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ZTE Blitz		5 inches 720 x 1280	Display 5 inches 720 x 1280 Rear camera 8MP Battery size 2,500 mAh	8MP	2,500 mAh	Not yet rated	Buy at eBay View details	Buy at eBay View details	Compare	loading Fetching your data...

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What to consider when choosing a ZTE phone

ZTE is quite a big brand internationally, and especially in its home Chinese market, but it's a brand you may never have heard of before – despite the fact that many ZTE phones have been sold in Australia over many years. ZTE itself has operated in Australia since 2004, so it's not a "new" brand in Australia to speak of. So why haven't you heard of it?

It's because the vast majority of ZTE handsets sold in Australia over the years have been rebadged and resold as carrier devices, typically as either Telstra- or Optus-branded phones. ZTE does sell some of its handsets with its own branding in the open market these days as well, but if you've owned a lower cost prepaid Telstra or Optus smartphone in the past, the odds are pretty decent that it was actually a ZTE handset.

Here's what you need to consider when choosing a ZTE phone:

• Internal storage

  While internationally ZTE has a wide array of available models, locally it's always focused on the budget end of the market. In terms of storage, that usually doesn't equate to all that much. Don't expect much more than about 64GB of onboard storage, and often quite less, especially for the smaller range of ZTE-built feature phones that some carriers sell.

• Screen size

  While there's been a prevailing trend towards larger screen sizes on smartphones, ZTE's phones as sold in Australia have tended to be smaller, with most sitting between 5 and 6.2 inches or so, although there are outliers both for its flip phones and some of its larger handsets. You won't see super-sharp AMOLEDs in play either, with most of ZTE's phones topping out at HD resolutions at best. That fits well with their budget ethos of course because you're paying a distinctly lower amount.

• Price

  Price is absolutely an area where ZTE competes fiercely, with many of its rebranded phones selling at the lower end of the budget space. That's not an absolute observation, however, since ZTE is the manufacturer behind the Telstra Tough Max 3, a phone that sits resolutely in the mid-range price space.

• Headphone jack

  Most of ZTE's phones, whether its own brand or Telstra/Optus handsets, tend to have a headphone jack present. You're less likely to see more advanced Bluetooth features given the lower price points these phones typically sell at.

• Security options

  Some of ZTE's rebadged phones feature fingerprint readers, but it's not a feature you'll find across the entire range. Likewise, some offer a facial unlocking option, but that's based off very simple photo recognition, not anything with any secure depth. For other phones, you're going to be using simple passcode or PIN-based phone locking as your sole security option.

• Camera quality

  ZTE's phones have, to date, featured very simple camera modules indeed. It's definitely not a strong point for the company because many competitors, even in the low-cost spaces that ZTE's phones typically sell for, have started to offer multi-lens options and much better photographic output.

• Network speed and support

  ZTE is yet to offer up a 5G capable device in Australia, but that's more likely when significantly larger quantities of low-cost 5G chipsets become more broadly available. Its phones do operate on Australia's 3G and 4G networks, although typically not at terribly high speed rates. Some of ZTE's phones sold with Telstra branding do qualify for its "Blue Tick" certification, meaning they're capable of better reception characteristics in more remote and regional areas.

• Wireless charging/quick charging

  At the price point that most of ZTE's phones sell at, you won't find any form of wireless charging or particularly fast charging for that matter.

• Battery life

  This can vary a lot by handset and capacity as well as by use case. While ZTE's feature phones don't run with large batteries, those models don't need much of a power draw anyway. On the smartphone side, ZTE phones haven't tended to have massive batteries, but models we've tested in the past have tended to manage at least a day's usage without too many issues.

• Waterproof design

  Water resistance isn't a feature of most of ZTE's output available to Australian buyers with one notable exception. ZTE has been the maker behind Telstra's past couple of generations of "Telstra Tough" phones, and those are devices with very specific IP-rated water resistance on board.

• Performance

  ZTE's phones are inexpensive, and one of the ways that ZTE keeps the costs down is with relatively cheap processors and small allotments of RAM as well. As very basic phones, they're generally functional, but rarely fast. It's also well worth checking the precise feature set of a given phone model for tasks such as NFC contactless banking because there can be a lot of variance across models.

Looking for a ZTE phone on a plan?

For the most part, ZTE's phones are sold outright, although many of the models sold with carrier branding may be locked to that carrier. The current exception to this is the more mid-range priced Telstra Tough Max 3, which is available on contract terms through Telstra: