It’s been a while since ZTE launched its flagship phone, the AXON 30 Ultra. I’m sure you’re just as curious as us to see how good a ZTE high-end phone is. With that in mind, let’s look at how it performs.

Axon 30 Ultra review: design and display

When I first saw this phone, I really liked it. It has a square look, with top and bottom flattened, and the camera module is rectangular but has some details. With the dark gray frosted glass, the whole shape is very calm and elegant. ZTE AXON 30 ULTRA Review 16

This shape reminds me of Samsung’s Note series, but given that Samsung may not launch a new Note model this year, the AXON 30 Ultra might be one of the square phones you can buy this year. The camera is colored and reflects shades of color when exposed to light.

The weight of 188g makes it one of the lightest flagship phones of any brand this year. Honestly, I really like the look and feel of the device’s light weight, but it’s not without its drawbacks. The bezel is quite noticeable and can be a bit awkward to hold for long periods. Apart from that, I am very happy with the design.

The AXON 30 Ultra 5G features a 144Hz refresh rate, FHD +, 10-bit color depth support screen. The perforator is in the center of the screen. Although the screen does not have a screen protector, the screen’s oleophobic layer is adequate, so it’s very smooth to use. The top and bottom bezels are about the same in width, but not in the same plane as the screen, so you cut your hand while scrolling. Although Samsung is not the screen provider, it still uses diamond-shaped pixels.

ZTE AXON 30 ULTRA diamond pixel review 01The fingerprint recognition area is slightly higher than normal, and is more comfortable when unlocked. In short, the average AXON 30 Ultra screen is for flagship, not particularly great for waking people up, but it has no obvious flaws for consumers to complain about.

Axon 30 Ultra Review: Hardware and Games

Since being called Ultra, the phone naturally includes high-end hardware like Snapdragon 888, UFS 3.1, and LPDDR5.

ZTE AXON 30 ULTRA Hardware In the AnTuTu benchmark, the phone scored 790011, while in 3D MARK it scored 5857. Geekbench 5 scores were 1125 for single-core and 3575 for multi-core. The benchmark scores are the usual level for flagship phones.

Next, let’s look at the gaming performance. The PUBG frame rate curve is very smooth, which means that the most basic cooling measures are implemented smoothly. The Axon 30 Ultra uses a 2880mm2 liquid cooling plate, which appears to have made a significant difference in extreme gaming tests.

ZTE AXON Gaming Review 30 ULTRA PUBG 05 The Genshin Impact frame rate curve is not as stable as PUBG’s, but the average frame rate of 52fps and the absence of sharp and significant frame rate drops creates a good in-game gaming experience. Brightridge’s gaming performance is also similar to Genshin Impact.

ZTE AXON 30 ULTRA Genshin Impact Review 06 Of course, it has the same flaws as other Snapdragon 888 phones – the phone gets pretty hot. But since ZTE has chosen to take advantage of all performance, a rise in temperature is inevitable.

Axon 30 Ultra Review: Camera Performance

The camera system of the AXON 30 Ultra is very interesting, three of the four lenses are all main camera level lenses. They are 64MP main camera, 64MP vertical lens, 64MP ultra wide angle lens. The latter is an 8MP 5x telephoto lens.

Main camera

The main camera, even with AI optimization, is not too flashy, HDR is fairly strong, details are adequate, white balance is stable, and the finished photo style is of the kind stable, error-free.

At night, the AXON 30 Ultra automatic mode is not integrated with any night mode algorithm, so you can see that the auto-mode pictures are faithfully restored to what the naked eye sees , and the dynamic range of the pictures is relatively small. However, once night mode is activated, all aspects of the photos are significantly improved. The noise is also lower when retaining the details, which already belong to the first level of the flagship phones.

Ultra wide angle camera

The ultra-wide camera basically has the same adjustment as the main camera. However, as the hardware is weaker than the main camera, exposure in low-light scenes is also slightly darker and there will be more noise.

Lens for portraits

The AXON 30 Ultra portrait lens is not the same as other phones use to help with bokeh, rather it is called a portrait lens because it is close to the equivalent focal length of 35mm. However, to take 35mm equivalent shots, you need to manually slide the adjustment to 1.3x or switch to portrait mode to get it, the default mode offers a 2x zoom button.

The bokeh algorithm is not very effective if portrait mode is not a human subject, so I generally use this lens as a 2x telephoto lens. This lens works really well with 2x zoom and the results at night are not bad. In addition to the noise limited by the hardware, the exposure was at the same level as the main camera.

Telephoto lens

I think the advantage of the AXON 30 Ultra imaging system is that it has a full range of focal lengths, so you can choose the right focal length to compose an image, no matter how close or far. This is very friendly to photography enthusiasts.

video

As all three lenses are at the main camera level, with the exception of the 5x telephoto lens, they are all capable of recording 4K video at 60 fps. The main camera can support video up to 8K 30fps and can also record HDR video. The 5x telephoto lens intelligently records video up to 1080p 60fps. With strong image stabilization, it is a phone that has great video recording capabilities.

ZTE AXON 30 ULTRA myos 11 10AXON 30 Review Ultra’s new pre-installed system, MyOS 11, is also changing from the previous design, the user interface and icons have become younger and more vibrant, and the animations are fluid.

If you have used the global version of MIUI or other Chinese brand custom Android OS, MyOS is very similar to them. But unfortunately, the global version of MyOS 11 is less functional than the Chinese version, for example, the simplified desktop of the Chinese version is not present in the global version, which is a shame.

Axon 30 Ultra Review: Battery Life

AXON 30 Ultra supports up to 65w of charging power. The charger is included in the box and it is worth noting that the charging interface is Type-C and the charging cable is also USB-C to C. The charger is very small and support PPS. And this 65w charger is very small and supports PPS, which is considered to be of better overall quality than the charger that comes with the box.

ZTE AXON 30 ULTRA 12 Charging Review The charging speed is fine, 10 minutes takes you to 28%, 30 minutes up to 64% and 52 minutes to fully charge the device. So it seems the charging technology does not use drip charging. However, it is a shame that the leading charge does not include wireless charging.

Although only 188g, ZTE still has a 4600mAh battery. In the real battery test, the phone used 5% for half an hour of TikTok, 4% for half an hour of online video, 9% for PUBG game, 22% and 12% for half an hour of Genshin Impact time. and 20 minutes from Brightridge, respectively. Therefore, the battery life is also at a moderate level.

Axon 30 Ultra Review: Verdict

The AXON 30 Ultra is undoubtedly a very well-balanced flagship phone that has virtually no specific flaws. But if you look at it from the other side, it doesn’t even have obvious strengths. Its boxy design, dominant look, and full range of focal lengths are perhaps its most notable highlights.