The ZTE Blade S6 is an affordable smartphone with a 5 inch display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 64-bit octa-core processor, and Android 5.0 software. But if you’re looking for something a little bigger, ZTE has another model called the Blade S6 Plus.
It looks a lot like the 5 inch phone, but sports a 5.5 inch pixel display and a bigger battery.
Both phones have 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, 13MP rear cameras, 5MP front cameras, dual SIM card slots, and microSDXC card readers with support for up to 128GB of removable storage.
Both support WiFi, Bluetooth, and 4G LTE (in certain regions), both have 1280 x 720 pixel screens, and both run ZTE’s custom user interface on top of Android 5.0 Lollipop.
While the 5 inch phone has a 2,400 mAh battery, the 5.5 inch Blade S6 Plus has a bigger 3,000 mAh battery.
I spotted a listing for the Blade S6 Plus while browsing the Wi-Fi Alliance website for recently certified devices. A little digging uncovered some specs and a product listing at online retailer Gearbest, which is selling the Chinese phone internationally for about $300.
Like the ZTE Blade S6 (which is available from Geekbuying for $220), the phone supports the following network bands:
- GSM 850/900/1800/1900MHz
- WCDMA 900/2100MHz
- FDD-LTE 800/900/1800/2600MHz
In plain English, that means you can use the phone with ATT or T-Mobile int he United States… but you won’t get LTE or even 3G speeds. You’ll pretty much be stuck with 2G/EDGE data speeds. So while this is a relatively nice looking phone for the price and it shows what Chinese device maker ZTE can do… it might not be the best option for folks looking for a phone to use in the US.
Oh, and if you feel like this isn’t the first time you’ve heard about larger version of the ZTE Blade S6 recently, that might be because we covered a phone called the ZTE Q7-C last month. As far as I can tell, that’s a version of the S6 Plus sold through Chinese wireless carrier China Telecom.
Process this year should fall for cell phones since most things people want in a phone had been done. Screen resolution at current specs are more than adequate. Speed for a phone and it’s apps is fine. Have not seen the next cool thing.
Um.. battery life?
Well I guess you got me there.
Yeah I don’t need more, I need better done. Hell the phone I bought a couple months ago is 720p because that’s enough for me.
Battery life is a prime pick.
Removable storage (I saw a premium phone with 2 sd card slots – AWESOME! My n800 had that too)
Brighter screen for sunlight
clearer voice/better phone speaker
OS more consistent with stock
A backup/restore utility built in that can save specific app data without me having to plug into a PC (helium)
I’d love a phone that take USB mini-A. I don’t think I’ve ever had a broken mini-A port.
Brad, with there being several decent options you can buy from China that do work on ATT/Cricket, it seems strange that you often chose to profile phones with incompatible radios.