ZTE Axon M foldable smartphone with dual 5.2-inch touchscreens launched
18 Oct. 2017 11:24
While 2017 was all about smartphones with nearly bezel-less displays, 2018 could see a new trend, one where phones could have foldable displays. But ZTE has started things off a bit early, racing past the likes of Samsung to unveil its very own foldable smartphone, called the Axon M, in the US. The smartphone's biggest highlight is its dual screen that can unfold to make up one giant screen.
The new , isn't exactly the kind of foldable smartphone one would imagine. There is no foldable OLED display here, like the ones Samsung and Apple are reportedly working on. Instead, the ZTE smartphone is a dual-screen smartphone with a hinge in between, something similar to the Kyocera Echo back in 2011. Essentially, you can fold the phone to have a display on the front and back, or you could open it up and the two 5.2-inch displays will make up one 6.75-inch display that is separated by the hinge.
In terms of specifications, the ZTE Axon M sports two 5.2-inch (1080x1920) LCD displays with Gorilla Glass 5 protection. It runs on Android 7.1.2 Nougat and is powered by a 2.15GHz quad-core Snapdragon 821 processor coupled with 4GB of RAM. You get 64GB of internal storage, which is expandable up to 256GB via microSD.
Since this is a foldable smartphone, ZTE has incorporated just a single 20-megapixel camera with Sony's IMX350 sensor, phase detection autofocus, f/1.8 aperture and dual LED flash. The handset features dual speakers and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The dual screen design of the smartphone, however, makes the Axon M pretty thick and heavy at 12.1mm and 230 grams. The handset packs a 3180mAh battery with support for Quick Charge 3.0.
Notably, the Axon M features three modes - Extend, Dual, and Mirror - that can be toggled via the M button in the navigation bar. The Extend mode lets you open an app across both the screens to give you more content at once. The Mirror mode basically shows the same content on two screens, while the Dual mode allows you to open two apps for better multitasking. The Dual mode in particular looks to make good use of Android's split-screen feature.
The Axon M looks like a phone from ZTE that wants to be the first in the foldable smartphone arena, although it isn't exactly a foldable phone in the futuristic sense of the word. We know that Samsung is working on a smartphone with a foldable OLED display, tipped to be called the Galaxy X, that could come out next year. While the Axon M does bring some novelty to the table in terms of design, the hardware, especially with last year's Snapdragon 821 SoC, feels a little wanting.
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