Talking about the features, ZTE Blade A2 Plus has the highest expectations from battery life, because the phone has a battery life of 5000 mAh. On paper, it comes with VoLTE support. It has an octa-core processor, 4 GB RAM and a 13-megapixel PDAF camera. But do these specifications really work when it comes to performance? Is this phone as good in performance as it is in price? Let’s find out.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus design and build
Due to the use of metal, the design of the phone is very good. However, the design looks a bit generic and boring. The phone doesn’t draw much attention to itself, so the ZTE Blade A2 Plus is not for those who like to show off their smartphone in public. We found the phone to be a bit heavy when held in our hands and also a bit heavy when kept in our pocket. Due to the larger battery, the thickness of the phone also increases slightly and its thickness is 9.8 mm and weight is 189 grams.
The display on the ZTE Blade A2 Plus is entirely occupied by the backlit, capacitive navigation buttons below it. The white backlight in the home button also acts as a notification light, but its brightness is very low, making it impossible to see in daylight. The rest of the buttons are on the right side and there is a SIM tray on the left side. The phone comes with a hybrid SIM slot and can use two SIM cards or one SIM card and a microSD card (128 GB). The phone has a headphone socket at the top and a USB port at the bottom.
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus has a fingerprint sensor on the rear, dual-LED flash, and a primary camera. The fingerprint sensor in the phone has been placed exactly like the Honor 8 (Review). The fingerprint sensor on the rear is placed on top of a physical button which can be pressed in different ways to perform various shortcuts. This can be customized by going to the Settings app and going to the Super Key menu.
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus features a 5.5-inch IPS display with full-HD resolution and Corning Gorilla Glass 3. The display panel produces good colors and the viewing angles are also good. The phone comes with MiraVision optimization that enables features like dynamic contrast and blue-light filter. The glass above the display also comes with curved edges, which provides good grip to the phone.
In the box we found a 13.5 watt charger, SIM ejector tool, and an instruction manual. The packaging of the phone is very simple which shows that ZTE has tried its best to keep the price low. Apart from the nice build, the Blade A2 Plus is a very standard looking smartphone with nothing to get excited about aesthetically. The phone is quite heavy and it is not thin either, so some people may not like it.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus specifications and features
ZTE Blade A2 Plus has MediaTek MT6750T octa-core processor. We have also reviewed Vivo V5 with the same processor. We got average figures in the benchmark tests. During normal use, the user interface works quite well but the phone faces problems while using multiple tabs in Chrome and using the camera. This is a bit strange for a phone with 4 GB RAM because we did not face such problems in other smartphones with the same processor.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus has 32 GB inbuilt storage. For connectivity, it has Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, GPS, FM radio and USB OTG. Talking about sensors, only accelerometer and proximity sensor will be available. The phone supports VoLTE with 4G.
The Mefever 3.5 OS given in the phone is based on Android Marshmallow. This skin is not the best interface we have ever used. The phone’s drop-down notification shade has editable toggle switches that allow you to change the theme color, wallpaper, icon size, and transition effects when you swipe up from the bottom. The Settings app has a stock Android design and has access to gesture and motion triggers for tasks. The ability to switch the functions of both capacitive buttons and the phone can also be set in a leather case. Another function is Family Mode which replaces existing icons with larger fonts for easier use. Like Samsung, there’s also an activity tracker called Slife and a self-service app called ZTE Cares. Many third-party utility apps come pre-installed in the phone, but the good thing is that all of them can be deleted as per your need.
ZTE Blade A2 Plus Performance
The Blade A2 Plus is a good phone for everyday work. The touch response of the display could have been improved. The fingerprint sensor works well and can also be used for shortcuts to many functions. The phone does not have the best processor for multitasking and there are noticeable problems in the phone. The rear of the phone also heats up rapidly even when playing games like Rayman Adventures.
The stock video and music player plays most files smoothly, including FLAC. The audio quality from the loudspeaker is quite average but the sound from earphones is decent.
The 13-megapixel rear camera is the weakest link in the phone because its performance is extremely disappointing. Despite having PDAF, the focus speed is very slow in daylight and is not usable in low light conditions. Taking macro shots with the camera is also very difficult because locking the subject is a very difficult task. Landscape shots in daylight come out with plenty of detail but colors look washed out which gets worse when HDR is enabled. Photos taken in low light have very little detail and colors.
The ZTE Blade A2 Plus’s 8-megapixel camera produces decent selfies in good lighting conditions, but don’t expect too much from it. Video recording can be done at a maximum resolution of 1080 pixels but the framerate is not very stable and hence the video looks very poor with very little detail and poor colors. The camera app is very basic as it only has picture-in-picture and panorama modes. And there is no special mode like slow-motion for video. You will get an option to apply filters to the phone and there is also a gesture mode for taking selfies.
Battery life is the most special point of this phone. The battery of the ZTE Blade A2 Plus will not let you down. In our loop test, the phone’s battery lasted for 14 hours and 48 minutes. Whereas during normal use, after full charging once, we were able to use the phone for two days. The Blade A2 Plus supports MediaTek’s pump charge feature and with the included adapter, we were able to charge the phone up to 25 percent in 40 minutes. While it’s not as fast as OnePlus’ Dash Charge or Qualcomm’s latest Quick Charge technology, it’s better to have something than nothing.
our decision
If we look at the specifications on paper, it looks like a very good phone at a price of Rs 11,999. However, the reality is extremely different. By making this phone an online exclusive, ZTE has definitely priced the phone very right. But the main selling point of the Blade A2 Plus is its good battery life. Overall this is a decent smartphone.
It’s definitely not a good all-rounder like the phones offered by Xiaomi. And we would recommend choosing Xiaomi over ZTE. Alternatively, you can also go for the Asus ZenFone 3S Max, which we reviewed recently and has a good performance for the price.