the hall of IFA when you're a company like ZTE. There are countless phone manufacturers trying countless tricks to stand out from the pack. So, what do you do when you're a relative unknown attempting to compete with the likes of Samsung and Sony? Everything you can.
The result, at least in the case of the Axon Elite, is a handset that combines a lot of distinct features into a strange little package. That's not to say that they can't or don't live in relative harmony, it's just that it all adds up to a phone without a particular focus, which is to say is this a photography phone or a music phone.
The Axon Elite is jack of all trades, master of none. It's a bit of an ADD approach with one or two interesting features that don't add up to a cohesive approach.
First off is the design, a faux silver leather aesthetic with fake stitching that looks really odd on the metallic back. The speaker grilles, meanwhile, are borderline lattice work. Skeuomorphism seems like the appropriate word.
There are also no fewer than four ways to unlock the device: the standard Android dot pattern, the fingerprint reader on the rear, voice, and an admittedly pretty cool eye scanner.
There are a pair of large speakers flanking the top and bottom of the 5.5-inch display. I was pretty underwhelmed by the sound quality there, though the phone does ship with JBL headphones that are certainly a bump up from the standard variety bundled with most phones.
Also interesting are the pair of cameras on the rear – 13-megapixel and 2-megapixel, respectively – which help with the camera's auto-focus. And then there's the 8-megapixel front-facing camera, which is, get this, smile activated.
The handset starts at $450. Say cheese.
