ZTE V987 - 4-core smart phone with a great screen

So, a new stage of development of Chinese smartphones on the new Mediatek MT6589 platform began. The parade was opened by brands focused on the domestic market (THL, Zopo, UMI), but over time, models from more famous manufacturers began to appear. In this review we look at one of the new products from the company ZTE - ZTE V987 smartphone. The main feature of which is the use of high-quality 5-inch OGS screen with a resolution of 1280x720 pixels.

► Specifications

Screen: 5 ", OGS, 1280x720 IPS
Processor: Mediatek MT6589 (Cortex-A7 1.2GHz, 4 cores) + GPU: PowerVR SGX544
RAM: 1GB
User memory: 4GB + microSD slot with card support up to 64 GB
Camera: front 1MP, rear - 8MP
Connectivity: 2 sim cards (GSM + WCDMA), GPS, Bluetooth, Wifi (802.11 b / g / n)
Battery: 2500mAh
Dimensions: 141 x 70 x 9.2 mm

► Appearance and equipment

The box in which the smartphone is delivered is very miniature. This saves a lot of space in the package.

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No usual 2 levels for the phone and accessory. Everything is packed in the form of a “sandwich”. The smartphone itself is stored in a double bag of pimply film:


Accessory kit: charger with adapter, headphones, USB-cable. Nothing extra. But I would like to have a proprietary protective film included, as in ThL phones.


And yes, this is another device with which we are offered to play the game "guess the full characteristics of yourself." On the box there is only a brief description:

• 5-inch HD screen, made by technology OGS
• 4-core processor with a frequency of 1.2 GHz
• 8MP rear camera with autofocus
• 2 sim cards for work in GSM + WCDMA networks
• 2500mAh battery

The instructions tell only about how to insert a SIM card and make calls.
Where at least the basic characteristics in the form of the name of the chip, the amount of RAM and permanent memory?
Personally, I do not understand what is the meaning of this approach. After all, not every buyer knows the exact characteristics of all models when they go to the store to choose their phone.
But back to the study of appearance.

Front housing looks good. Deep black color, strict design - all this allows the smartphone to look solid.


Below are 3 touch buttons:


The design of the case itself is taken from the older model ZTE Grand S. Only the thickness has changed (upwards).
Behind - white matte plastic with a black insert near the camera:


8MP rear camera with flash:


The sound control rocker is on the left:


On the top there is a 3.5mm headphone jack and a power button:


But the microUSB port is on a slightly unusual place - on the side:


The back panel is thin, the latches are very tight. At the first opening it seems that it can be broken.




Under the back panel, there are 2 SIM card slots that work in standby mode (when talking on one card, you cannot receive calls on the second card, but 2 cards are active in standby mode). The first slot is for working in GSM and WCDMA networks, the second is only GSM.


In the engineering menu, which can be called with the * # * # 3646633 # * # * command, we see the supported networks:


The first point corresponds to the support of work in WCDMA-2100 networks (for Ukraine it is the operator Ukrtelecom (aka Trimob)), the second one is WCDMA-900. Unfortunately, I can’t check WCDMA-900, but this item is active in the engineering menu.

Slot for microSD-cards, with which you can expand the internal memory:


2500 mAh battery:

► Screen

And here I was in for a surprise ... Big and beautiful, 5 inches in size. This is the best screen, from those that I met in the smartphones made in China. Neither Jiayu nor ThL even stood next to the screen, which is installed in ZTE V987.
I do not know, maybe the whole trick is that the screen is made according to the OGS (One Glass Solution) technology, when the touchscreen and protective glass are one piece. Very high maximum brightness and image clarity allows you to comfortably use the screen in sunny weather. Of course, when exposed to direct sunlight, even OGS does not save from the mirror effect, but there is a clear advantage compared to other screens.
IPS screen resolution is 1280x720 pixels.
Excellent color reproduction:


Colors are bright, juicy:


Good viewing angles:



In the review THL W8 from my colleague, a discussion was developed about how convenient it is to use a 5-inch phone. At first, I also thought that 5 inches is a lot. But having picked up the ZTE V987, I realized that this is just a great size for the phone. Maybe it's in the design, because of the narrow frame around the screen, the phone does not seem wide (70mm wide).
Compared to the 4.5-inch AMOI N828, the ZTE with 5 inches is only slightly wider. But longer.


The effective area of ​​a 5-inch screen seems much larger than a 4.5-inch one:


Indeed, the design of ZTE turned out to be practical.
Holding the phone in one hand, I manage to reach 75% of the screen size in height:


Since the main functions (calls, sms, keyboard) are at the bottom of the screen - the control is very convenient.
Holding the phone with one hand, it is difficult to reach the quick control panel, you have to help yourself with the second hand.

► Performance

The ZTE V987 is equipped with a 4-core Mediatek MT6589 chip, which is based on the Cortex-A7 processor with a frequency of up to 1.2GHz and the graphics accelerator PowerVR SGX544MP. The amount of RAM - 1GB, constant - 4GB.
Let's look at the results of synthetic tests:
Antutu 3.2.2:

12443 points are a good result for a new platform. This is less than the Samsung Exynos devices are gaining, but there is a clear progress compared with the previous generation, the Mediatek MT6577 dual-core chip.

Quadrant:


Linpack and Vellamo


MT6589 shows good results in the Linpack test. The high value of the HTML 5 test result in Vellamo indicates a good speed of processing web pages.

Nenamark2:

► Games

The modern platform MT6589 performs well with 3D games. For example, with Dead Space:

But due to optimization problems, there are games in which there is a drop in fps. One of these games is Real Racing 3.

Good, precise touchscreen operation is important in arcade games. And the ZTE V987 screen does an excellent job with this task.

► Video

For the Mediatek MT6577 dual-core chip, playing even 720p video was a problem. For MT6589 and 720p and even 1080p video is played smoothly, without jerks and artifacts.

► Browsing the Web

Before that, I used only devices with the Android operating system, and for me some thoughtfulness when opening pages and especially when enlarging the text seemed normal. Until I saw the browser work in iOS ...
ZTE V987 surprised me - the increase in text on the page and scrolling happen very quickly! Of course, the speed of the browser in iOS probably loses, but this is the first Android-smartphone for me, which really quickly reacts to the actions with the page.

► Wifi

The signal level drops depending on the distance to the router, but remains stable.
The level of reception Wifi at a distance of 1 meter without obstacles (left) and at a distance of 5 meters, 1 wall (right):

► GPS

GPS is very fast. Within a minute there are many satellites, the signal level is stable:


5-inch screen is perfect for use as a car navigator.

► Sound

The speaker and the speakerphone sound good. Despite the fact that the speakerphone is very small according to its custom - it makes a very loud sound and does not even wheeze. And picking up the right loud melody you can hear the call even putting the phone in the bag.
But if everything is fine with sound, then you cannot rely on a vibrating alert. Although he is, but the vibration is very weak.

► Software

Android 4.1.2 is preinstalled with minimal changes from ZTE.
The changes only hit the unlock screen. The phone is unlocked by long pressing the screen.


The firmware language is only English and Chinese. But soon this problem will be solved, one of the enthusiastic developers has already received its ZTE V987 and has already begun work on a multilingual firmware build.

Working with 2 SIM cards is very simple: when dialing a number in the status bar, you can choose a card for calls by default, or set up a mode in which a SIM card with which you need to make a call will be requested.
Full settings of SIM cards are in the section Settings-> SIM management. In it, you can disable one of the SIM cards, configure the default card for calls, sms and data transfer. Choose a behavior in roaming, as well as you can "bind" contacts to a particular sim card.


The firmware is preinstalled with many Chinese programs. Several types of market and search for various online stores, QQ messenger, BaiduMaps and others. Fortunately, most of these programs are removed in the usual way; you don’t even need to get Root access.
Several proprietary programs from ZTE are preinstalled:

• ZTE Apps
• ZTE Cloud
• Backup & Restore
• My assistant

I am skeptical of all sorts of utilities that “optimize” performance, but after a closer look at My Assistant, I realized that it can be very useful. Let's take a closer look at possibly this program.

► My Assistant

A large button on the center with the name “Cleanup” analyzes the system and offers to perform actions to improve system performance: closing active applications, deleting cache files.

► Power Manager

View battery usage data, as well as estimated battery performance data at the current charge level. I must say that the prediction is not very correct. In the “My mode” mode, the calculation is made not according to the current situation, but according to a template in which it is indicated that Wifi will always be enabled. Because of this, very small values ​​of battery life are obtained.
In other modes, calculations also suffer from inaccuracy.

► Data use monitor

Traffic usage statistics, setting up access to applications for the Web, setting up daily / monthly traffic restrictions:

► Software manager

Manager of application management, data backup, optimization of the phone by closing active applications, deleting cached files, optimizing the startup list.

► Security

Setting up the Anti-theft system, antivirus, setting up application access to various features, setting up blacklists, creating private contacts, encrypting data:


The “Anti-theft” system allows you to attach a “service number” to the phone, from which you can perform various actions by sending SMS:

• * zte_sd * password # - will block the phone
• * zte_xl * password # - the phone will be blocked and will make a loud sound, even if the profile is set to "silent"
• * zte_cc * password # - the phone will delete all private data (contacts, sms, call history, letters), and also format the memory card
• * zte_dw * password # - the phone will return the coordinates of its location to the SMS with a link to the map

When changing the sim-card in the phone to the “service number”, an SMS with the number of the sim-card that has been installed will be sent.



The idea is good, but ... I could not manage to configure the operation of this application. Perhaps a problem in the service room. Only the format 8 (0xx) -xxxxx was accepted, and the full format +38 (0xx) -xxxxx, or abbreviated 0xx-xxxxxx, did not want to be accepted. In any case, sms were delivered, but the answer did not come.

► work time

ZTE V987 has a 2500 mAh battery installed. On the one hand, this is not so much, for example, the Jiayu G3 has a 2750 mAh battery, and the Lenovo P770 has even more - 3500 mAh.
But on the V987 side, there is an advantage in the form of an energy-efficient processor of the Cortex-A7 architecture. Let's see what results we get in Antutu Battery Tester:

First place in the ranking with 993 points! Of course, this is less than the Lenovo P770 (1257 points), but the result is really good.
With active work with the screen, the smartphone will work for 2-3 days. If you often play games, the battery will last for 1 day. With minimal use (a few minutes of talking per day, sms, 10-15 minutes of Wifi, some games), my smartphone was able to last as many as 7 days.
Self-discharge per night is 1-2%.

► Photo

The ZTE V987 is equipped with a rear 8MP BSI camera. The BSI (back-illuminated sensor) captures as much light as possible to enhance images in dim light.
With good lighting, the pictures are bright:





With poor lighting, BSI should help improve the quality of the picture, but you should not expect miracles from it.
An example of a macro in cloudy weather:

► Pros and cons

Screen
Good performance
Battery life
Good GPS reception
Only 4GB of internal memory
Missing compass

► Price

ZTE V987 with delivery from China will cost you about $ 270.
Is it expensive?
As for a smartphone made in China - it is probably expensive. But for the phone production ZTE, this price is quite justified. There are similar 5-inch solutions from other manufacturers on the same platform, but nowhere else can you find a screen of such high quality.

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