The Grand Memo II LTE is ZTE’s phablet sequel (hands-on)
ZTE’s back with yet another take on the phablet it introduced at Mobile World Congress last year, except this time, the device isn’t touting a world’s first with its Qualcomm CPU. The Grand Memo II LTE marks the company’s second attempt at the smartphone category created by the Galaxy Note and G Pros of the world with a 6-inch 720p display, 13-megapixel rear camera and 7.2mm thickness. To ZTE’s credit, it’s whipped up quite a sleek and attractive design. Not only is the handset ultra slim, but its curved edges and thin bezels somehow conspire to make the device appear slighter than its massive size.
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Inside, the Grand Memo II LTE sports a Snapdragon 400 processor buffered by 2GB RAM, a 3,200mAh cell to power all the pixels on that 6-inch display, as well as radios for Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi a/b/g/n and GPS. It’s also only available with 16GB of internal storage, which is surprising given its otherwise outsized reputation. You’ll be glad to know the Grand Memo II LTE currently runs Android KitKat 4.4, although that OS is hidden beneath ZTE’s MiFavor 2.3 UI.
In truth, ZTE’s particular Android skin isn’t that offensive, though we were warned by reps on the showfloor it also wasn’t a final build and that features could change. What’s curious is that the Grand Memo II LTE’s two major software additions are exact clones of the ones we saw LG debut on the G Pro 2 just yesterday. For ZTE, that would be SmartShare and miniview. By enabling the SmartShare button from within the app, users will have access to an onscreen shortcut that’s triggered with a longpress of the back button. This floating icon, when selected, brings up an app window that’s geared towards multitasking. So users need only drag and drop their desired apps to the two halves of the screen. Those windows can then also be adjusted according to user preference.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
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