ZTE Blade S6 hands-on

The ZTE Blade S6 is an affordable 64-bit Android handset, which can be bought for about $250, should you choose to import it. Sporting just a single capacitive button on its front, and rounded-off, metallic looks, the handset looks rather... familiar.

Design

The ZTE Blade S6 reminds us of the iPhone 6 – it bears the same marking of design language, with its curved sides, round (still, capacitive) home button, and flat back. Still, the Blade has a plastic chassis, though, its finish does imitate aluminum. Its home button glows in blue, which we found to be a nice touch, while the Android "Menu" and "Back" capacitive keys are disguised as small dots on both sides of the circle.

Display

The display is not crazy-big, measuring 5" across its diagonal, and sports a 720 x 1280 resolution, which gives us a not-as-bad 294 PPI density. Viewing angles are generous and the display's colors are vibrant and punchy.

Processor and memory

The Blade S6 sports a 64-bit octa-core Snapdragon 615, clocked at 1.7 GHz. We have some experience with phones, powered by this processor, and we'd say it's an adequate one – doesn't seem to chop up easily and can carry out everyday tasks nicely. It has 2 GB of RAM, keeping it well planted in midrange land, and 16 GB of microSD-expandable storage. Overally, we'd say the phone was responsive and fast.

Interface

The phone comes with Android 5.0 Lollipop, skinned by ZTE to offer its own type of experience. The interface seems to be light and minimalistic, as it doesn't add a crazy amount of features, and removes the app drawer only leaving the homescreens as the user's playground.

Expectations

Overally, the ZTE Blade S6 looks like a solid midranger for the price. The Snapdragon 615 is by no means a bad SoC, and having to push just a 720p screen will not put too much strain on it. ZTE's interface delivers an intuitive user experience, and a 13 MP / 5 MP camera combo sounds pretty potent for a phone in the ~$250 (off-contract) range.