ZTE has brought its Blade V7 series to Malaysia – the V7 Lite and V7 Max, two all-metal phones that cost under MYR1,000. Surprisingly for the price point, both also feature fingerprint sensors and better than average hardware.
The China brand has big ambitions in Malaysia, aiming to hit 10% of the smartphone market share here in the next three years. According to Jeremy Chao, ZTE Device Group CEO, Southeast Asia region, Malaysia has huge potential, and the brand is confident of growing its foothold here. It targets to open three new experience outlets and expand its touchpoints to 1,000 in 2016.
Blade V7 Max
The Blade V7 Max is an impressive dual-SIM, dual-standby 4G LTE device that boasts a full metal body. It’s slim at only 7.2mm and build at first impressions is good. It packs a crisp 5.5-inch Full HD display with 2.5D glass, and features a fingerprint sensor on the right side.
It’s powered by a 1.8GHz octa-core MediaTek Helio X10 (MTK6755) processor with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage.
On the optics side of things, it packs and impressive 16MP rear snapper with PDAF and LED flash. The front gets an 8MP selfie camera.
The V7 Max runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow with ZTE’s stock-looking UI on top.
Interestingly, it comes with USB Type-C for charging and fast data transfer.
Blade V7 Lite
The smaller sibling of the V7 Max, the V7 Lite packs plenty of kit for the money. It features a 5-inch HD display, and surprisingly also comes with a rear mounted fingerprint sensor. It unlocks the phone in just 0.3 seconds.
It isn’t shabby in the camera front either. The main camera is a 13MP shooter, while the front gets a big 8MP selfie shooter. What’s cool is that it has an LED flash at the front. Is this the perfect selfie shooter?
Under the hood, it gets the venerable 1.3GHz MediaTek MTK6735P quad-core processor mated to 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
The V7 Lite is also a dual-SIM, dual-standby 4G LTE device.
Pricing and availability
The ZTE Blade V7 Lite retails for MYR669 (incl. GST), while the V7 Max retails for MYR999. If you pick up the V7 Lite from Lazada, though, you’ll enjoy a promotional price of MYR499.
The Blade V7 Lite will go on sale starting 16 May, while the V7 Max will hit stores in June.
Check out my quick hands-on first impressions with both devices in a bit.
