Zte axon 7 review: the brightest sound

TELEPHONY The Axon 7 offers very good sound quality during phone calls and the dual-mic setup works well, too. The SIM card manager in the settings is also decent enough to give you some

control over the SIM cards in the phone. THE DIALER APP IS UNTOUCHED FROM VANILLA ANDROID The Dialer itself is pretty basic and reminds us of the stock Android one. It includes the phone app

and a shortcut to a list of contacts and groups. As you know by now, the ZTE Axon 7 features dual front-facing speakers and it's impressively loud. So loud, in fact, that it secures

its place among the top performers in recent times. These speakers are certainly one of the defining features of this phone. Even the LG V20 isn't a match for the Axon 7's speaker

prowess. The phone is also Dolby Atmos certified and a special option in the notification shade toggles the mode on. Having it on alters the sound to sound subjectively richer and more

surround-like. We found it perfect for watching movies, but it's not ideal for listening to music, at least not all of the time. SPEAKERPHONE TEST VOICE, DB PINK NOISE/ MUSIC, DB

RINGING PHONE, DB OVERALL SCORE SAMSUNG GALAXY A7 (2016) 66.2 64.8 66.8 Below Average HUAWEI MATE S 66.0 65.8 66.6 Below Average XIAOMI REDMI PRO 68.1 71.8 69.4 Good SAMSUNG GALAXY S7 EDGE

70.0 69.1 71.8 Good ONEPLUS 3 62.4 71.0 77.8 Good LG G5 68.7 70.9 73.5 Good LG V20 68.2 68.6 80.9 Good ZTE AXON 7 66.4 72.2 84.1 VERY GOOD Be warned, though, that those speakers are a

double-edged sword, as notifications and ringtones are so loud that at a certain point they become nagging. MESSAGING AND TEXT INPUT Messaging is handled by a rather plain messaging app,

which doesn't have a lot of options. A notable one is the ability to back up your SMS messages. You can also customize the look of the text bubbles and font size. THE MESSAGING APP The

Google Keyboard is at the forefront of the typing experience and it's a good choice by ZTE. Google's Keyboard has matured well over the last six months and offers plenty of options

for customization and Swype-like functionality. Still, power users who type a lot on their smartphones will be better off with third-party alternatives like SwiftKey. OTHER APPS You get a

neat folder full of Google's own Android goodies. This includes Chrome, Gmail, Maps, YouTube, Drive, Play Music, Hangouts, Photos and the Google app itself. STANDARD GOOGLE APPS PACKAGE

Beyond that, you also get a nifty compass, a recorder, a calculator, and a flashlight. There is also a ruler, a loudness meter, a protractor, and a plumb line. They're all packed in a

Toolkit app. THE TOOLKIT APP OFFERS RICH OPTIONS ZTE ships its own Browser in addition to Google Chrome. It's very well made and offers a ton of features. You can capture a full page

screenshot, download stuff using the download manager and scan QR codes for quick access to websites. ZTE'S CUSTOM BROWSER NICE GALLERY The image gallery is also pretty straightforward.

You get a Photos tab with a timeline of all your shots and a Gallery one, for organizing things. The gallery has some fun editing options that allow you to create collages from multiple

images or apply filters, stickers and more. SIMPLE GALLERY • EDITING OPTIONS Hidden behind the three-dot menu on the top right is a GIF and Collage maker. The former is pretty

straightforward and allows you to make custom GIF animations from up to 50 photos. GIF MAKER MUSIC PLAYER The Music player app offers the basic functionality and lacks features like

automatic lyrics fetching or album art downloading. Nevertheless, its neatly designed user interface allows for easy navigation. MUSIC PLAYER APP The player's setting's menu offers

a sleep timer and a shortcut to the phone's Dolby Atmos settings menu. There, you have different profiles for different occasions - music, gaming, video and voice. There are also two

custom profiles for you to fine tune. DOLBY ATMOS SETTINGS VIDEO PLAYER The video player is quite basic. It doesn't offer a lot of options except cropping a video and enabling the

playback of the next one upon finishing the last. Nevertheless, it gets the job done and if you need more functionality, you could always download a third-party alternative. THE VIDEO PLAYER

IS QUITE BASIC AUDIO STARTS OFF BRIGHT, GETS MEDIOCRE WITH HEADPHONES The ZTE Axon 7 delivered perfect clarity with an active external amplifier. The ZTE flagship has no weak points to its

performance and had an output among the loudest around. Unfortunately, degradation with headphones was quite pronounced with stereo crosstalk spiking, volume levels dropping to just above

average and some intermodulation distortion creeping in. Frequency response got a little shaky too, so it’s really not a performance worth writing home about. And now here go the results so

you can do your comparison. TEST FREQUENCY RESPONSE NOISE LEVEL DYNAMIC RANGE THD IMD + NOISE STEREO CROSSTALK ZTE AXON 7 +0.06, -0.10 -92.4 92.3 0.0015 0.0093 -80.9 ZTE AXON 7 (HEADPHONES

ATTACHED) +0.03, -0.11 -92.3 92.3 0.0011 0.012 -77.0 APPLE IPHONE 7 PLUS +0.10, -0.04 -93.1 93.1 0.0015 0.0098 -80.5 APPLE IPHONE 7 PLUS (HEADPHONES ATTACHED) +0.10, -0.03 -93.1 93.0 0.0013

0.015 -76.8 LG V20 +0.01, -0.03 -93.0 93.1 0.0036 0.0075 -93.7 LG V20 (HEADPHONES ATTACHED) +0.04, -0.09 -92.4 92.4 0.051 0.105 -57.5 HUAWEI MATE 8 +0.01, -0.03 -97.8 99.1 0.0054 0.0087

-97.3 HUAWEI MATE 8 (HEADPHONES ATTACHED) +0.02, -0.09 -97.3 97.9 0.015 0.078 -81.3 ZTE AXON 7 FREQUENCY RESPONSE You can learn more about the tested parameters and the whole testing process

here. CAMERA The Axon 7 features a 20MP snapper with the very popular Samsung Isocell 16:9 ratio sensor with f/1.8 aperture. The frontal lens is made of sapphire to prevent scratches and

there's OIS as well as on-sensor phase detection autofocus. The camera interface is very well laid out. On the right side you have a large, iOS-like shutter button with shortcuts to

Live photos and different filter effects. On the left side, there's the button to toggle the 8MP front-facing camera, the Settings menu and the HDR (Auto) toggle. THE CAMERA INTERFACE

IS INTUITIVE AND WELL LAID OUT The Settings menu doesn't offer a lot of options. In fact, you can choose only the resolution, shutter tone, geo-tagging and anti-banding optimization.

This is where the Manual mode comes into play. Turn it on, and you have access to a plethora of settings including shutter speed, ISO, exposure, white balance and depth of focus. Under

Manual mode, there's an updated Settings menu which holds metering, composition, gradienter and histogram options. The photos produced by the camera are with good dynamic range,

although the camera tends to favor exposing the shadows, leaving some of the bright areas a little overexposed. There's a lot of detail and the photos are very sharp. Contrast is also

great with saturated colors. White balance is on point, too. ZTE AXON 7 CAMERA SAMPLES The HDR photos have very subtle difference compared to the non-HDR ones. Mainly, they just bring back

some of the highlight detail. HDR OFF • HDR ON • HDR OFF • HDR ON The 8MP front-facing camera captures great, very detailed 8MP selfies. And its wide angle lens captures more in the frame,

which is always welcome. 8MP SELFIE SAMPLES Things go downhill when you shoot panoramas. We wouldn't rely on it as the samples are short on detail and the stitching is poor. PANORAMAS

We pitted the Axon 7 against the OnePlus 3 and the Huawei Honor 8 in our photo compare tool so you can compare their camera performance directly. ZTE AXON 7 VS ONEPLUS 3 VS HUAWEI HONOR 8 IN

OUR PHOTO QUALITY COMPARISON TOOL 4K VIDEO RECORDER The ZTE Axon 7 records video at 4K UHD (30 FPS), but 1080p modes are available as well (at 30/60fps). You can shoot slow motion videos at

a max resolution of 720p HD (240fps). Anyway, the 2160p videos are captured at 42Mbps bitrate and have rock solid 30fps. The audio is stereo captured at 96KBps bitrate. VIDEO CAMERA

INTERFACE The video quality is very high and offers very accurate, albeit a bit oversaturated colors. There's plenty of detail and dynamic range, while the audio is rich in detail.

1080p videos are also good, but not as good as the 4K ones. Still, you're in for plenty of detail and great contrast. [embedded content] [embedded content] You can also download the

4K@30fps (10s, 52MB) and the 1080p video (10s, 25MB) samples taken straight off the ZTE Axon 7. And here's the 240fps slow-motion video show with the Axon 7. [embedded content] Finally,

the Axon 7 enters our Video quality comparison tool against the OnePlus 3 and LG Nexus 5X in both 4K and 1080p video quality. ZTE AXON 7 VS ONEPLUS 3 VS LG NEXUS 5X IN OUR VIDEO QUALITY

COMPARISON TOOL CONCLUSION The ZTE Axon 7 is the company's knight in shining armor that's meant to take US shores by storm. We've got good news for you ZTE: you're on the

right track with the Axon 7. However, success isn't guaranteed, and that's a bummer considering how great of a product you've put together. The Axon 7 is built meticulously,

and it's got all the right ingredients when it comes to hardware. The aluminum unibody, the sleek looks and the right color choices. The hardware inside is flagship-grade as well,

whereas the price is nothing short of reasonable. And then there are the awesome front stereo speakers. Their Dolby Atmos software is the cherry on top of the cake, and they're great to

have even if you are not likely to blast them at full force with your ringtone or notifications sounds. As we stated in the introduction, the Axon 7 needs to have this X factor to draw

customers in - especially considering the uneven battle between ZTE's brand against more established competitors. And ZTE is headed in the right direction. The price tag is just right,

and the feature set is exemplary. Here's, in short, what we discovered about the Axon 7 during our time with it. ZTE AXON 7 KEY TEST FINDINGS * Build quality is excellent, and we like

the metal unibody a lot. The phone's slim profile makes it very pocket-friendly and quite a looker, too. One thing to keep in mind is that it can be slippery at times. * The display is

great, although it's a bit dim compared to the competition with a maximum of 352nits. You also get decently accurate color reproduction combined with contrasty colors thanks to the

AMOLED nature of the screen panel. * Battery life is very good with an endurance rating of 70h, beating the OnePlus 3 by four hours. * MiFavor 4.0 is a good effort of keeping a light skin on

top of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, but lacks deep customization and has some minor annoyances. * The Snapdragon 820 chipset offers stellar performance. It runs cool, and there is no apparent

overheating or performance throttling but competing phones with the same chipset are faster in synthetic benchmarks. * Audio output starts off great but degrades with headphones. The speaker

loudness is very good, and the sound quality is awesome. We said it before - the speakers are one of the defining features of this phone. * Camera photos are great, with plenty of resolved

detail, high dynamic range, and excellent colors and contrast. HDR mode isn't quite ambitious, but still gets the job done of restoring the highlights in tough light conditions. *

Excellent 4K and Full HD videos with lots of detail and good contrast. 240fps slow-motion mode at 720p. With that it mind, let's see how the Axon 7 stands in the crowded smartphone

market by checking out its direct competitors. Let's start with the OnePlus 3 - a rival for the Axon 7, which we've mentioned throughout the review, and for a good reason. It too

has a very fast chipset, excellent camera and build quality. However, its 1080p display lacks the resolution of the Axon 7's, and you don't get stereo speakers. The lower

resolution doesn't even translate into battery life benefits as the Axon 7 is better in this respect. ONEPLUS 3 We often compared the Axon 7 to the Honor 8 throughout this review, but

the truth is that the only thing these two phones share is their price and market availability. The Honor 8 by Huawei is noticeably slower regarding performance, but it's on par with

the looks of the Axon 7 because of its glass build. HUAWEI HONOR 8 The LG G5, although released back in April, is also a great competitor with familiar specs: Snapdragon 820, 16MP snapper

and 5.3" QHD display. Now that six months since its release have passed, you can get it at a similar price to the Axon 7 and enjoy the benefits of the removable battery as well as one

of the best cameras in the business as proven by our recent camera shootout. LG G5 The Alcatel Idol 4S features a Snapdragon 652, which is way slower than the Snapdragon 820 in the Axon 7.

However, the Idol 4S' price tag is a bit tough to swallow considering what the Axon 7 is offering for similar money. ALCATEL IDOL 4S Yet another optimistic Chinese brand will land a

US-bound contender, and that's LeEco with the Le Pro3. The 5.5-incher sports a Snapdragon 812 chipset and 6GB of RAM all the while packing a bigger battery. The price is similar to the

Axon 7, but wider US availability is yet to be determined. LEECO LE PRO3 The ZTE Axon 7 isn't a perfect phone, but a perfect phone is quite hard to come by, even today as we're

nearing the end of 2016. The Axon 7 has its shortcomings, but they're quite agreeable when you consider the phone's price of USD $400. What's more, you can easily check it out

in brick-in-mortar stores across the US like BestBuy or Walmart unlike the other mentioned Chinese brands, which only sell their products online. In other words, giving this phone a

consideration is certainly a must if you're in search of a solid all-around device. It almost reminds us of a Swiss army knife - it's as versatile, it does a great job in almost

all departments with some exceptions and it's ready to be your trusty companion for quite some time ahead.