With its sleek dimensions, finely sculpted metal body and competent hardware, the ZTE Blade V6 comes across as a great bargain for the price. But there’s more to it than meets the eye…
Not too long ago, products made by Chinese brands were byword for ‘cheap’ and ‘unreliable’, but, as things stand today, consumer goods from mainland China are taking the world by storm – for all the different reasons. Take the current crop of Chinese smartphone manufacturers for instance. Their products are giving established rivals a real tough time. Not to mention the fact that they are also soundly thrashing some big names of the cell phone industry with their value-for-money and technologically advanced products.
One such Chinese smartphone maker that’s been around for a while in India is ZTE. The company entered the market here in 2013 and since then it has been selling feature loaded Android phones at competitive prices. Ever since ZTE began operations in India, its Blade series has been the brand’s mainstay. The company recently added one more phone to this series in the shape of the Blade V6. And since we had this smartphone with us for a couple of days, it’s now time to find out if it’s really worth your dough?
First up, the highlights of this sleek looking device – it packs a 1.3GHz MediaTek quad-core processor and runs on Android Lollipop OS, paired with 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal space. Not too shabby for a budget phone, but the spec-sheet is a bit yesterday compared to other phones in this price range (the Blade V6 is priced at `9,999). Our favourite bit of the phone, however, is its design. With a 6.8mm thin metal-finish body that only weighs 122 grams, the V6 is not only one rich-looking device but also has the right dimensions. Most of the people have noted that it looks too much like the iPhone6. While that is true to an extent, one must not forget that there are only so many ways a phone can be designed.
Coming to its performance, despite having a 5-inch IPS HD screen, the display is crisp and vibrant. The touch interface is one of the smoothest in the segment. Irrespective of its dated specs, the V6 does not suffer from any lag or bug while doing your routine stuff on the phone. The screen, however, is a bit of a finger-print magnet – albeit there’s no finger-print scanner. The phone sports a 13MP main camera and a 5MP secondary camera on front. Quality of pictures is decent although not the best in the segment. In low light conditions, image produced are less grainy than some of the other phones in the sub-10,000 range. Another grouse with it is its 2200mAh battery. It can last just about a day.
On the whole, the ZTE Blade V6 comes across as a great looking product with satisfactory performance. There’s no denying, though, that it feels a bit outdated – in terms of specs and performance – in the company of newer phones in the same price bracket.
