The Axon series is a legendary flagship series in the ZTE mobile phone product line, and the high-end and business image created by the AXON Tianji and AXON Tianji 7 in that year has still impressed the author. The smart phone market is volatile, and today's Axon series, in the "time has passed", is playing the role of a pioneer in off-screen camera technology, and many young consumers have firmly remembered the name "Axon".
In early April, ZTE began warming up the new generation of the Axon 40 series. After more than a month, the Axon 40 series was officially released, including the super-large cup ZTE Axon 40 Ultra equipped with a new generation of off-screen camera technology, the three-main camera system, and the sub-flagship Axon 40 Pro with balanced performance in all aspects.
The protagonist of this article, Axon 40 Pro, although not equipped with an off-screen camera, is also a bucket machine with stable performance and good comprehensive strength.
So, how many advantages does this product have in the market competition? Can it be your choice? IT Home got this product, you may wish to follow us to know more.
Part I: Designs
Axon 40 Pro in terms of color matching, brings three versions of night black, crystal fog blue, starlight orange, of which crystal fog blue uses glass flash sand process, starlight orange is a gradient orange superimposed star diamond UV texture, and IT home to get the night black version, is the use of bright glass process, although easy to stain fingerprints, but the texture is also more outstanding.
In terms of design, the double ring design of the Axon 40 Pro back image module is very eye-catching, and "double ring" is also a popular design language in addition to the "big matrix".
In detail, the Axon 40 Pro has a circle of three-dimensional metal lens decoration, the top one of which is designed to resemble the digital camera lens that can zoom in earlier years, and the lower ring contains two cameras, and the fourth camera is located outside the ring.
On the front, Axon 40 Pro is equipped with a 6.67-inch FHD+ (2400×1080), 20:9, 144Hz AMOLED flexible curved screen, the curvature of both sides of this screen is larger than that of the traditional curved screen, the curved edge is not too much extension, so the two sides of the screen are more "compact" in appearance, and there will be a visual bezel-less effect.
As for the forehead and chin, they are also relatively narrow, and the naked eye looks basically symmetrical.
This 6.67-inch screen includes a smart high refresh rate of 144Hz (not LTPO, but supports smart refresh rate switching), a 360Hz touch sample rate, and a peak brightness of 1000nit. Other aspects include 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 wide color gamut, support for 10bit color depth, and more.
The fuselage size is 162.9×72.9×8.46mm, the whole machine feels slightly thicker, and the weight is 199g, which is within the acceptable range.
Details, bottom is the speaker, microphone, SIM card slot, charging port (USB Type-C 3.1):
On the right are the volume and power keys, where the power button also has textures:
The top is relatively flat, with a matte black treatment and a microphone opening:
Accessories include data cables, chargers, mobile phone cases, card pins, etc.:
Part II: The Image Experience
Although the image module uses a double ring, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro is actually equipped with 4 cameras, including a 108MP main camera, which has a 1/1.52-inch outsole, f / 1.89 aperture, supports 2.1μm equivalent pixels (9 in 1), and the other is 8 million pixels, with a 16mm equivalent focal length, 120-degree ultra-wide angle camera (f / 2.2 aperture);
As for the other two, it is 2 million "tactical" cameras, including macro and depth of field, to assist the main camera.
In general, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro imaging system, the main force is still this 108MP main camera, fortunately, the hardware foundation is strong enough (relatively speaking), can cope with most of the shooting scenes.
In terms of functions, it supports lightning capture, super night scene, 4K 60fps HD video shooting, multi-camera simulcasting, simultaneous shooting, humanistic image color system, etc., as well as the iconic camera family of Nubian (ZTE) mobile phones, including monochrome color, Hitchcock, multiple exposures, electronic aperture, starry sky, time-lapse photography, full-size, art cameras and so on.
Let's take a brief look at the sample:
The first is a sample of the day, the shooting environment is slightly cloudy.
The ZTE Axon 40 Pro straight sample does not have too much decoration in terms of color, and is biased towards restoring the real.
However, the overall brightness of the picture is a bit underexposed, although the shooting environment is somewhat cloudy and cloudy, but if the brightness can be slightly increased, the look and feel will be better.
Lead camera
Ultra wide angle
Lead camera
Lead camera
Lead camera
Part III: Performance Experience
In the core hardware part, ZTE Axon 40 Pro is equipped with a Snapdragon 870 processor, providing 8/12GB RAM + 256GB ROM, 12GB RAM + 512GB ROM storage specifications.
Other aspects include a 5000mAh battery, 66W fast charge, dual stereo speakers (support for DTS:X Ultra sound), X-axis linear motors, full-featured NFC, and more.
Snapdragon 870 is very familiar to everyone, this SoC released in early 2021, is still carried by many products, can be described as a well-deserved "golden oil" SoC.
The Snapdragon 870 is based on TSMC's 7nm process, and its core architecture is 1 Cortex-A77 super core with a maximum frequency of 3.2GHz + 3 Cortex-A77 performance cores with a maximum frequency of 2.4GHz + 4 Cortex-A55 power cores with a maximum frequency of 1.88GHz.
Let's take a brief look at the running score:
In the Antutu running score, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro received a score of 690,000+; of which the CPU was 182041 and the GPU was 240711;
GeekBench 5 has a single core of 985 points and a multi-core of 3092.
In terms of GPU testing, in 3DMark's Wild Life, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro achieved an overall score of 4254, with an average frame rate of 25.5fps.
IT Home got the 8+256GB version, and the read speed measured by Androbench was 1344MB/s, which was almost the level of UFS3.0.
It is worth mentioning that the ZTE Axon 40 Pro also supports memory expansion, up to 6GB, equivalent to 14GB of running memory.
In the game section, IT House tested Protoss and Peace Elite.
The first is The Peace Elite.
(Peace Elite picture quality set as above)
IT House chose smooth picture quality + extreme frame rate (60Hz), measured a game (18 minutes), the average frame rate of ZTE Axon 40 Pro reached 59.8fps, basically close to the full frame experience.
During the game, there is no stuttering phenomenon throughout the game, and the experience is very smooth.
From the core diagram, the Snapdragon 870 equipped with the ZTE Axon 40 Pro is basically in a relative combat state in its three cores.
Let's look at the original god again.
(The original god picture quality is set as above)
IT House chose the highest quality + 60 frames, motion blur off, game scenes to choose wild monsters, in a 10-minute game or so, ZTE Axon 40 Pro average frame rate of 37.5fps.
Compared to Peace Elite, Protoss is more demanding on performance, so the ZTE Axon 40 Pro's performance on Prosthetics is less relaxed.
In the Original God game, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro did not shrink in resolution.
Looking at the core diagram, after 3 minutes of the Game of "Original God", the core has a frequency reduction phenomenon, of which the three Cortex-A77 with the highest main frequency of 2.4GHz are more obvious, from 2.2Gzh to about 1.8Ghz.
From this point of view, ZTE Axon 40 Pro in the "Original God" game, more inclined to the fuselage temperature control.
Measured by the thermometer, ZTE Axon 40 Pro in the "Original God" game, the maximum temperature of the fuselage is only around 43 ° C, the heat is concentrated in the camera and the top area, the palm is hot, but far less than the "hot hand" level of some of the radical Snapdragon 888 models.
Overall, the performance of ZTE Axon 40 Pro in terms of gaming is in line with the level of Snapdragon 870, and there is no need to worry about performance in daily use.
Charging part, ZTE Axon 40 Pro supports 66W fast charging, it is worth mentioning that the fast charging head is also a C-port design, which is rare in the same gear products. The ZTE Axon 40 Pro can be charged for 30 minutes to charge more than 70%.
At the same time, after charging for 30 minutes, the power of the charging head is still between 29W and 27W for a long time, and the speed is quite gratifying.
After 35 minutes, the charging power drops to 19W, and the phone's power has reached 80%.
From 0 to 100% (UI display), it takes about 46 minutes, and the final trickle time is about 5 minutes, and the total time for full full filling is about 55 minutes.
Overall, the charging speed of ZTE Axon 40 Pro is still quite rapid, 5000mAh battery, full only 46 minutes.
Unfortunately, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro does not support wireless charging.
In the battery life part, the performance of the ZTE Axon 40 Pro is more durable, such as the author's light use, about a day and a half (4 hours and 30 minutes on the screen), at this time the remaining battery power is 36%. At this time, it can still last for 17 hours with mild use, so the battery life performance of the ZTE Axon 40 Pro is really excellent.
Part IV: System Experience
A year ago, ZTE announced a new personalized system - MyOS, saying goodbye to miFavor for many years.
ZTE Axon 40 Pro is powered by the Android 12-based MyOS 12 system, which was first launched by the Nubia Z40 Pro (Nubia also said goodbye to the Nubia UI).
On the ZTE Axon 40 Pro, the new MyOS 12 brings climber behavior lock screen 2.0, which is an interesting feature that translates to the height of climbing a mountain based on the number of steps of the day.
MyOS 12's Climber Behavior Lock Screen 2.0 also supports "Behavior Off", which means that when the screen is turned off, the current mountain height can still be displayed.
On the other hand, the built-in wallpaper of MyOS 12 is very textured, especially the geomorphology, colored rock, bloom, and aragonite series, which are high-grade and pleasing to the eye.
The biggest change in MyOS 12 is that it still gives two sets of desktop systems, one is the traditional grid desktop arrangement, and the other is the popular big icon and widget mode.
(Two sets of different styles of desktop system)
Under the second desktop system, the blocks of applications and widgets can be freely adjusted and arranged at will. In addition, the negative screen is also very interesting, predicting the user's next step according to the timeline, and recommending the application in the corresponding timeline to help users do "what time to do", which is very special.
However, it must be said that myOS 12 is a new desktop system, and the UI design is slightly rough. In addition, the number of widgets is still a little small, and I hope to speed up the update in the future.
In terms of features, such as privacy protection, small window mode, such as sidebar, such as game space, MyOS 12 basically has everything, and there is a great improvement in practicality and experience.
(Sidebar and application window)
(Play space)
Summary:
ZTE Axon 40 Pro is a light flagship product with balanced comprehensive strength, in the same gear products, Axon 40 Pro's system is not a short board, performance, image, charging, endurance appearance and other aspects are basically online, the choice will not regret.
Compared with the friendly products of the first echelon of domestic shipments, the ZTE Axon 40 Pro experience is more "bucket", just like the students who are more stable in learning in the class.
As far as the domestic smart market is concerned, if you want to gain a firm foothold, it is not okay to only make products with a stuffy head, and sometimes there are some "special functions" that will make you run faster. Of course, the above conclusion is only for the Axon 40 Pro, the big brother of the Axon 40 Pro, the Axon 40 Ultra, in the author's opinion, is a flagship product with a sense of existence, which has the feeling of the AXON machine when it was born.
Finally, give ZTE a little more time! Being able to neutralize the surging market wave, this insistence, in itself is worthy of our admiration.