zte was first founded way back in 1985. 22 years down the line in 2007 zte released
their very first cell phone you know one of those phones with a physical keyboard and no
touchscreen in 2012 zte became the fourth largest mobile phone provider in the world delivering 7.5
million smartphones in 2015 zte released their very first accent branded smartphone which was
actually the world's first dual camera phone in 2016 they released the world's first dual stereo
speakerphone in 2017 the first foldable dual screen smartphone in 2019 the first commercial
5g phone in 2020 they released the axon 20 which was the first mass-produced smartphone on the
planet to house an under display salty camera it's now 2021 and instead of zte
releasing another world's first they have decided to improve on last year's accent 20
with this the zte axon 35g which houses zte's second generation under display camera technology
the accent 35g comes in two different color variants one being black and one being aqua
the black one actually has a holographic color effect on the back it does shine now and then
in sunlight not too much indoors it still looks really classy and elegant when the holographic
effect isn't showing however i really do like the design and packed inside that is a snapdragon 870
a 4200 milliamp hour battery 65 watt wide charging 5g wi-fi six bluetooth 5.1 and nfc we have gorilla
glass on the front a plastic back and plastic frame and yes that backplate does pick up a fair
share of fingerprints thanks to its glossy finish and slapping on that hard case shell cover out the
box doesn't make it look too bad actually i might keep this on going forward inevitably we have a
textured power button a volume rocker on the right hand side at the bottom we have a dual sim 5g
standby tray and yes it does support expandable storage which is great and there is a water
resistant seal too we have usb 3.0 ports at the bottom a single downward firing speaker with dtsx
ultra and of course an under display selfie camera it is indeed the second generation which we'll
touch on later flicking it around and you can see that the camera module on the back is not too tiny
since it does have more than capable cameras which once again we'll get to later the camera bump
is quite large not the largest i've seen around but not the smallest i've seen around meaning
that there is a fair share of camera wobble when on a flat surface comparing the designs to other
phones around i can say that the accent 35g truly does stand out to other devices nothing else out
there looks quite like it i really do dig it and weighing in at just 189 grams and 7.8 millimeters
thick the back looks phenomenal but what about the display well we are welcome to a 6.92 inch
amoled curve display it has an aspect ratio of 20.5 by nine it is of course full hd plus with a
pixels per inch of 388. we have one billion colors it is of course a 10 bits 100 p3 950 nits of peak
brightness 120 hertz refresh rates and 360 hertz touch sampling rates the axon 30 of course has
the second generation under display camera which actually utilizes seven layers over the camera and
has a screen of 400 pixels per inch matching the rest of the display going over that lens just to
be 100 clear right now this photo is actually last year's zt axon 20. this is zte's first generation
under display camera tech and as you can see that pixelated effect that little square block at the
top of the phone is very much visible because it was only coated with five layers and the
screen covering over the lens was only 200 ppi and switching back to the axon 30 over here we
of course have those seven layers starting with the baseboard glass transparent matrix
specialized oled transparent cathode packing glass polarizer and of course the cover glass
right at the top it is also worth mentioning that they have now improved the circuit board
which is now a multi-drive ac e circuit board and apparently increases efficiency
by up to 50 percent zte have also used smart pixel enhancement as well as display optimization
algorithms to make sure that you can barely see that tucked away hidden selfie cam and when
comparing it to its more expensive brother the accent 30 ultra on the right hand side it still
has that punch hole notch at the top meaning that the xn30 zte's only device that gives you a true
bezel-less display and of course hides that selfie cam better than they ever have before i've got to
give it to zte over here they have done just as good of a job with their second generation under
display selfie cam as xiaomi have done with their third generation one under the screen of the mix
four you've also got to bear in mind that the mix 4 is only available in china and has no plans of
coming to the global market whereas the axon 30 is available to everyone around the world the color
accuracy of the axon 30 is on par with many other smartphones around and it does look very vibrant
in terms of color accuracy which is great as well as being extremely bright at 950 nits of peak
brightness which is not the brightest around but is certainly brighter than other zte made devices
and looks just on par in terms of brightness with other phones around of course once again no punch
hole at the top which is fantastic of course we also have 120 hertz refresh rate bumping up
from last year's accent 20s and 90 hertz refresh rates but slightly less than the red magic 6r on
the left hand side and zt accent 30 ultra next to that at 144 hertz it is slightly higher than the
oppo renault 6 pro plus is 90 hertz on the right hand side and matches the mix 420 hertz it is
nice and fluid and i honestly don't feel like you need anything more than 120 hertz it is just so
darn buttery smooth of course we do have an auto refresh rate but no adaptive refresh rate option
we have other things such as brightness levels of course night light we can also jump into different
color modes and color temperature modes we can even hide the status bar at the top giving you
a black bar but that kind of defeats the purpose of this device and you can set that to certain
apps of course we also have dark mode giving the background a very nice deep dark black it works on
third-party apps as well as first party apps too and we also have an always-on display though not
much customization options there are a ton of different clocks that come preset in the phone
and a bunch of different animated ones which look fantastic my favorite one is the spiral over here
this purple greenish glow spiral and yes we do have an under display optical fingerprint sensor
not the largest one i've seen around but it does do a fantastic job and is quite snappy even a
tad snappier than the accent 30 ultra though it's using the same sensor similar sensor to
the red magic 6r it is a tad snappier than the mix 4 in terms of animations but not in terms of
hardware when it comes to the fingerprint sensor same thing when it comes to the reno 6 pro plus
another thing worth mentioning here is that there is no form of facial recognition which we did see
in last year's xn20 though that under display selfie cam does indeed house a 16 megapixel 2.24
micron four in one sensor so let's go ahead and have a look to see if it's truly improved the
actual selfie doesn't look half bad not as good as other flagship phones around edge detection is
pretty terrible but the actual photo looks great but it does use a binning effect when dropping
down to portraits something to bear in mind this is technic recording a 1080p at 30fps video using
the brand new zte accent 30. this is not the accent 30 pro or ultra this is the one with the
selfie cam underneath the display so let me know what you guys think of the video quality and audio
quality when recording a video with the selfie cam on the accent 30. use multi camera to record
different things using the selfie cam mixed with the back cam vice versa switching between two back
cams and one selfie cam it's pretty cool it's not too bad i like it a lot um i don't know when i'd
use it but it's a cool feature to have nonetheless of course we can also record using the selfie cam
at night and being that the selfie cam is hidden under the display doesn't do a half bad job but
you can see the pixelizations around the trees in the background even when taking a selfie over here
but the flash on it kind of reduces that effect at the back we have an 8 megapixel ultra wide sensor
with 120 degrees field of view a 64 megapixel imax 682 main sensor a 5 megapixel macro sensor and 2
megapixel depth sensor they have improved the main sensors since last year's axon 20
as well as the macro sensor but the ultra wide and depth sensor have remained the same the ultra wide
shot may have a low megapixel cam but it still comes out pretty decently the 64 megapixel main
looks fantastic dropping it down to 60 megapixel using pixel binning looks even better thanks to ai
two times digital zoom no optical zoom over here since there's no telephoto doesn't look too bad
five times doesn't even look too bad ten times is still viewable 20 times is let's not really
go there but that is the maximum that you can do with this phone when it comes to taking a
snap of me using portrait mode it looks fantastic but jumping into the two megapixel depth effect
sense over there kind of messes with the edge detection in the background but it is
not the case when it comes to objects which look fantastic of course we can also use that
5 megapixel macro mode sensor which does a more than decent job we do have 4k at 60 frames per
second over here no 8k available this is using gyro electronic image stabilization when it comes
to video on all cameras over here it does a pretty decent job in terms of stabilization quality as
well as brightness it is a pretty gloomy day here in shanghai when i decided to take these snaps and
videos so if things don't look overly bright that is the reason why we also have 1080p at 30 frames
per second using the ultrawide but this is the max resolution and frames per second you can use when
recording with the ultra wide camera of course we can also test out the stability over here
it's called stabilizer in settings with it off it is shockingly terrible switching it on though
you can't even notice that i'm running here though it does take away from the focusing as well as the
quality detail 4k 60 fps at night has some serious focusing issues i'm sure this will be fixed with a
future software updates but dropping down 4k to 30 frames per second using the main sense over
here the focusing issue has been resolved same thing with 1080p at 60 frames per second once
again giving those focusing issues using it at 60 frames per second seems to be the issue when
recording at night though it is known to use lower frames at night since you get a brighter
output image anyway so 1080p at 30fps at night doesn't look half bad 1080p at 30fps ultrawide
however is pretty much unusable but we do have the ultra wide snap doesn't look the best with
no night mode option night mode off using the main looks alright night mode on doesn't brighten it up
it gives it a lot more detail two times digital zoom with night mode off doesn't look the best
night mode on once again more detail again darkening up some of the blacks and with five
times digital zoom night mode off doesn't look good night mode on doesn't look good 10 times
digital zoom once again night mode off pretty much unusable the same as with night mode on 20
times digital zoom does have a night mode feature but reverts to 10x zoom which is pretty strange
we do have a my os 11 skinned over android 11 over here it is upgraded from the my flavor that we saw
last year i say my because i don't want to say me to kind of mess around with other companies
around anyway the software is pretty great a near stock android experience with a bunch of extra
features such as z-pop multitasking of course as well as changing the sensitivity for the full
screen gestures and mistouch prevention as well as shaking your phone to turn on your flashlight
alright we also have google services of course apart from digital well-being which is great we
have google discover on the left hand side the play store that works perfectly fine the google
search bar as well as google assistant pulling in from the bottom left corner and i had no issues
activating it this time around the haptics are pretty decent for a phone at this price range and
we do have one single downward firing speaker so how does it compare to other phones around
huh
no one escapes my sights
might come in handy
before we jump straight into gaming it is worth mentioning that we do have a triple cooling system
this time around which is fantastic starting off with ganshin impact over here using the highest
possible graphics settings and the maximum fps available the game is capped at 60 frames per
second so it's not the phone limiting the 60 fps cap but the game and we're getting a pretty solid
between 45 and 57 frames per second against an impact which is one of the most graphically
demanding games on a phone to date moving on if it's a pub g mobile over here using hdr
graphics and extreme fps there is no smooth 90fps option yet i'm pretty sure this will change with
a future update since the phone just released but we are getting a rock-solid 60 fps when using hdr
graphics which allowed me to get quite a few good kills moving on to bullet force over using ultra
graphics max fps once again the game has no frames per second cap but the accent 30 is capping it at
60 fps or i could say the game is since it doesn't support the phone yet once again i'm pretty sure
this will change going forward the same thing can be said with dead trigger 2 moving on over here
we do not have the ultra graphics mode we only have high and we don't have 120 fps mode we
only have 60. this is a game with once again an unlimited frames per second cap though the axiom
30 is capping it at 60. once again probably the game just needs to update the actual game from the
devs a game that does support 120 on this phone is real racing 3 you can't adjust the graphics
or frames per second but it is sitting at max graphics 120 fps really stable here between 118
and 121 but what about benchmarks well we do of course have that snapdragon 870 with an adreno
650 integrated gpu checking the battery and the temps at the start of the test we'll compare this
at the end of the test starting off with antutu version 9.1.3 boosting through this then we're
gonna jump straight through testing out the cpu in geekbench version of 5.4.1 and ending off with
a 3dmark wildlife which just stress testes the gpu and getting to our battery drain results with that
4200 milliamp hour battery it drained by nine percent with a rate of 23.6 milliamp hours per
minute and the temperature increased by 18.7 degrees in celsius it didn't score too badly
in antutu at all with just shy of 700 000 points putting it slightly above the average snapdragon
870 powered smartphone things are slightly worse in terms of focusing on cpu here with
geekbench we've got a single core score of 723 and multi-core of 2884. the multi-core score
is really not that bad compared to the average snapdragon 870 scores actually slightly better
than that but the single core is where it kind of dropped the ball here things are starting to look
up again once we move into gpu stress testing here with 3dmark wildlife getting a score of 4232 and
then average frames per second of 25.3 which once again puts it ahead of the average snapdragon 870
and just a tad behind the slightly beefier five nanometer run snapdragon triple eight and triple
eight plus chipsets the zte accent 35g certainly stands out thanks to its glossy backplate with
a holographic color effect design and nano scale micro beam textured finish the back camera design
is certainly a step up from last year's and the overall camera quality has improved too
but there are a few focusing issues and the lack of a telephoto lens may be a deal breaker
for some however the display is where the axon 30 truly shines thanks to zte's second
generation under display camera which has not only improved in terms of picture quality
but invisibility too thanks to having a 400 pixels per inch screen covering it quite well
giving you an uninterrupted bright colorful and vibrant huge 6.92 inch amoled display software
has also seen an improvement with my os 11 giving the phone a near stock-like android experience
hardware has been upgraded too thanks to the snapdragon 870 cpu lp ddr5 ram and ufs 3.1 storage
and when paired with the increased 120hz refresh rates runs supported games ridiculously well the
zte accent 30 may not be alone in the smartphone industry but it certainly stands out thanks to
that hidden selfie camera and while the xiaomi mix 4 also houses in display camera tech and provides
more impressive hardware it costs quite a bit more and is only available in china that leaves us with
this the zte accent 35g a smartphone that checks all the right boxes and exceeds my expectations
for its very low asking price but more importantly it's the only smartphone in the
global market right now to implement under display selfie camera tech extremely well
you