Ah! The ZTE Zmax! A phone with a 5.7-inch screen. That’s my kind of thing. I think phones with screens smaller than 5.5-inches are too small.
What sets this one apart from others is its affordability: US$252, off contract. And it’s being sold by T-Mobile and can use their 4G network.
So, what’s not to like?
The first stop is always this joint, so I can get to the Google Books PDF Test page for the links. But this is the stupid Mobile version:
I need the full Desktop version:
And my attempt …
… which included not only The People of the Abyss, but the iOS condensed version of The American Magazine.
And Foxit Mobile PDF straight from the Google Play Store:
And things got painful. The American Magazine was taking way too long to download, even though it’s only about 30MBs. Along the way, the download got bollixed and aborted, so I was left with just The People of the Abyss:
Click the below to see the rendering of the text:
Ick. That’s reminiscent of the Acer Iconia A1-830.
But here’s the thing: I can read it. At the smaller screen size, the text doesn’t look awful as it did on the 7.9-inch Acer Iconia A1-830. It’s readable.
I would have liked to have tried The American Magazine test too, but it wasn’t happening.
But this test did answer my question: Could I read smaller Google Books PDFs on such a phone? Yes. Not only are they readable, the rendering and paging speed is entirely acceptable.
Now the video:
As for the phone itself, it finally got a review while I was out and about doing this test:
They give it an 8. It seems more like a 7 to me.
I’m in no hurry to choose anything. The Google Nexus 6 — with an even bigger screen, plus a likely Snapdragon 805 CPU with Android L — will debut later this month. Sure, it’ll cost more but what it delivers will probably be more than any multiple of its price over the ZTE Zmax. We’ll see.
Previously here:
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