ZTE Launches Grand Memo II LTE, Open C at MWC 2014
by Joshua Ho on February 24, 2014 4:05 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
- Smartphones
- Mobile
- Firefox
- ZTE
- MWC 2014
Grand Memo II LTE
The ZTE Grand Memo II LTE is a phablet that's almost as big as its name with a 6" HD display. ZTE's press kit doesn't actually reference a resolution other than "HD", but it's safe to say that it probably means 720p, as 1080p would be FHD. ZTE is also claiming an 80% display to front face ratio, which would likely be the record for a phone. This is undoubtedly a mid-range phone though, because the SoC is a Snapdragon 400, although there's no clue as to what the SoC actually is. The spec list can be seen below:
| ZTE Grand Memo II LTE | |
| Display | 6" 720p IPS LCD |
| SoC | Snapdragon 400 |
| RAM | 2 GB |
| Rear Camera | 13MP f/2.2 |
| Front Camera | 5MP f/2.2 |
| WiFi | 802.11b/g/n/ac |
| Storage | 16GB |
| Battery | 3200 mAh, 3.8V, 12.16 WHr |
| WCDMA Bands | 900/2100 MHz (Band 8, 1) |
ZTE is also talking up its new MiFavor 2.3 UI, which actually looks surprisingly well-designed. ZTE isn't saying anything about LTE bands but this definitely will have LTE. The phone has a 7.2mm thickness and a "carbon fiber weave" back, and there's some sort of multiwindow multitasking, along with IR remote functionality. Gorilla Glass 3 is used for the glass lens covering the display. CABC and APT are cited as power saving technologies. CABC would be content-adaptive backlight control which adjusts the backlight while simultaneously brightnening the image to maintain the same image although this can cause visible flickering. ZTE also says that their camera application will allow full manual control of ISO and focus, but it's going to take a device in hand to really know whether this is true. APT would be average power tracking, which would be a way of getting the phone to reduce the amount of power that is consumed by the radio.
ZTE Open C
The ZTE Open C is a 4" Firefox OS phone, one of two new Firefox OS phones that ZTE is launching. There's a 1.2 GHz dual core SoC MSM8210 Snapdragon 200 inside which means Cortex A7, with a 3MP camera, and it would run Firefox OS 1.3. Clearly, this is the phone that comes out of the Mozilla announcement. This is definitely supposed to be a 25USD phone, as there's only WVGA resolution, half a gig of RAM and 4GB internal storage, and 1400 mAh battery. Otherwise, ZTE doesn't seem to be talking up this phone too much.
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jjj - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
It's starting to be annoying that the majority of smartphones sold now are A7/A5 based. CPU power seems to be the first that gets cut when trying to cut costs.It's a pity that so few went A15 ,maybe it gets better with A57 and 20nm, more competition would lead to better pricing but that seems a year away at best.and for now we'll be flooded with up to 8 wimpy cores.I wouldn't mind it all that much if some would try to reach 4mm in thickness by focusing on low power (and maybe at some point add solar on the back) but the focus is only on cost.Sure there are 5.5mm and up phones but it's not much of a trend.
coder543 - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
"the majority of smartphones sold now are A7/A5 based."Source? This statement seems blatantly false. Even if it were true, would it be so bad? The A5 isn't exciting, but the Cortex-A7 is a very solid core. The Cortex-A53 will be even better. There's plenty of CPU power in a dual core Cortex-A7 chip for most things people currently use their phones for. The GPU is more of a bottleneck. More CPU is always a good thing, all battery life being equal, but there's nothing bad about Cortex-A7 as a processor core.
Regardless, most phones *do not* use Cortex-A5 or Cortex-A7. Until the Moto G, you couldn't even _buy_ a phone with A7 in the U.S., let alone imagine that most phones used A7 chips. I'm sure A7 phones are more common in developing markets, but I strongly doubt it is anywhere near a majority.
coder543 - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
Unless you're under the impression that the Apple A7 chip used in the iPhone is based on the Cortex-A7.... which it most certainly is not. I could see that confusion possibly happening.jjj - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
Talk about people living in a bubble ...You need to learn to not open your mouth when you are not even vaguely familiar with the subject.
coder543 - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
As you added no factual points to this discussion, I'm not sure who you were talking to.Mondozai - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
No price?JoshHo - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - link
They haven't really told anything about price. It should be competitive with phones of similar spec, so I would reckon that it's around US N5 prices.errorr - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
I feel that most AT readers are confused about the true volume numbers in phone shipments. There is a huge difference in the Value of the types of SOC's sold and the volume.The high end chips that end up in the phones destined for the people who read this site are a fraction of the total shipments of chips.
I don't really care about the $50-$100 phone market and the dual core A5 and A7 chips that go into them. However, there is some interest in how rockchip, mediatek, etc... try and to expand into the area dominated by Qualcomm and Samsung.
At the same time Qualcomm especially is trying to expand into the high volume low margin quad A7 market.
Qualcomm killer tech is their modem integration which makes them required tech for any 1st world country phone. But the rest of the world doesn't have LTE and the "good enough" low price chips are coming.
Of course all of this is further obscured by the subsidy model of the American Carriers that make the US ignore the price pressures that make ZTE, Samsung, Sony, and others push lower specced phones that will sell much better outside the US.