News - ZTE Blade 3 budget smartphone now available in the UK

[HEXUS]

A new contender for the budget Android smartphone crown.

Read more.

[McEwin]

Bears a striking resemblance to the Huawei Ascend G300...

[kingpotnoodle]

Bears a striking resemblance to the Huawei Ascend G300...

And many other phones. It's a good buy at £80 on PAYG but it's pretty low spec by modern standards, it's about the level of the original HTC Desire IIRC, from 3 years ago... you'd have to be clueless to spend £18pcm on it for 2 years.

[wasabi]

Nice price BUT I've had a coujle of low end Android phones now and they were such an exercise in frustration at the laggyness. They're one of the reasons (battery life and still hating touchscreen being gthe others) I've gone back to a cheap QWERTY Nokia featurephone. It doesn't promise the earth and repeatedly fail to deliver.

[Wozza63]

Nice price BUT I've had a coujle of low end Android phones now and they were such an exercise in frustration at the laggyness. They're one of the reasons (battery life and still hating touchscreen being gthe others) I've gone back to a cheap QWERTY Nokia featurephone. It doesn't promise the earth and repeatedly fail to deliver.

Have a look at rooting your phone, will make it much faster, and considerably more bearable, remove transitions etc in developer options, and you could always overclock as well, but that would considerably reduce battery

[Steph~]

Apparently this processor is dual-core. I wonder whether this is not advertised.

[rabbid]

The Blade1 (OSF) was great back in the day, still plugs along using cyanogen too, gives it a new breath of life. Nothing came close back then in terms of screen res / price...

The Blade2 was so little improvement and too late to the party

Lets see if this Blade 3 offers anything or at least an attractive price?

[rabbid]

Apparently this processor is dual-core. I wonder whether this is not advertised.

Are you sure?

[rabbid]

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pho...1129198/review
according to this it has single core

Apparently no led flash for the cam, whereas the G300 has led flash...
neither have front facing cam tho, a let down in this age...

[McEwin]

And many other phones.

I knew someone would say that! I just thought the spec, trim, proportions and layout look really similar. Just wondered if they were related (for instance they are both Chinese manufacturers).

neither have front facing cam tho, a let down in this age...

I have never used a front facing camera or had a video call. Or know anyone who has. Do I live a sheltered life? It is really that popular?

[PeteBest]

Nope, it's not dualcore. The MSM7227A is a good little single core processor though, so with a custom rom/kernel you can normally eek a bit more speed out of it.

For the money it's a bargain IMO!

[rabbid]

If it gets popularised like the Blade1 and gets cyanogen mods for it then its not bad for that money... Depends how much it will cost to unlock it, I am sure it wont be as easy or cheap as the B1!

[rabbid]

And many other phones.

I knew someone would say that! I just thought the spec, trim, proportions and layout look really similar. Just wondered if they were related (for instance they are both Chinese manufacturers).

The G300 has 3 soft buttons and this has 4...

neither have front facing cam tho, a let down in this age...

I have never used a front facing camera or had a video call. Or know anyone who has. Do I live a sheltered life? It is really that popular?

I'm not sure, but it would be nice to have the option to try it and use it then if it is
I would imagine on wifi rather than mobile data too...

[Steph~]

Nope, it's not dualcore. The MSM7227A is a good little single core processor though, so with a custom rom/kernel you can normally eek a bit more speed out of it.

At ZTE it is described as dual-core:
ZTE Blade III Specifications