ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G review

Hey what's up guys will be here for gsm

arena even if you've never heard of

zte's axon series before.

their latest phone looks quite

interesting it's the ZTE

axon 30 ultra 5g now that's a mouthful

but on top of flagship specs, it has 200

megapixels worth of cameras on the back

let's see what it's all about in our

full review.

the axon 30 ultra is a flagship phone

made of gorilla glass 5 with a metal

frame

with this flat back, it has quite a clean

look with the most notable feature being

the huge island for those high reses

cameras.

ours is in this smooth matte black

finish and the razer thin

the frame adds some grip as well the phone

isn't too heavy

and the thin bezels on the front side

are impressive

although this is a flagship device you

do miss out on any sort of official

waterproofing here

but you might argue this is already

reflected in the price

as this is one of the more affordable

flagship camera phones around

the axon 30 ultra screen is a curved

6.67-inch AMOLED protected by gorilla

glass 5

with a 1080p resolution a super fast

144hz refresh rate

and a 300hz touch sampling rate this

means that the display is quite

responsive

and motion on screen like swiping or

scrolling looks extra smooth

it's not as adaptive as other flagship

displays auto mode and settings tend to

lock things at 90 hertz

enabling 144hz mode will get you this on

the home screen and UI

but nowhere else really as we were

capped at 120 fps for supported games

despite being lower res than the higher

tier flagships

this display looks good you get deep

blacks hdr 10 plus support

and decent but not outstanding max

brightness for this class

550 nits with the slider and 200 nits in

auto mode when in bright sun

colors aren't the most accurate by

default but you can get them close if

you fiddle with the color settings

there's support for an always-on display

and there's also an optical fingerprint

reader sitting under the display

it sits a bit higher up than what we

usually see but is quite fast to wake up

and unlock the phone

the axon 30 ultra doesn't have a

headphone jack but it does have stereo

speakers

there's one located at the bottom and

the other is near the top and doubles as

the earpiece

they earned a very good rating on our

loudness charts and sound quality is

decent

with clean vocals, there's not much for

bass though

you can fit plenty of music or other

media on this phone

while storage isn't expandable you can

opt for up to a terabyte of space on

board

the interface of the axon 30 ultra 5g is

Maya os version 11

based on android 11. it's quite close to

stock android with most of the

differences here being cosmetic

the app drawer is a pretty standard-issue

as is the task switcher

but the notification shade is different

on the first swipe, you get four large

bubbles with wi-fi

Bluetooth mobile data and flashlight

the settings menu is also custom with

zte's organization and icons

the about phone screen is particularly

nice-looking

and through the screen edge mistouch

prevention panel

you can make the screen's curved edges

less sensitive to input

handy if you keep running into

accidental activations

there is also something called z-pop

it's an arrow shortcut on the home

screen through which you can access

shortcuts

behind all of these features is this

year's top tier Qualcomm chipset the 5

nanometer snapdragon 88

it's at the heart of this year's top

performing android phones

and in benchmarks the zte axon 30 ultra

5g

sits right alongside them both in CPU

and GPU tests

unfortunately, we did notice some thermal

throttling after prolonged heavy use

however, this is common across many of

these high-powered flagships

which don't have an intensive setup for

cooling

the axon 30 ultra is powered by a 4 600

milliamp-hour battery

which is pretty average for this class

and no surprise

the battery life here is average as well

it's not bad though

the phone earned an endurance rating of

91 hours in our proprietary tests

for charging the phone comes with a 65

watt power delivery adapter

and it was able to charge from zero to

74 percent in half an hour

this is quite fast though not as fast as

some competitors these days

finally, let's get into axon 30

ultra's quad-camera setup

there's a main camera with the sony 64

megapixel quad bear sensor and ois

then there's an ultra-wide cam and a 35

millimeter equivalent portrait camera

both with a 64-megapixel quad bear

Samsung sensor

and finally, there's an 8 megapixel

optically stabilized periscope telephoto

cam with five times optical zoom

let's start with the main camera in

daylight these shots come out at 16

megapixels

and while they aren't best in class they

are great

colors are lively white balance is

accurate and the dynamic range is wide

the detail levels are excellent too but

the rendition isn't the most natural

with some heavy sharpening visible at

times

16-megapixel shots from the ultra-wide

the camera is also great in quality

the images are sharp and the detail

the level is excellent and the dynamic range is

nice

ZTE Axon 30 Ultra 5G review

the colors are more saturated than the

main cams though and you don't get out

of focus on this camera

portraits are taken with the dedicated

portrait cam in good lighting these 16

megapixel photos are excellent

with great detail wide dynamic range and

nearly perfect subject edge detection

you do have to have plenty of

light though you can also snap some

regular photos with this camera with

that 35-millimeter look

these are sharp and quite nice looking

with a wide dynamic range

and colors quite similar to the main

cams if you zoom to two times

magnification

the phone will do it by cropping and

upscaling from the portrait camera

as a result, these photos are a bit soft

and the software tries to compensate by

adding extra sharpening on top

five times zoomed photos taken from the

periscope telephoto cam is actually

upscaled from 8 megapixels to 16 in

order to match the other cameras

this means that these shots also aren't

tack sharp particularly for

fine details besides that though colors

are nice and dynamic range is good

at night photos from the main cam are

just average in quality

there's plenty of detail in well-lit

areas but these shots are overall

underexposed

and dynamic range is narrow night mode

brings a dramatic improvement in exposure

and dynamic range

highlights are preserved and shadows are

lifted the trade-off is that these

photos are a bit softer

the ultra-wide cam struggles in low

light the photos are dark

while lit areas do have good sharpness

and detail though

again night mode helps a ton at the cost

of some softness

highlights are rained in and shadows are

boosted revealing detail and color

at two-times digital zoom shots from the

The portrait cam look okay

with good sharpness and detail but

narrow dynamic range

night mode adds a big improvement to the

highlights and shadows

and detail at the extremes gets a nice

boost too

five times zoom shots from the telephoto

cam isn't great in low light

they're again underexposed with narrow

dynamic range

and there's no night mode support on

These camera selfies are taken with a 16

megapixel front-facing cam

and the results are decent overall

they're well exposed with ok dynamic

range and pleasing colors

the detail level depends on the

lighting though

the zte axon 30 ultra 5g records video

and up to 8k resolution at 30fps

from its main camera, this footage isn't

impressive though the detail level

doesn't seem much more than 4k

and we're not fans of the rendition

dynamic range is average too

we do like the colors through 4k video

from the main cam has plenty of detail

which is a bit grittier and more heavily

processed than some competitors

the dynamic range isn't that wide but

the colors are again likable

clicking on 2 x zoom on the viewfinder

will switch you to the portrait cam

and it records at the native

1.3 times magnification

you get more natural processing than the

main cam as well as wider dynamic range

the ultra-wide camera's 4k footage is

very sharp and detailed

dynamic range is ok but not too wide

while colors are more saturated than on

the other cameras

the periscope telephoto shoots in 1080p

and it's good enough

detail is about what you'd expect at

this resolution and dynamic range is

okay

electronic stabilization is available on

all four cameras in all modes

except for 8k, the results are excellent

walking is nicely ironed out and pans

are smooth

so that's the zte axon 30 ultra 5g

you get a standout design made with the

premium materials a curved high refresh

right AMOLED with thin bezels

a flagship-grade chipset fast charging

and some great and versatile cameras

there are some things we would have

liked to see here though like

waterproofing and wireless charging

and there are some competitors with

brighter and higher res displays

but still, even though it has ultra in

the name of this phone is much cheaper than

the highest tier flagships

and outside of those, it offers one of

the best camera experiences you can get

so if that's what you're after the axon

30 ultra deserves a recommendation.