ZTE Blade A711 Review

Display and Multimedia

Despite the spacious 5.5-inch screen, images still remain crisp and detailed as it’s been fitted with a Full HD resolution display. This equates to 401 pixels per inch, making the graphics appear tightly-packed. Colors are lifelike and with good tonal balance, too. Although there is a noticeable bezel that frames the content, the size of its screen makes it enjoyable enough to watch videos or movies. The display also has slight, unavoidable glares, but viewing angles are decent since it sports an IPS panel.

The speaker positioned at the back gives off some good volume levels. Not only can they go loud, but they also throw sound that is clear and easily distinguishable. This is mainly due to the DTS audio that expands the sound image beyond what the speaker could produce. Its volume would not suffice for a big group, of course, but it is a lot better than other handsets in this price range.

Camera

Armed with a 13-megapixel rear shooter, the Blade A711 produced well-saturated images when shooting outdoors and abundant with light. It might be a bit too vibrant for some, but I personally liked how lively the shots looked. However, when used at night or in low-light areas, the colors tend to be dull as it concentrates more on the exposure. Its 5-megapixel front camera, on the other hand, gave out decent shots for selfies and even while making video calls.

Overall, video quality is acceptable and compensates for exposure pretty well, depending on where you point it. We just noticed that when zooming in on subjects, massive amounts of quality are lost in the process, resulting to blurry images.

OS, UI, and Apps

The Blade A711 runs on the 5.1 version of Android and is then layered with the company’s Nubia UI 3.0. The interface is generally neat and easy to navigate.  From out of the box, it contains almost no bloatware apps, so that’s a good thing. Out of its 16GB internal storage, users are left with around 11GB for media and additional apps. If you ever run out of space, the SIM slot 2 could be loaded with a microSD card in order to stretch the storage up to 128GB.

Next page: Performance and Benchmarks, Connectivity and Call Quality, Battery Life, and Conclusion