2012 was the year of the Chinese in terms
of smartphone sales all over the world. During the fourth quarter of 2012,
Chinese brands such as Huawei and ZTE got into the list of the top smartphone
manufacturers in the world. And in this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES),
the same two brands showed off their latest flagship models – the Grand S for
ZTE and the Ascent Mate for Huawei. Fortunately, the crowd loved it and the
rest of their product line is also performing relatively well in other markets
like in the Philippines.
For ZTE, one particular model that’s
proving quite capable is the ZTE V889M, a dual-SIM Android phone that ZTE is
placing in the mid-range droid arena. Facing the likes of the Xperia J, Galaxy
Ace 2 and Optimus L5, does the V889M good enough to win over brand loyalists
from Samsung, Sony and LG. If you’re looking for an affordable Android phone
this 2013, here’s our short review of the ZTE V889M.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX
The box of the V889M is a far cry compared
to those from much popular brands. It’s quite compact but it doesn’t look like
it was professionally designed. The graphics on the box looks like it was done
by a student and there isn’t any information about the handset written on the
box.
There’s also no plastic or paper cradle securing the phone inside the box. There’s a piece of folded cardboard that keeps the phone and its accessories from tumbling inside while in transit, but it’s still not as secure as with other brands.
There’s also no plastic or paper cradle securing the phone inside the box. There’s a piece of folded cardboard that keeps the phone and its accessories from tumbling inside while in transit, but it’s still not as secure as with other brands.
As for the contents of the box, the phone is slipped inside the small space made by the folds of the cardboard while the accessories and the usual documentation are placed inside the other end of the box. Accessories include a pair of ordinary plastic headset, a very short data sync/charging cable, the 1650MAh battery and the USB-type wall charger. There’s also an included 4GB micro-SD card which is already inserted into the phone.
DESIGN
ZTE did an amazing job in designing the
V889M. For its price tag, the phone feels very solid and dense, which gives it
a premium look. The front of the phone is occupied by the 4.0-inch LCD screen
and the four capacitive touchscreen buttons found on slightly older Android
phones at the bottom of the screen. Located at the top left portion of the
screen are the proximity and ambient light sensor, to the right of which is the
phone’s earpiece.
At the top of the handset, you’ll see the
3.5mm headphone jack that’s right beside the power and lock button. The left
side on the other hand has the volume rocker while the right side is completely
empty. There are also two pin-sized holes at the top and at the bottom of the
phone, which is probably where the microphone/s are located. The micro-USB
charging and syncing port is located at the bottom of the phone right beside
the slit to open the back cover.
The back of the phone is where the 5
megapixel camera is found. The camera is surrounded by a textured metallic
plate and is slightly raised. The ZTE brand logo is printed at the bottom just
right above the speaker grill. The back is also coated with a soft touch
coating making it really comfortable and easy to hold.
SOFTWARE
The V889M runs Android 4.0.4 Ice Cream
Sandwich with little to almost no modification made by ZTE. Aside from the
lockscreen and the quick access settings in the notifications bar, the phone’s
user interface has stayed true to Android’s default vanilla UI. All the
pre-installed apps like the messenger, people, phone, calculator, music and
calendar app among others have not been skinned or customized which makes the
phone really easy to get used to but doesn’t make it anything special.
The V889M is a dual-SIM phone so the
messaging, phonebook and people app have special options to let users choose
which SIM card to use when sending text messages or making phone calls. And
just like other dual-SIM droids, finding a good replacement app for texting or
making calls may prove a little difficult to do. The only messaging app we found
compatible with this device is Go SMS Pro which is actually quite good already
but if you’re used to heavy customization, you’ll probably feel left out in
this section.
The camera of the phone is the stock
Android camera app. The controls are neatly organized through context menus
which can be accessed by tapping the buttons on the screen. Zooming is done
with the use of the on screen zoom slider. There are several capture modes
which include, auto scene detect, face beauty, smile shot and a continuous burst
shot for high speed shooting. There’s even a panorama mode so you can take wide
angle photos. Additional options include settings for scenes, white balance,
color effects, HDR, ISO, contrast, color, sharpness, etc.
As we mentioned earlier, there are only a
few important modifications done by ZTE on this phone. One is the quick access
settings in the notifications bar. Just like other brands, there are several
options that users can easily change by just tapping them including Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, GPS, audio profiles and display settings.
For the lockscreen, ZTE
decided to tweak it a little bit by moving away from the drag to unlock method
and instead going with the press and hold method. The problem is, the
lockscreen now has less functionality in contrast to the one Android has as
default as the option to access the messaging, phone and dialer app through the
lockscreen disappeared with the drag and unlock style.
IMAGE AND SOUND
The V889M has a 4.0-inch display with a
resolution of 480x800 pixels and a pixel density of 233 pixels per inch, which
is quite impressive for a phone at this price range. Images are clear and
vibrant, and colors don’t appear too washed out with the exception of the
images taken using the camera. And just to avoid any miscommunication, the
camera takes good to above average images but they’re a little faded and lacking
in color.
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| Camera Sample Shots |
For sound, specifically the call quality,
the V889M offers average to above average audio when taking or making calls. I
didn’t experience any dropped calls and the phone’s proximity sensor and other
in-call settings worked perfectly okay. However, I did notice a small lag when
tapping on the end call button. As for multimedia playback, the speaker at the
back of the phone is horrible. The volume is really low and gives a tinny sound
especially when you crank the volume. And if you’re thinking of using the
included headset, then you’re out of luck. The included headset is a far worse
option than the loudspeaker in terms of both sound and build quality.
PERFORMANCE
Performance wise, the ZTE V889M is powered
by a 1GHz dual core processor on a Mediatek MT6577, which is the norm in today’s
market for entry-level android phones. As far as UI responsiveness, the phone
runs very smoothly and there was minimal incidence of lag or crashes. But for
the sake of having a numerical value in which to measure performance, we relied
on the old way of running synthetic benchmark tests like Antutu and Quadrant.
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| Sample Benchmark test scores |
For Quadrant, the V889M scored on the
average 2300 which is quite okay given its hardware. For Antutu benchmark
tests, this phone scored an average of 5700 which is also within the standards
for an entry level device with these specs.
VERDICT
To sum it all up, we feel that the ZTE
V899M is quite an enjoyable phone to have. It’s capable of handling most of the
day to day tasks that a common smartphone faces in the real world. The design
of the phone as well as its build quality were surprisingly nice. The phone
feels really solid and looks more expensive than its real worth. There weren’t
a lot of issues when it comes to the software that’s installed or the apps nor
did it have any compatibility issues with apps available online.
The only let down of this phone would
probably be its audio hardware. Both the headset and the loudspeaker are unusable
when it comes to media playback rendering the pre-installed music app almost useless.
Although it can be remedied by using other headsets, we just think that after
all the good things we’ve seen on the phone, ZTE just had to screw something
up.
But if you’re willing to forgive the poor
audio performance, the rest of the phone is really impressive. For a phone with
a price tag of less than P8000, the specs and quality of the V889M is
comparable to devices in the P12000-15000 price range. So if you’re looking for
an adept android phone without worrying too much if it will burn a hole in your
bank account, you should consider getting the ZTE V889M.
What are your thoughts about this phone? Do
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