ZTE Acqua Smartphone

[Sponsored Review – Mobile Phone]

For those of you who are not so familiar with ZTE, here’s a little info –

ZTE Corporation is a leading global provider of telecommunications equipment and network solutions with USD 10.61 billion revenue in 2010. The company delivers innovative products and business solutions through its network of operators across 140 countries and is certainly not new in Malaysia. In fact chances are you have a ZTE modem or router in your home now. Founded in 1985, ZTE is listed on both the Hong Kong and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges and is China’s largest listed telecoms equipment company.

Well I managed to get my hands on a ZTE Acqua smartphone which won the BEST VALUE PHONE Award in ‘Go Mobile 2012’.

What's inside the box - phone (duh!), battery, USB cable, charger, headphones, warranty and quick start guide — What’s inside the box – phone (duh!), battery, USB cable, charger, headphones, warranty and quick start guide

The ZTE Acqua runs on Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) software powered by a MSM7227A Snapdragon chip running at 1.0Ghz and comes with a 4.0″ TFT display. Playing around with the apps there wasn’t too much lag so I guess the processor is adequate for the phone.

The phone has 2GB of internal memory available to the user while the external memory slot allows eMMC up to 32GB. Now 2GB of storage is not much nowadays so I do recommend getting a micro SD card to augment the memory.

The phone’s dimensions are 120.5mm (L) x 63.6mm x 10.9mm (H) and weights only 130 grams.

The back of the phone is a matte material which looks like it won't scratch easily. — The back of the phone is a matte material which looks like it won’t scratch easily.

SOUND

The phone’s sound quality is average but the speaker is surprisingly loud. If you’d like better quality you can plug in the headphones provided with the phone or use your own high quality 3.5mm after-market headphones.

CAMERA

The phone comes with a 3.2MP camera and is equipped with a flash. The app took roughly 2 seconds to start but took around 3 seconds to manually focus. There is also a front camera for those of you who like to camwhore.

The video records in VGA 640 x 480 pixels.

Here's an unedited photo taken with the phone's 3.2MP camera. It took a few attempts to focus but the outcome was ok. — Here’s an unedited photo taken with the phone’s 3.2MP camera. It took a few attempts to focus but the outcome was ok.

The phone comes with a 1,600 mAh battery which provides a claimed 250 hours standby time and 4 hours talk time and is charged with the normal micro USB charger. The Acqua is also Bluetooth, GPS and Wifi enabled.

4.0" display — 4.0″ display with a 480 x 800 resolution

For those of you who are more tech savvy here are some specs:


Category		Description
Hardware & Baseband Information
Model Name	Model Name		ZTE-U V880E
ID		Design Specifics
OS		Android 4.0
Form Factor		Candy Bar
Dimension		120.5mm63.6mm10.9mm
weight(g) (with battery)		about 130g
Antenna		Internal
QWERTY Keypad		Virtual QWERTY
TouchScreen		Yes，Capacity touch screen
Side Keys		Volume key，power key
Chipset	Chipset (BB/RF)		MSM7227A
GPRS (Multi-slot / MS Class / Coding Scheme)	Multi-slot: Class12 MS Class: BCoding Scheme: CS1/CS2/CS3/CS4		Bearer
EDGE (Multi-slot / Coding Schem)		Multi-slot: Class12 Coding Scheme:MCS1~MCS9
UMTS / HSDPA/HSPA/HSPA+		MSM7227A: HSPA (7.2 Mbps DL/5.76 Mbps UL)
Power Class		UMTS power class3
Band Mode (GSM / UMTS)		GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHzUMTS 900/2100 MHz
Main Display technology, size,resolution, color space	TFT 4.0“ 480*800, 262K color		Display
Sub Display type, size,resolution, color space		None
Camera Sensor Type	CMOS		Camera
Still Image Capture Resolution (in MP)		3M AF/0.3M FF Dual Camera
Flash		Yes
Auto-focus		Yes
Function		1.6× digital zoom, Auto white balance(AWB), contrast，brightness, photo Effects（None、Mono、Sepia、Negative）, Photo Quality Setting（Super fine/fine/normal）
Image (formats, preview framerates)		Format: JPEGPreview framerates: 15fps
Video (Formats,resolution, preview / record framerates)		Recording Resolution :VGA(640480) CIF(352288) QVGA(320240) QCIF(176144)Previewing Framerates:15fpsRecording Framerates: 15fpsRecording Video Format: MP4

In conclusion I think that the Acqua is a pretty cost-effective smartphone which provides reasonable smartphone features at the affordable price of RM699.00.