21 replies to this topic

[flibblesan]

The ZTE Blade III has finally hit UK shores thanks to a deal with Virgin Media which sees the bargain handset on sale for only £79.99.

The phone will be available on contracts starting from just £18 per month - going down to £13 per month for existing Virgin Media subscribers - and a bargain pay as you go price of £79.99 includes a £10 top up, a great price for a capable phone running Android 4.0.4 Ice-Cream Sandwich.

Modders and tweakers will also be pleased to know that there is already a small but active community here on MoDaCo.

Quote

The latest addition to the successful Blade family, the ZTE Blade III features a larger screen, memory capacity of 2.5GB which can be further expanded with a 32 GB memory card and Android 4.0, providing a smooth user experience at a modest price point.

“We paid close attention to user feedback when designing the Blade III. It is the first smartphone in its price range with a 4-inch touch screen and Android 4.0 and is very well suited for the UK market. We believe that the ZTE Blade III will bring a quality mobile experience to a larger UK audience,” said Kalam Meah, Account Director, ZTE UK.

ZTE previously partnered with Virgin Media to launch the ZTE Tania Windows Phone and two Android phones: the Grand X and the best selling ZTE Kis (in black and white). The ZTE Blade III has also been launched in key European countries including Germany, Spain, the Nordics and Eastern Europe amongst others. The Blade lll will also be launched in other European countries soon.

Key specifications of the Blade III

• 4 inch WVGA (800x480) 65K TFT capacitive touch screen
  
• Weight: 130 gram
  
• Size: 120.5 x 63.5 x 10.85mm
  
• 1GHz Qualcomm MSM 7227 A processor
  
• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
  
• Memory: ROM 4 GB, ca 2.5GB accessible to the user, RAM 512 MB
  
• Supports Micro SD memory card up to 32 GB
  
• 5.0 MP AF camera with 4 x digital zoom
  
• Mobile standards: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) /HSPA/HSPA+/UMTS/GSM/GPRS/EDGE
  
• Audio standards: MP3, AAC, AAC+, midi, AMR-NB
  
• Video standards: MPEG4, H.263, H.264
  
• Wireless communications standards: Bluetooth™ 2.1, A2DP1.2, GPS, WiFi 802.11 b/g/n
  
• Battery capacity: Li-ion1600 mAh
  
• FM radio

ZTE is the 4th biggest handset manufacturer in the world according to IDC, a leading provider of global ICT market research and advisory services.

The design certainly looks more appealing than the previous Blade devices, even if the specs are largely similar. Do you plan on picking one up? Let us know!

Click here to view the item

[todoleo]

I might get one of these just to compare it to the Huawei G300. If it can be easily sim unlocked and modded, even better! Mind you, with Virgin's Big Data PAYG tariff, I wouldn't need to sim unlock it.

[hecatae]

Would have purchased, if I had not got a ZTE Kis III to pick up from the Royal Mail Delivery Office tomorrow.

[kaizoku_san]

according to gsmarena this has TFT screen with 256k colors, where as the g300 has IPS screen with 16M colors, and does it have a secondary/front camera? also, this doesn't have flash (for the camera, not the player :-p)!

i think i prefer the g300's over this.

[todoleo]

@kaizoku_san The Blade III has a front facing camera (VGA), but has no flash on the rear camera. I already have a G300 and am very tempted to compare the two devices.

[flibblesan]

kaizoku_san, on 07 February 2013 - 01:43 AM, said:

according to gsmarena this has TFT screen with 256k colors, where as the g300 has IPS screen with 16M colors, and does it have a secondary/front camera? also, this doesn't have flash (for the camera, not the player :-p)!

i think i prefer the g300's over this.

The G300 is £60 more as it recently went up to £129.99. Probably because it's a popular device with modders. The Blade 3 is a decent phone for those that just want something that works & is cheap.

[The Soup Thief]

It's a bit of a shame they couldn't have upped the specs a little, but for the cash, as flibblesan says, it works and will do most people fine.  Also looks fairly attractive.  Of course, I'd have liked to see a flash and a little more RAM, but one can always say that. On the other hand, look at the differences versus my original blade - screen's a bit bigger, so actually slightly worse pixel density, though essentially the same(actually, my blade's OLED, but enough about that), same RAM in this, a bit of extra onboard memory, camera's a little better, battery is a smidge bigger, front facing camera, it looks better (plus of course it has a more recent version of android), and it's a bit cheaper.
Can't help thinking ZTE could have mustered a bit more than that over the past 30 months...

[Sere83]

Agreed, should have just stuck an MT6577 (which ZTE already use) in there and charged a tiny bit more, anything with an MSM 7227 A is a waste of time IMHO, this CPU should have died a long time ago.

[unaszplodrmann]

flibblesan, on 07 February 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

The G300 is £60 more as it recently went up to £129.99. Probably because it's a popular device with masochists. The Blade 3 is a decent phone for those that just want something that works & is cheap.

There, fixed it for you.

[zloduh]

i got it, it doesn't have front camera, it doesn't have flash for  main camera, tho it runs smooth and KonstanT already put out 4.1.2 CM for it.

[Smiff2]

eh? G300 is still £100 at Amazon.

but yeah totally agree in 3 years you'd hope things would have improved a bit more from Blade1 really. should be dual core/1GB RAM now at £100 imho.

[timfimjim]

Yeah I agree. If you look at the flagship phones of 2-3 years ago what were they, maybe Samsung galaxy S?

Samsung has come a long way since then, and I'm surprised that ZTE have not with their budget line...

[hajj_3]

Smiff2, on 12 February 2013 - 01:34 AM, said:

eh? G300 is still £100 at Amazon.

but yeah totally agree in 3 years you'd hope things would have improved a bit more from Blade1 really. should be dual core/1GB RAM now at £100 imho.

zte blade c has dual core 1ghz, only 512mb ram though and will be quite a bit more than £100 when it goes on sale in the uk too.

[Smiff2]

i already have a 1ghz dual core 512mb £100 phone (Sony Xperia U) and can tell you dual core is pretty useless when it can't keep any apps open because it's out of RAM all the time.
i'd rather have a single core with 1GB RAM than this.
(Xperia P i bought for £150 is much better, (basically same phone with twice the RAM) but unfortunately too big for me!)

Edited by Smiff2, 12 February 2013 - 05:24 PM.

[The Soup Thief]

Couldn't agree more - scrimping on Ram seems such a false economy

[MrPuddington]

The Soup Thief, on 12 February 2013 - 05:54 PM, said:

Couldn't agree more - scrimping on Ram seems such a false economy

Indeed, once you have a phone with 1GB of RAM, you do not want to go back.

It seems to me that the ZTE Blade is a great offer, but always suffers from a big flaw. With the Blade I, it was the ARMv6 CPU, the Blade II had a very small flash memory, and the Blade II has not enough RAM. Maybe ZTE wants to make sure there is a reason to buy a premium phone instead?

[razzmataz1478]

They could have put 768MB RAM in like Samsung have with the Ace 2..

[hecatae]

razzmataz1478, on 17 February 2013 - 10:38 PM, said:

They could have put 768MB RAM in like Samsung have with the Ace 2..

Does msm7227a support more than 512mb ram?

[sontarasan]

Looking forward to orange doing a good deal on this.

[unrandomsam]

The san Diego is a far better phone in the same pricerange.