[ZTE Axon 7 Guides, News, & Discussion] mahst68:
PURPOSE

So 1st and foremost, the plan here is to give you my experience with these 2 phones. Granted, I have only used the Axon 7 for about 3 days now and can say I have yet to fully break it in to find everything that may or may not be right / wrong with it. However, this will be a unbiased look and comparison. I'm neither a fanboy or sheep. No brand affiliation. Not a programmer either, just a pro-sumer Senior Member of XDA willing to get trolled, flamed, etc. for sharing a look at these 2 phones. Hopefully, I can give "the everyday guy / gal look" without getting bogged down in stats, variables or benchmarks. Here goes...

MY BACKGROUND

No one special. Just a guy that likes the latest tech... phones being at the top of the list. I am a nerd. No doubt about that. I think anyone that knows about XDA probably is to some extent. No brand loyalty. Recently, I have had the privilege to try out the following phones:

1. Axon 7

2. OnePlus 3

3. HTC 10

4. LeEcco Le Max 2

5. Huawei P9

6. LG G5

7. Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge

8. Huawei Mate 8

9. Huawei Nexus 6P

10. LG Nexus 5X

11. Samsung Note 5

12. Apple iPhone 6s+

And probably some more, but these are the most recent. Does that make me qualified to make a review... Maybe. It does make me an idiot that likes new phones, though. I am always looking for something that meets my needs but also is a good phone. Currently with TMobile but have been with ATT, Verizon & Sprint at some point over 20 years of using cell phones.

MY NEEDS

I drive about 40 miles everyday to work (yes, my work week is currently 7 days a week with a few occasional days off). So, with this in mind and where I drive, I need the minimum requirements:

1. Can Stream Music

2. Bluetooth is fully compatible with my 2016 vehicle

3. An equalizer of some sort since I have only switch out my new cars speakers for better ones and don't plan on changing or adding a better sound system.

4. Decent pictures when needed

5. As a nerd, I like to "mesmerize" people with a pay with your phone app like Apple Pay or Android Pay

6. Works with my Huawei Watch

7. Relatively not laggy - will sometimes do some ROM-ing or some customization but since I tend to get rid of the phones quickly I try not to void warranties or make it too non-stock

THE COMPARISON

I am looking at my experience with the OnePlus 3 and the Axon 7 under/around these requirements and some normal stuff like battery, screen, snappiness, heat, speakers, etc. Here goes:

SOUND OVERALL

There is not too many times when I do a review comparison where 1 phone just crushes the other... and I don't mean like crushing an empty aluminum beer can in your hand crushing... I mean like BigFoot crushing late model junk cars at the end of a Monster Truck Rally Crushin'.... 'Mericaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!! Sorry got carried away there a second. Honestly, how phone manufacturers cannot include a system-wide sound equalizer with all the other STUPID GUI tweaks and bastardizations they do to Android especially is beyond me in 2016. Most people are transitioning to bluetooth headphones or have bluetooth in their cars and for the most part use streaming services to/for music. Yes, there is the occasional dude with the $1000 plug-in headphones that also plugs into a in-line $2000 DAC that only listens to download Loseless Quality Music with the Music App that came with the phone.... with a show of hands, how many fall into this category??? Then why pray tell is this the only music equalization most manufacturers are catering too on their phones (Apple included)? I don't know just wanted to rant a little. With that said though, the inclusion of Dolby ATMOS without having to root on the Axon 7 plus its dual stereo forward facing speakers makes this a non-competition. Yes, you could add ViperATMOSBeatsDon'tcare Mod.zip to a rooted TWRP OnePlus 3... but why should I have to? Why can't some system-wide equalizer be included Mr. FlagShip Killer? Look at their own Community Forum and its one of the most active requests since the OnePlus 3 came out (along with actually using all the RAM the phone has)... Good Work ZTE!!! I'm sure for all you headphone people too that the AXON 7 would dominate even though I have zero to judge that on since I have never taken either the OnePlus 3's headphones nor the AXON 7's headphones out of the box.

WINNER: AXON 7 BigFoot- Crushing OnePlus 3 Grave Digger.

BATTERY

People get bent out of shape nowadays about the "wall hugger" syndrome... this is the need to re-charge your phone more than once, twice, 3-times etc. per day and being attached to a charger constantly. Well, we only have ourselves and technology to blame. Battery technology has yet to progress to a point that adequately matches all the other advances cell phones have made... I can remember in the 90's getting my first Li-ion Battery Cell Phone and was like "WOW!!! I can charge this anytime I want, days of battery life, no need to discharge the whole phone before recharging and no need for extra batteries..." Fast forward almost 30 years... AND its the same type of battery... So no phone truly wins here until technology gets better. This too along with our need for skinny things... women, cocktails, bank account, soda, etc. have phones getting increasingly skinnier without ever considering what it has do with the battery is disturbing. If only we could get back to the simpler times of a bagphone, then the battery could be as big as you want it... AHHH, the simpler times. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Really though, the batteries on both phones perform very similar in my use. The place where they differ the most is the charging. For OnePlus 3, you have to use their proprietary DASH Charge as oppose to QuickCharge 3.0. This means you can only buy OnePlus 3 chargers (or some not trustworthy knock offs) to take advantage of feature... it's not so bad now that they made the car charger available again on their website and the phone comes with a wall plug with the feature... it's just a departure from the standard many others are using and requires new accessory purchases... basically a OnePlus Money Grab.... DASH Charge is slightly faster but not enough for anyone but a battery loving neophyte to really take notice.

WINNER: AXON 7 - Sorry QuickCharge 3.0 Industry Standard beats proprietary DASH Charge even though DASH Charge is slightly faster.

HEAT

Not going to spend much time here. Both phones run Snapdragon 820's. Both phones are metal... guess what... they get hot under stress... so no winners here, only losers. Neither had to be powered off for getting too hot though, like my S7 needed to when I was doing its initial setup... so there's that. :good:

WINNER: Both or None... They get hot under processor stress and in the dreaded "At an event and have your camera constantly on then stick it in your pocket only to have 3rd degree burns on your thighs or butt" Test

SNAPPINESS

Neither phone I have taken the time to Mod or root or stare at compassionately... but both perform really well like they should. Now, let the 6GB vs. 4GB debates begin!!! First, it is well known that even after 2 updates, the OnePlus 3's RAM management is still wonky and does not fully utilize all that RAM. No matter. I can't see an advantage yet. Yes you could AnTuTu-whogivesapoop test them all day. I rather just talked about how using the phone feels. Neither have extensive bastardizations over stock android so neither grinds the phone to a halt like TouchWizCement does. I run the BETA of Sense 8 Launcher for All Android Phones on both. Both phones perform well with it. I have played Pokemon GO! on both along with Clash Royale... both run fine. GPS works good on both and locks in fairly quickly. It isn't the best I have seen but not the LG Worst either :p Until there's another processor to look at, I think most manufacturers are taking full advantage of the limits of the 820. Throwing RAM at it doesn't dramatically do anything either. I guess it good to always have it in your back pocket if needed.

WINNER: ONEPLUS 3 - Simply because it has more RAM, no real-world experience proves it faster. Fanboy Benchmarkers withstanding

************DISCLAIMER / NEWSFLASH************* FOR IT PEOPLE FROM NEW JERSEY AND/OR GENERAL KNOW-IT-ALLS

YES... One can easily claim that RAM on the face of it has nothing to do with Snappiness since no present day Android phone fully utilizes 4GB let alone 6GB of RAM... The point to be made here is that the OP3 although having more RAM has no advantage in snappiness over an AXON 7. With that said, since both phones cost the same, neither phone is snappier, why not pick the one with more RAM based on stats alone... for this particularly on the face of it unrelated category? Furthermore, there has been many tests of the OP3 that show that RAM in a way DOES influence its snappiness when compared to 4GB phones... not because of the amount of RAM but by OP3's RAM MANAGEMENT. Lastly, although it may seem like a marketing ploy now for OP3 to have 6GB of RAM since it is not needed since it is not utilized.... I have kind of heard this argument before... when phones had 1GB of RAM and 2GB phones were introduced, then when 3GB phones were introduced, etc. etc. and from basically every iSheep out there, that more RAM does not necessarily make a phone better or faster. Albeit true for the most part for Apple because they spend a vast amount of time developing their RAM Management and have iOS lock down, for Android and what seems to be a lack of development on this front, RAM amounts increase to handle the sloppiness of the RAM Management and/or lack of focus on developing this overlooked section of the phone's programming. Basically, OP3 moves the needle for better or worst towards 6GB at the same price as 4GB... more is more in this one scenario only...

DISPLAY

Not much to mention here either. Both have good displays. On paper, the AXON 7's is better. I would say that the average person not knowing that one has higher resolution than the other would have a hard time calling it out. Color reproduction is about the same on both as well. Neither have a "always-on" feature which would have been nice. Both have LED's for notifications. Here's where once again you just have to stick with the stats and say....

WINNER: AXON 7 - higher stats mean better screen right!!!!??? :eek:

PHONE DESIGN

Wow! a bit to talk about here. Let's start on both phones exterior features and design. Both are designed well. Definitely not ugly by any stretch of the imagination. The AXON 7 was designed with help from BMW and significantly improves on the previous generation iteration, like having actual speakers in both of the speaker grill looking forward facing top and bottom of screen. I do have the gold AXON 7... the color isn't the greatest but I wasn't going to wait for the gray one to come out to test it... I might return the gold for a gray if they become available in my return window. The OnePlus 3 is a pretty phone too. It doesn't have a firm like BMW attached to it, but one feels they did a good job of improving on the OnePlus 2 design without getting away from their bread and butter core design elements. With that, I love the alert slider... call me an isheep but I feel to this day that it is the single greatest design advantage the iPhone has had over any Android phone for years now. Although not as perfectly functional as Apples is, the OnePlus 3 is a great feature. Both have excellent fingerprint readers. Very fast. For my use case, a front facing fingerprint reader is better. That's my use case, in a cradle, in my car, that I get in and out of while sometime leaving my phone in the cradle, makes the front facing reader slightly more convenient. NFC chip and camera placement good on both as well. AXON 7 does have one design characteristic that I found annoying and I noticed while playing Clash Royale.... the power button is on the right side of the phone near the center. While playing and trying to drag drop to the top of the screen, you can easily inadvertently toggle the on/off button, this might be the button is overly sensitive or just my clumsiness. OnePlus 3 scores some extras too with swapstyle cases... Why can't other phone manufacturers take notes here. I think it is great that I can get relatively cheap exclusively designed nice looking cases for my OnePlus 3... for the AXON 7, I'm stuck with Chinese knock off cheesy poop designed cases with TPU raining from skies... I need a case and sure the first thing that comes to mind when I get a nice looking professionally designed by BMW phone is to put it into a TPU trashcan of a case because 0.0 (zero point zero) cases by ZTE are available or even look worthy of residing on the phone.... yep, I so love it. AXON 7 does step it up with one thing, SD card compatibility. More storage... sure I can use that anytime...

WINNER: TIED - OnePlus 3 would have won here, but not having SD Card capability is just dumb... especially since you used the space for a dual SIM.

*********************ADDITIONAL DESIGN DISCUSSION************CAPACITIVE BUTTONS ON THE AXON 7**********************

Purposely I left this discussion out about the capacitive buttons on the AXON 7. WHY? You may ask. At first, like many, when I heard that not only does the AXON 7 only have capacitive buttons without the option to toggle to turn them off for on-screen buttons, the buttons themselves do not light up, did make me a little worried. But to not buy a phone based on a untested worry is just fear mongering at it best, plus I bought my AXON 7 from Amazon so that I could easily return it if I hated it. Well, surprisingly the capacitive button "issue" is really just a bunch of hype... yes, I do think that OP3 has the advantage here with the toggle for on-screen and that its buttons light up. However, the AXON 7 does provide a on-screen button solution although it is way more sloppy looks wise then OP3's. The whole light up button thing to me can be excused by what was an intentional design choice by ZTE. So, unlike the OP3 which has its all app and back buttons spread out along the bottom of the display, the AXON 7 distinctively has its all-app and back buttons crowded towards the center closer to the central home button. Why do this? Well, from my use in dark rooms and at night, it makes not seeing the actual buttons not an issue. Let me explain further. I know from muscle memory that the home button is in center of the bottom of screen... pretty easy to hit in a completely dark room unless I'm drunk that is... being able to do this on muscle memory then in turn with a slight adjustment to the right, makes it easy to hit the back button (setup for right hand in the AXON 7's setting) and same to the left with the all apps button. If the buttons were spaced out like OP3's without lights then it would be an issue... but in this case and what I hope is design answering function, the AXON 7 doesn't have an issue... once again to me, maybe not you.... hahahahaha

CAMERA

I have done a couple of these reviews and every time I point out that I am not a big fan of cameras on phones. I went to school for photography and movie making back when film was still used. Have seen lenses that cost more than my current house and have seen Ansel Adams original prints first hand. So, it makes me a camera snob... thus, my opinion of on phone cameras is that they are all Bantha PooDoo. However, improvements are made with every new phone and even though innovations have seem to slow in favor of the pixel wars... one day they might be great.

Looking at both and later I will put up some similar shots from both, each phone have decent cameras. The OnePlus performs better in low light especially however I would not count the AXON 7 out in the cold as I feel that the AXON 7's low light difficulties might be able to be corrected with feature updates. The AXON 7 does have it's ripoff version of a "live photo" that works pretty decent plus some decent scenario modes that just work better for pictures I may take. The OnePlus 3's camera software is just basic with good custom manual settings. The AXON 7 has manual mode as well. Like I said, I will upload some similar shots from each and you can decide.

WINNER: TBD

CONCLUSION

So, what can I conclude? Both phones are awesome... Both have plus and minuses. I don't think there's a clear hands down winner and would not want to argue that point. I can only tell you that beyond everything else that the lack of a system-wide equalizer for sound just annoys little brown stinkies out of me. My commute to work is a big part of my day sometimes 7 days a week. I want to listen to Sirius XM app and Google Play Music so it sound great in my car. I want to set some equalization that make it sound awesome then forget it is even there. Not constant resetting of bass boost, tweaking sound to have it all reset again and again. Why provide a basic equalizer in Google Play Music on the OnePlus 3 that always has the bass setting reset when a call comes in, you switch to a new app or the crappy RAM Management software kicks it out of memory even though you locked it into memory on the all apps screen? That just pains me... If OnePlus does listen to their customer base, maybe just maybe they will add one in a future OTA update. Who knows. Having had the original AXON, I have to say that this phone is definitely an improvement and is worth checking out if you liked the original. I am still a little off-put by the fact that ZTE has done very little to support this phone with accessories like cases and stuff making me hit Aliexpress for the Oscar the Grouch specials that they have there. Could you survive with either one of these phones as your next new phone... of course! Hopefully, this little review will help you out in that decision. Lastly and as always, this is just Some Guys Opinion...

:highfive: