With how important it is to stay connected to the Internet, thinking about the speed of which data comes and goes is an important factor.
This is why smartphones nowadays are competitive to release a 5G smartphone capable of letting their users stay online and provide adequate performance.
Enter the Smart ZTE Blade A75 5G — one of the, if not, the cheapest 5G smartphone in the market this 2024 so far. This, as the name suggests, is also a Smart-exclusive device.
How does it fare? Read more to find out.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
The ZTE Blade A75 comes with a plastic frame and a glossy rear. You would be able to see yourself a bit when you look at the back of the phone and, in some angles, your fingerprint smudges.
It comes included with a transparent rubber case for some protection. This should defend the phone from small drops, scuffs, scratches and fingerprints.
The most evident thing on the Smart ZTE Blade A75 5G is its circular rear camera which covers almost half of the back. You can see the main shooter right in the middle with the other lens on the left side and the flash on the right. It’s not something you see in every smartphone, especially at this price point. We’ll talk more about how the camera performs in a bit.
There’s no protection certification or IP rating specified here on this device so you might want to be careful with how you handle it.
Other than that, the ZTE Blade A75 is not too heavy and it’s thin enough to slip in my pockets. It doesn’t feel as cheap compared to other phones in this price point so I really appreciate its build.
For I/O, you’ve got the volume rocker and power buttons on the right side, USB Type C port for charging and 3.5mm audio port at the bottom, while the left side is where the SIM card tray is located.
Display, Biometrics and Multimedia
With the ZTE Blade A75, you get a 6.6-inch IPS LCD display with up to 120Hz and a 720 x 1600 resolution.
The bezels are not too thin, but they aren’t as thick either. You might notice the bezel at the bottom more, though. It’s not too much of an issue, but for those who prefer thinner ones, you might want to take note of this.
Other than that, I’ve had a great viewing experience with the vibrant colors it produces.
For biometrics, you get a side fingerprint scanner and face detection. It’s able to recognize my fingerprint quick enough for me to not notice any delay.
As for sound, however, it comes with only one speaker that wasn’t that loud, making me increase its volume all the way up. It feels a bit too boxed in and muffled, but it is a singular speaker so I don’t expect much from it.
Performance and Benchmarks
Powering the device is a Unisoc Tanggula T760 which is a chipset released way back in December 2021. It comes with four ARM Cortex-A76 clocked up to 2GHz and a quad-core CPU that’s clocked at 2.5GHz paired with an ARM Mali-G57 GPU.
Our config comes with 4GB of RAM and 128GB UFS 3.1 of storage. There’s also the option to increase your RAM through Extended RAM, giving you a total of 8GB.
I want to point out that after getting the device, Google PlayStore has stated that the phone is not compatible with Zenless Zone Zero. Keep that in mind if you plan on doing your dailies with this guy.
But, after playing Wuthering Waves, Honkai Star Rail, Genshin Impact, and Pokemon Unite, they’re only playable if you have the games on their lowest settings. Even increasing the quality by just a little bit, the first three games mentioned will lag evidently and may ruin the gameplay.
It also heats up a few minutes into gaming. The heat is felt near the camera island and may get too hot to the touch after a prolonged period of time.
Safe to say, in my opinion, if you don’t mind playing your games on their lowest of settings, you can get by. This is provided that you are only going to do a light gaming session with the ZTE Blade A75.
For those interested in what our benchmark scores say about the device, here’s what we got:
- Antutu – 371,575
- Antutu Storage Test – 64,946
- S.Read – 18,838
- Speed: 1641.7MB/s
- S.Write – 11,004
- Speed: 959.0MB/s
- R.Access – 35,104
- R.Speed: 386.0MB/s
- W.Speed: 568.0MB/s
- 3D Mark: Wild Life – 1,611
- Geekbench 6
- Single-Core – 748
- Multi-Core – 2,338
- GPU OpenCL – 1,733
- GPU Vulkan – 1,708
- PC Mark Work 3.0 Performance – 11,302
Camera
Moving on to cameras, the Smart ZTE Blade A75 comes with a dual-rear camera setup that is headlined by a 50MP AI camera and Bokeh depth lens on the left side. The aperture for the main camera is unspecified.
For the selfie camera, it uses an 8MP front-facing shooter.
It’s able to reproduce the colors of its subjects vibrantly especially when it comes to well-lit environments. Its front camera, however, feels a bit desaturated for my taste.
Nonetheless, color reproduction for skin tones comes out really well so kudos to that.
As someone who does toy photography as a hobby, capturing details on the figurine is something I make sure of. From afar, some shots look decent, but when zoomed in, you can see that the camera wasn’t able to capture that much detail.
Moving subjects in the daytime weren’t too much of a problem before, but at night? Even the slightest movement will deter the camera.
For video, it’s able to shoot up to 4K at 30 FPS for the rear front lens, while the selfie camera captures up to 1080p @ 30 fps.
You can be the judge of it though. Here are our sample shots!
Front camera:
Rear camera:
OS, UI, APPS
The Smart ZTE Blade A75 5G runs on MyOS 13 based on Android 13. The phone does come with a lot of bloatware with some having their own folders. They can be uninstalled, but it is a bit annoying to remove around ten applications.
One feature I want to point out is that it comes with a screen-edge mistouch prevention and mistouch prevention in pocket. This allows the device to be less likely activated when an unwanted touch on the edge of the phone occurs or when it is inside your pocket.
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Connectivity and Battery Life
For connectivity, it’s got a dual SIM, Bluetooth, WiFi (both unspecified), and GPS.
Like the name suggests, the Smart ZTE Blade A75 5G has 5G connectivity, being able to connect to Smart’s data almost instantly when I turned it on. It was able to give me fast Internet speed even when I was in a place with a weak signal. I was able to get my work done while staying online.
The ZTE Blade A75 5G runs on a 5,000mAh battery and comes with 10W wired charging support.
It took almost three hours to charge the device from 20% to a fully charged 100% which is extremely slow in my opinion. Since it doesn’t have any fast charging support, I can see why it took so long for it to charge fully.
The phone lasted almost the whole day where I used it to watch videos on YouTube, scroll through social media, take photos outside and play some matches in Pokemon Unite.
Our video loop test where we run a 1080p video at 50% brightness with zero volume and in airplane mode garnered a result of 16 hours and 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, in PCMark’s Battery 3.0 test, it got a result of 13 hours and 26 minutes.
Pricing and Conclusion
The Smart ZTE Blade A75 5G has an SRP tag of PHP 5,450. Users can also get the device with Smart Postpaid’s Plans+ 999, which comes with Unli 5G, Unlimited AllNet Calls and Texts, Unlimited AllNet Landline Calls, 20 GB open access data and entertainment perks.
The Smart ZTE Blade A75 5G will also be available via six months installment at absolutely 0% interest, or Php 908.33 for 6 months, at Smart Stores, Smart Online Store at their website 409, and partner stores nationwide.
For anyone on the budget, the Smart ZTE Blade A75 5G is the cheapest choice for anyone who wants to own a 5G smartphone. This is good if you’re planning to use it to go through social media and connect to the Internet while you’re on the go.
But if you’re someone who is a hardcore gamer who wants long gaming sessions, then you might be swayed away from the ZTE Blade A75.
What we liked:
- Screen-edge mistouch prevention and mistouch prevention in pocket
- Price point for a 5G smartphone
- Decent display
What we didn’t like:
- Chipset is dated
- Camera may not pick up details
- Heats up quickly
ZTE Blade A75 5G specs:
6.6-inch IPS LCD display, 120Hz, 720×1600 resolution
Unisoc Tanggula T760
ARM Mali-G57
4GB RAM (+4GB virtual RAM)
128GB UFS 3.1 storage
50MP AI main, Bokeh Depth lens
8MP front camera
LED flash, HDR
WiFi
Bluetooth
GPS
USB Type-C 2.0
DTS Audio technology
Side-mounted fingerprint sensor
Dual SIM (Nano-SIM, dual stand-by)
MyOS 13 (based on Android 13)
5000mAh, 10W wired charging
163.6 x 74.9 x 8.6 mm (dimensions)
204.2 grams (weight)
Diamond Black
