Two years ago, ZTE passed through a huge crisis when the US government applied a ban that took away its software and hardware. Remember Huawei? ZTE passed through a similar situation in 2018 but didn’t have the same resources to keep fighting against the US government. The company basically closed its doors. After a change in heard, Trump’s administration allowed the company to resume its operations after making some adjustments and changing its directors. The company quickly resumed its operations and even introduced important products to the market. For instance, the ZTE Axon 10 Pro 5G was the first Chinese 5G smartphone to reach global markets. This year, the company gave another step to establish its name as a house of innovations. In September, the company introduced the world’s first smartphone with an under-display camera – The ZTE Axon 20 5G.
The device was limited to the Chinese market, but today it’s reaching Global customers. The company will be pushing the first sales through invitation codes obtainable via ZTE’s New Vision Club as well as the brand’s official social media channels. The invitation structure brings me back some memories from another company… Well, ZTE is offering a free pair of ZTE TWS LiveBuds to the first adopters of the new smartphone.
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ZTE AXON 20 5G SPECIFICATIONS
- 6.92-inch (2460 × 1080 pixels) Full HD+ OLED 20.5:9 display, 90Hz refresh rate, 100% DCI-P3 color gamut
- Octa-Core (1 x 2.4GHz + 1 x 2.2GHz + 6 x 1.8GHz Kryo 475 CPUs) Snapdragon 765G 7nm EUV Mobile Platform with Adreno 620 GPU
- 6GB / 8GB LPDDR4x RAM with 128GB (UFS 2.1) / 8GB LPDDR4x RAM with 256GB (UFS 2.1), expandable memory up to 2TB
- Android 10 with MiFlavor 10.5
- Dual SIM
- 64MP rear camera with f/1.8 aperture, LED flash, 8MP 119° Ultra Wide Lens with f/2.2 aperture, 2MP macro and 2MP depth sensor with f/2.4 aperture
- 32MP under-screen front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture
- In-display fingerprint sensor
- Dimensions: 172.1×77.9×7.98mm; Weight: 198g
- USB Type-C audio, DTS:X Ultra
- 5G SA/ NSA, Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4GHz + 5GHz), Bluetooth 5, GPS/GLONASS/Beidou, USB Type-C, NFC
- 4220mAh (typical) / 4120mAh (minimum) battery with 30W fast charging, Qualcomm Quick Charge 4+
The pricing for the ZTE Axon 20 5G is set at $449/€449/£419 with availability in all 28 EU countries. It also is available in the UK, South-Korea, Ukraine, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and South Africa. You can pick up any color as long as it is black. For a device that innovates with an in-display camera, the pricing isn’t as bad. Unfortunately, the technology still has a lot to mature as the first selfie samples are nothing beyond average. The situation is even worse when it comes to video recording.
We can understand why companies aren’t confident in releasing in-display cameras just yet. However, we have to praise ZTE for its innovation.