ZTE V970 Grand X - The new Blade? (for those of us who still haven't replaced it as our daily)

[Guest jimac]

Looks like it punches above it's weight for the price.

I just ordered one, £144 inc DHL delivery, and a case etc etc.

http://etotalk.com/zte-v970-grand-x-3g-wcdma-android40-dual-core-10ghz-dual-sim-43qhd-notification-led_p3164.html

http://www.modaco.com/topic/358444-cidotw-zte-v970/

Looking forward to seeing what Paul makes of it (I suspect his review will be up before mine even arrives).

4.1 JellyBean rumoured to be released for it in December.

Anyone else interested in one?

[Guest Holehouse]

I'm inclined to buy one, too. I've still been using my ZTE Blade as my only phone. Seems good specs for the price and I want a dual SIM phone. :)

[Guest popoyaya]

Looks good, only thing missing is front camera. Would be a bit worried about import taxes and lack of dev scene,,no CM10.

[Guest KenBW2]

I'm impressed by the specs:price ratio - very Blade-like. I'm considering getting it pending news on dev possibilities - is it compatible with Grand X roms etc. Anyone able to shed any light on whether import taxes will be an issue, supposing noone lets anyone know what's inside? Ahem...

[Guest jimac]

I wouldn't have thought it'd be compatible with the Grand X ROMs (either Tegra 2 or Intel), the hardware is quite different.

I ordered one lastweek and having just read the reviews, I am very much looking forward to it arriving!

Import taxes - you may get away without paying them, but I would expect to ( I am not expecting to).

I don't expect it to be horrendous.

[Guest jimac]

Well, I got one! had it for almost a week now. Have a custom ROM on it etc. It's a superb bit of kit, especially for the £!

Only thing that is a little poor is the battery life, but oddly, that seems to be improving with use.

I get a little over a days use out of it.

That is with fairly heavy use and tethering my tablet to it over wifi for the duration of the working day and having 2 active SIMs in it.

Should be fine for the best part of 2 days for the average user.

Much higher quality build than the Blade, digitizer sensitivity is in another league - right up there with the best devices.

Video playback can be a little choppy when using hardware decoding, but perfect when switched to software (although I believe this is a fault of the ROM I am using, rather than the hardware).

thought you might be interested. :)

[Guest b4da55]

Zte battery is always crap imo

[Guest Holehouse]

I have bought one of these phones. Now I'm just waiting for it to arrive :)

[Guest goldpedro]

i order mine it should come up to next friday

[Guest deksman2]

San Diego From Orange seem like a pretty good option for purchase.

It comes with an Intel Atom CPU, and even though its single core, it can blow past numerous ARM based CPU's (even multi-core ones - however, it would seem that newer architecture based A9 multi-core cpu's on ARM side seem to beat Atom - and newer/faster ones are already on the market).

Its about 100GBP right now on Pay as you go.

Has a decent battery life and screen is 4.03" if I'm not mistaken.

All in all, it seems like a pretty good and cheap option in UK.

2 biggest cons of this smartphone are:

1. It comes with 16GB fixed storage (no interchangeable microSD card capability) - but 16GB seems 'adequate' (more or less).

2. Non-removable battery (which means that you cannot swap it out for a higher capacity one, nor can you perform hard resets - the latter seems like a bigger worry to me in rare cases should something go wrong with the OS).

Edited March 3, 2013 by deksman2

[Guest bladebuddy]

San Diego From Orange seem like a pretty good option for purchase.

It comes with an Intel Atom CPU, and even though its single core, it can blow past numerous ARM based CPU's (even multi-core ones - however, it would seem that newer architecture based A9 multi-core cpu's on ARM side seem to beat Atom - and newer/faster ones are already on the market).

Its about 100GBP right now on Pay as you go.

Has a decent battery life and screen is 4.03" if I'm not mistaken.

All in all, it seems like a pretty good and cheap option in UK.

2 biggest cons of this smartphone are:

1. It comes with 16GB fixed storage (no interchangeable microSD card capability) - but 16GB seems 'adequate' (more or less).

2. Non-removable battery (which means that you cannot swap it out for a higher capacity one, nor can you perform hard resets - the latter seems like a bigger worry to me in rare cases should something go wrong with the OS).

No recovery which means no custom rom's.

A pain in the ass to get unlocked.

Lots of power to play games but unfortunately a lot of games are incompatible.

So it wouldn't be a choice phone for blade users who are use multiple rom choices , mods and tweeks.

[Guest jimac]

For those of you with a V970, check ouy the JellyBean ROM on XDA, it's great! :)