ZTE Blade Vantage 2 Review: Inexpensive Basic Smartphone

ZTE Blade Vantage 2 review as an affordable phone packed with essential features. Find out the review on performance, battery life, and other areas.

Blade Vantage 2 is one of the budget phones released by ZTE. Released in 2019, this phone features a 5-inch display, a Quad-core processor, and a 5 MP camera.

It uses the latest Android released in the same year, Android Pie. You can buy the phone for under $100. It does sound tempting.

But before saying goodbye to your money, let’s see the phone’s specs more deeply. This ZTE Blade Vantage 2 review examines the phone on performance, design, and many other areas.

Let’s find out if it can be an option for those looking for a cheap phone but with decent capabilities.

Key Specs

ZTE Blade Vantage 2 specifications:

• Weight: 5.3 oz
• Dimensions: 5.4 x 2.7 x 0.41 in
• OS: Android 9
• Screen size: 5.0-inch
• Resolution: 854 x 480
• CPU: 2GHz Quad-core, MediaTek MT6761
• RAM: 2GB
• Storage: 16GB
• Battery: 2,050mAh
• Rear camera: 5MP
• Front camera: 2MP

Design

The word “different” is the first thing that comes to mind when looking at the Vantage 2 design. It’s unlike the smartphone design you commonly see. It looks more like a tablet phone, only with a 5-inch display.

The resemblance is apparent on the left and right bezels. It’s thicker than the typical design of a phone. As you can guess, there’s no bezel-less or infinity display with this choice of design.

It makes the phone look outdated, like a model that was released circa 5 years ago. If appearance is important for you, you should consider looking somewhere else. But customers who don’t mind about looks will do just fine with this phone.

The body is made of plastic. I won’t say it looks expensive. It’s clear that the phone cuts corners when it comes to material. The dimension, however, is perfect at 5.4-inch height and 2.7-inch width.

The size fits perfectly for one-handed use. The overall design is quite slim as well. As for color, the only option is black.

The back cover has textures for an anti-slip effect. Here, you’ll also find the camera and the LED flash. There are logos of Verizon and ZTE itself.

On the front, the speaker and the camera are located on the top bezel. Ports and keys are placed in a way that it’s easy to access. The overall design is ergonomic.

Read also: ZTE Blade Vantage 2 User Manual

Display

ZTE Blade Vantage 2 features a 5-inch screen. It’s an average size for a phone nowadays, but at least the display has an 18:9 aspect ratio. Enjoy wide eye video viewing with this phone. The size and ratio give plenty of space for apps as well. You can

There will be a lot of compromises to be made with Vantage 2 display quality. This phone uses an FWVGA TFT display. It’s not the best you can find on a budget phone.

You would notice less vibrancy in some cases, along with pixelated texts and icons. The brightness struggles during outdoor use. You have to cover the screen to use it, even after adjusting the brightness to the maximum level.

The viewing angle is not wide either. Colors are the sharpest when the phone is viewed straight from the front. But someone on the furthest side of the group will have a problem seeing things on the screen clearly.

For daily use, the mentioned condition above is a bearable compromise. Especially if you don’t heavily spend your time on your phone.

But avid users who like to watch videos a lot on the phone may feel dissatisfied with the screen quality. In the end, it depends on what consumers need and which kind of compromise they’re willing to make.

Camera

The 5MP camera of Blade Vantage 2 will do enough for occasional picture snapping. But don’t expect anything near professional just like a high-end phone would offer.

With that resolution, I consider the camera subpar. ZTE could have installed this camera resolution on the front-facing camera instead.

The front camera itself comes with a 2MP resolution. Again, lower your expectations of selfies. It’s a camera suitable for video calls more than to take a vacation photo you’d like to keep for memories. There’s an LED flash on the rear camera, while the front camera doesn’t come with one.

Results from the camera are okay-ish. It’s hard to ignore the lack of vibrancy in colors. Overexposed pictures happen when dealing with bright background light. In low light situations, you can see noises in the shooting results.

This camera captures a maximum of 720p video resolution. There’s no additional feature for the camcorder such as image stabilization.

At least there are some interesting features on the camera app. I can play around with these features to create better results.

There’s a manual mode where users can adjust “metering”. It’s some kind of exposure setting to control the light input to the camera lens. Other features include Live Filter and 4x zoom.

Storage

ZTE Blade Vantage 2 comes with a 16GB of internal memory. With this capacity, you’ll get adequate space to store files such as pictures and music files. It’s an average capacity and I wasn’t expecting larger storage space. For an entry-level phone, 16GB is like a consensus.

However, that space will run out quickly after installing apps and games. Fortunately, ZTE provides an expandable storage option. The allowed capacity is also high. You can add as many as 256 GB to the phone’s storage using an SD card.

But remember that it means buyers will have to purchase an SD card by themselves. It is not included with the phone purchase.

Performance

ZTE Blade Vantage 2 runs on MediaTek MT6761 chipset. It’s a Quad-core 2GHz processor. I rarely had a good impression with budget phones running on MediaTek processors. And it seems like this phone is no exception. The processor itself is specifically created for entry-level phones.

Though mostly it shows no issue, sometimes it’s apparent that the phone struggles beyond doing basic tasks. MediaTek didn’t design the processor for mobile games and demanding apps.

Therefore it’s clear that this phone targets casual non-techie customers. There’s no dedicated GPU as well. Meanwhile, the RAM capacity is an acceptable 2GB. It’s enough for a phone like Blade Vantage 2.

As for the operating system, the phone is easy to navigate. Beginners won’t have a problem learning the features available. It runs on Android 9 Pie, so you can enjoy the latest customization and software optimization from Google.

The user experience with the Vantage 2’s Android is pretty intuitive. The Home screen looks clean without unnecessary clutters.

The app screen can be accessed only with a single swipe. Getting around the phone’s menu is generally easy. Pre-installed OEM apps and Google apps are immediately ready to use.

Blade Vantage 2 uses the vanilla version of Android. There’s not much bloatware that could hinder the phone’s performance. You would still encounter carrier apps such as the ones from Verizon.

But there are no custom themes and sponsored apps from companies that partner with ZTE. It means if you want to install Facebook, for example, you would need to install it yourself from the Play Store.

The verdict for ZTE Blade Vantage 2 review for software is largely positive. Shortcuts and Widgets make it easier to access functions users use frequently. There’s a split-screen mode to stack two apps at once.

If you want to improve the performance by disabling pre-installed apps, that option is also available.

This phone is well-equipped with accessibility features. It offers Adjustable Text Size and Text Telephone (TTY) Compatibility. Blade Vantage 2 is also hearing aid compatible with the M4/T3 rating.

Meanwhile, Google Assistant provides the capability of navigating your phone using voice commands.

To conclude, ZTE Blade Vantage 2 performance is worth the price. You won’t get killer processing power, but this phone is decent for everyday use. The key advantage lies in the recent version of Android. Also, the fact that it doesn’t come with any modification by the manufacturer.

Connectivity

Today’s phone consumers know not to settle for less when it comes to connectivity. So it’s not surprising that ZTE Blade Vantage 2 doesn’t cut corners here, unlike in other areas.

You got 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Every common feature is available including GPS for location finding. What’s missing is NFC, which is expected on a budget phone.

The phone also provides Hotspot and tethering for up to 10 devices. Such flexibility makes this phone a good portable modem. ZTE apparently decided that a USB Type-C is outside the phone’s price range. So users will have to be satisfied with MicroUSB for the phone’s USB connection.

Battery

The battery that powers ZTE Blade Vantage 2 has the capacity of 2050mAh. This phone boats power-efficient battery. The phone itself has minimal specs, either the processor and the display.

Therefore it’s easy to stretch the battery juice for as long as 24 hours. On standby, the phone could reach up to 10 days.

In reality, the number is lower than that depending on usage. But you can always activate Vantage’s energy-saving options.

They’re called Smart Power Modes and range from the standard Power Saver to Ultra Power Saver mode. I found these features help to get the most of the battery life.

Is the ZTE Blade Vantage 2 a good phone?

ZTE Blade Vantage 2 is clearly a phone for a very casual phone consumer. It focuses on essentials and shies away from fancy features. If you consider yourself low-maintenance when it comes to technology, this phone got everything you need. And that includes a fully working network capability (4G LTE, Wi-Fi, and Hotspot), the new Android, and long battery life.

The major compromises you have to make are the camera and the display quality. It’s the best you can get for $59.99, which is the retail price of Vantage 2. In the end, it’s up to the consumers. Before buying, consider the pros and cons as explained above.

Do you think ZTE Blade Vantage 2 review is informative enough to help you decide? Shoot us a question on the comment section below if you want to ask about this phone more. We hope we can help clear your confusion.