ZTE is one of the few manufacturers that we thought
would wait till next year to “release” a full-screen smartphone. However, that
won’t be the case as a new phone called the Blade V9 has appeared on the
manufacturer’s Spanish website.
The ZTE Blade V9 has a double sided glass design.
The glass on the rear appears to be reflective like HTC’s U series. It will
also likely get smudged easily. The bezels on the front of the phone are
smaller to accommodate the bigger screen. That change in design has prompted
ZTE to move the fingerprint scanner to the back.
Overall, the V9 is a significant improvement over
the V8 with respect to design. Not only does it look better, but it is thinner
at 7.5mm even with a significantly larger battery and has nearly the same
weight as the V8.
The Blade V9 has a 5.7” FHD+ Incell display with an
18:9 aspect ratio. It is powered by the Snapdragon 450 just like the Xiaomi
Redmi 5. The phone comes in 2GB, 3GB and 4GB RAM variants with 16GB, 32GB, and
64GB of built-in storage respectively.
Irrespective of the variant you settle for, the
phone has support for storage expansion via a hybrid dual SIM slot. ZTE has
equipped the Blade V9 with dual rear cameras. One is a 16MP autofocus sensor
with an F/1.8 aperture and a 6P lens and the other is a 5MP fixed focus sensor.
Both sensors are positioned in the top left corner
of the phone with a LED flash beside them and are slightly raised. Below the
camera setup, sits a fingerprint scanner. For selfies, there is a 13MP camera.
The Blade V9 runs Android Oreo out of the box. It
has a 3.5mm audio jack at the top and a micro USB port at the bottom to
recharge it’s 3200mAh battery. The phone weighs 140g and measures 151.4 x 70.6
x 7.5 mm.
The Blade V9 comes in gold and black color variants.
There is no info on pricing and availability at the moment as the phone doesn’t
seem to have been officially unveiled yet. We presume it will be officially
announced in January, most likely during CES like its predecessor, the Blade
V8. We also expect to see its siblings the V9 Pro, V9 Lite, and V9 Mini get
announced in the coming months.
