Since the rise of Internet mobile phones represented by Xiaomi in 2012, the flourishing age of "Zhonghua Kulian" has ceased. Lenovo continues to struggle after acquiring Moto; Coolpad has lost nothing in the capital scuffle; Huawei successfully transformed by relying on the dual brand strategy; However, ZTE's sub brand Nubia has already developed independently. Without the ZTE in Nubia, few works can be remembered in recent years. Just like the popular saying on the Internet some time ago: Huawei is the best player, Xiaomi is the best player, Meizu is the one who pretends to be a good player with no good cards, ZTE is not the one who plays good cards, and hammer is the one who plays bad cards in one hand... It's very interesting and close. In June 2016, ZTE Blade A2 released that, as a 100 yuan entry machine with a price starting from 599 yuan, what is its actual experience? Why was it flooded by the flow of Red Rice Magic Blue once it was released? Is it because of product defects or because of the brand grave? This article is for you.

one Appearance design: black edge is still hard to find

The biggest feature of the design of this mobile phone is that it has no features. The 5-inch 720P resolution display screen has a fairly clear display effect. It is equipped with 2.5D curved glass, but has no special improvement in the feel. On the left and right of the earpiece at the top of the screen are the front fill light, front camera and light distance sensor. On the bottom of the screen are the small circle Home key. When the blue backlight lights up, you can see the left and right menu keys and return keys.

On the back of the mobile phone, the visual impression and touch feel of the metal body are good. At the end of 2015, ZTE Blade A1 installed the fingerprint identification module in the mobile phone with a price of 599 yuan for the first time. Six months later, ZTE Blade A2 made a comeback with the metal body. However, it is a pity that today, metal three-stage body and fingerprint identification module are common in 100 yuan phones, which makes ZTE Blade A2 lack of highlights and has no obvious advantages in front of Hongmi, Meilan and even 360 phones.

After the screen is lit, a large black edge is particularly conspicuous against the light wallpaper, which is almost LeEco's attachment. This is a fatal disadvantage for ZTE Blade A2, which is not outstanding in appearance. It is a pity that neither of the two body colors of this mobile phone is equipped with a black front panel. Especially for student users who pay attention to the appearance of mobile phones, Tuhaojin's color matching is obviously not designed for them.

two Detail technology: high level with slight defects

In terms of details and workmanship, ZTE Blade A2 has a high overall level. This can be seen from the sandblasting process of the metal body and the transition between metal and plastic splicing keys. With 7.9mm body thickness, the main camera inevitably protrudes, and an external metal protective ring plays a necessary role in protection.  

The bottom of the phone is still a Micro USB charging interface. The design of dual speakers is a valuable design highlight. The metal grid inside is exquisite and full of sense of technology. It is rare to use dual speakers in mobile phones at this price. ZTE Blade A2 does not save costs here, which is worth praising. However, compared with the ultra-thin design, all metal body and Type-C interface, the dual speakers do not significantly improve the user experience.

On the side of the fuselage, the handle of the power key is soft, and the card slot is relatively loose, which can be regarded as two small defects in workmanship. In addition, the touch control of the three diamond keys is not particularly sensitive. I am used to using the virtual keys built into Huawei's screen to return to the physical capacitive keys, and can still distinguish the difference for subtle delays. In other aspects, the workmanship of ZTE Blade A2 is up to standard, and the overall level is relatively high. There is not much to criticize or praise.

three Fingerprint recognition: complete functions, good experience

Fingerprint is the main feature of ZTE Blade A2. The former ZTE Blade A1 won a lot of applause through the "national fingerprint machine" stunt. Now, if ZTE Blade A2 wants to continue to use fingerprint recognition as a selling point, it must make substantial progress in function and experience.

It takes about 20 times of pressing to enter the fingerprint, and the unlocking speed is moderate. Compared with the flagship mobile phone, there is still a gap, but the fingerprint sensitivity is good, the recognition rate is high, and there is basically no recognition error. Therefore, compared with the loss of user experience caused by low recognition rate, the unlocking speed is a little slower, and the impact is not great.

In terms of functionality, in addition to unlocking, access to application locks, access to private space, application direct access, touch photography and other functions have been relatively complete, and the experience is also good. For example, if the right index finger is set to "unlock and turn on the camera" and the touch photographing function is turned on at the same time, the right index finger can be used to capture photos in a short time. More importantly, ZTE Blade A2 has now supported Alipay's fingerprint verification service. Today, with the rapid development of mobile payment and scene consumption, this should be the most important fingerprint recognition function for many users. ZTE Blade A2 has won a good hand.

four Operating system: eight Flymes are missing from MIUI

ZTE Blade A2 uses Mifavor UI 3.2, which should be a customized UI made by ZTE itself. In general, Mifavor is still a relatively immature system UI. If MIUI and Flyme are the best ones among domestic customized UI, Mifavor UI is eight flymes away from MIUI. It should be pointed out that this gap is not entirely due to functional injuries, but more due to unclear positioning and inconsistent style.

In terms of UI interface design, Mifavor is not beautiful. Although it has also introduced the function of "magazine unlocking", it is obviously not the same style as the pull-down notification bar and multi task interface that prefer the original Android Material Design style. It can be said that material design is widely used in Mifavor UI, but it is not completely unified. It is obvious from the built-in applications of the system that the two basic applications, calendar and weather, feel like they are from two different planets. When users use them, they will have an obvious sense of separation.

In terms of system functionality, the Mifavor UI has been relatively perfect, including power saving butler and family mode. Unfortunately, ZTE has not packaged these functions separately as obvious propaganda points, so that these practical functions are difficult to attract attention. In addition, the lack of cloud services also makes the Mifavor UI not have strong user stickiness. Even functions such as system backup can only be saved locally. If you want to enable cloud backup, you must use third-party software, which is very inconvenient.

six Photography experience: software optimization still needs efforts

ZTE Blade A2 is equipped with front 5 million pixels and front soft light; The 13 million pixel rear camera supports phase focusing, which should exceed the average level of mobile phones in this price range in terms of parameters. In particular, the front soft light is very obvious in optimizing the selfie experience, and it is also a function of poking the pain points of users. Now, the front diffuser has been promoted by vivo as the biggest selling point of the flagship X7, but ZTE Blade A2 has not made good use of this advantage.

Judging from the live photos, the 13 million pixel rear main camera of ZTE Blade A2 performs well. Compared with the Meilan 3 at the same price, it performs much better in terms of exposure accuracy, white balance accuracy, color saturation and image quality details. I once emphasized in the evaluation article of Meilan 3 that "the surface parameters often block the eyes of consumers, so it is particularly important to recognize the reality behind the parameters." From this point of view, with 1300 pixels, ZTE Blade A2's camera performance is conscience.

However, ZTE Blade A2 is not so flattering to users in terms of photo taking experience. The photo taking interface is not very simple, professional mode is extremely difficult to use, function settings are extremely simple, and some basic photo taking functions are lacking. It seems that the mobile photography Nubia is proud of has nothing to do with ZTE. In general, the camera performance of ZTE Blade A2 is positive, but there is still a long way to go in terms of software optimization.

seven Performance test: 100 yuan mobile phone is enough

In daily application scenarios, ZTE Blade A2 can basically cope smoothly. Common applications such as Weibo, Taobao, and Tieba will not get stuck. The basic configurations of MT6750 processor, 2GB memory, and 16GB storage are identical to those of Meilan 3. The basic performance of the two mobile phones need not be worried. Although from the score, ZTE Blade A2 is slightly higher than Meilan 3, from the actual use experience, Meilan 3's system fluency is slightly better, and the Mifavor UI is still not optimized.

As a gamer of Royal War, I am more concerned about the operation performance of this game. From the actual experience, the performance of ZTE Blade A2 is enough to cope with it, without any problems. In the scene of large scenes with multiple special effects, there will be no jam when the video is played at four times the speed. However, in terms of configuration, if you can upgrade to 3GB memory, it should be easier to use, but ZTE Blade A2 does not provide 3GB memory version.

eight Durability: slow charging, excellent endurance

Ordinary users are most concerned about the endurance of this mobile phone. Especially for the student party, whether heavy use can last for one day is a very critical issue. The ZTE Blade A2 is equipped with a 2500mAh battery, which is not large in capacity, but its 720P resolution screen and low-power components such as the MT6750 decide that its endurance performance will not be too poor.

In actual experience, the power consumption of 8-hour standby is 2%, the power consumption of 30 minute online video playback is 12%, the power consumption of 30 minute games is 15%, and the power consumption of 30 minute microblog browsing is 10%. The results are fairly good. In combination with daily use scenarios, 20% of the remaining power after a day of moderate use is a relatively normal level, which is equal to that of Meilan 3. It only needs to be charged once a day. In terms of charging, the measured ZTE Blade A2 only supports 5V/1.5A charging power, and the charging speed is relatively slow, starting from 8%, 30 minutes to 28%, and one hour to 49%. It takes two and a half hours to fully charge.

9.  Experience summary: When does low-key ZTE usher in a great revival?

From this experience, ZTE Blade A2 gives me a very complex feeling, and there has never been a product that makes me so confused when evaluating. To be fair, this is indeed a very excellent 100 yuan entry machine. No matter in terms of appearance, hardware configuration or endurance performance, it is no inferior to the Hongmi 3 (Hongmi 3S) and Meilan 3 (Meilan 3S) at the same price. The unique front soft light and high-quality rear camera even have a sense of being inferior. However, the lack of brand identity, imperfect system experience and inadequate product promotion make this product doomed to be buried behind the trend of Red Rice Magic Blue. ZTE, an old low-key manufacturer, does not know when it will adapt to the trend of the times, change its business model and product strategy, get out of the brand grave as soon as possible, and usher in its own great revival?