Today we shall be looking at the ZTE Nova 4. I figured I should review / preview this weaker phone since it has been quite a while since I have reviewed a lower budget phone. Now I don’t personally like the idea that this phone is weak in comparison to the many giants around, but I also feel a contradiction in the way that I believe phones like this one are required due to the fact that not every individual can afford a 600+ euro device and perhaps some people only want to try Android out so see if it’s worth investing in such a phone. There are many examples of why such phones are necessary and why they should stick around. I, for one, welcome the idea of the ZTE Nova 4 being close to its release date, although I can’t say I am too glad about the phone having the system specs that it has. Also, I mentioned earlier that certain people may choose to buy weaker Android phones in order to pay less and have a chance of experiencing Android for themselves. If you want to try that out, you should definitely think of this phone, since it is one of the best at that part, considering the fact that it doesn’t really have that much power as far as hardware goes ( and should thus cost much less in comparison to a Galaxy Something phone or Apple device ), but on the other hand, it is teeming with power as far as the software goes, considering the fact that the ZTE Nova 4 will have Android OS v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich pre-installed on it. That’s more than enough reason to want to try it out. And I’m not saying that lightly since I have reasons to believe that Android OS v4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is one of the best creations ever made for the Android Phone ( I have heard that it isn’t all that great on Tablets since it doesn’t offer much more than Honeycomb, but people say that the next Android OS 5.0, Jelly Bean I believe, will be only for Tablets and that 6.0 will be only for Phones and so on ).
Well, that being said, let us begin this review / preview with a bit of technical details about this phone.
- Processor : 800 MHz
- RAM : 256 MB
- Android OS : 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
- Camera : 5 MP
- Display : 480 x 800 pixels, 4.0 inches (~233 ppi pixel density)
Let us begin by examining the body of this device. The ZTE Nova 4 is exactly 112.4 x 59.9 x 11 mm big. There isn’t enough information to tell how much it weighs. The ZTE Nova 4 also has Touch-Sensitive controls instead of buttons.
Now we shall be looking at the display of this device. The Type of screen is a TFT capacitive touchscreen with approximately 256 K colors. The resolution of this device is around 480 x 800 pixels. The screen size itself is around 4.0 inches big. The pixel density of this screen is around 233 ppi. Now, by my standards, that’s pretty good and / or impressive, but by the standards of others, anything above 300 ppi is considered to be the best. The ZTE Nova 4 also has Multitouch, although there isn’t actually any info regarding how many fingers can work simultaneously on this screen.
Now moving on to the sound of this device. The Alert Types supported by the ZTE Nova 4 include : vibration, MP3 and WAV ringtones. This phone also has a Loudspeaker and a 3.5 mm jack. However, the ZTE Nova 4 doesn’t seem to have any sound enhancements whatsoever, so we will have to end this part pretty quickly.
Moving on to the memory part of this Android Phone. The ZTE Nova 4 has around 512 MB of ROM or internal storage space, depending on how you want to call it. However, I can’t say for certain how many of those are user-available and how many are only usable by the system. If that amount of space doesn’t suffice for your greedy needs you can always use the MicroSD card slow which takes any MicroSD card of up to 32 GB. Also, as far as how fast this phone can run, the RAM is limited to only 256 MB. But I think you were expecting that since I already said that this phone is a lower budget device and it isn’t altogether that powerful as far as hardware goes.
Moving on to the data connection of the ZTE Nova 4. This phone has GPRS and EDGE ( no idea what class, however, but it has them ). The speeds reached by the phone are HSDPA ( again, no idea how many MB/s ). The WLAN of the ZTE Nova 4 is a Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n with Wi-Fi hotspot. The ZTE Nova 4 also has Bluetooth version 2.1 with A2DP and a USB v2.0 ( microUSB to be more exact ).
Moving on to the camera of the ZTE Nova 4. The main camera is a 5.0 MP one capable of photographing at resolutions as big as 2592 x 1944 pixels. The features of the main camera include and are limited to : autofocus and geo-tagging. Where I get my info from, it says that it has a video recorder, but with who knows what capabilities. If it isn’t specified we can assume one of two things : either not enough information is available, or the camera is quite weak and can’t even record in 720p like many other 5 MP cameras. Also, whether or not it’s worth mentioning you tell me, this phone also has a secondary VGA frontal camera.
Moving on to the hardware of this device. I’m not sure, again, whether not enough information is available, or if this phone only has a processor and all of the others are so weak they don’t actually do anything. Still, we shall work with what we have : the only notable piece of hardware on this phone is the 800 MHz processor. Actually, come to think of it, this phone is actually similar to the Galaxy 3 as far as hardware goes.
Now we shall be looking at the software of the ZTE Nova 4. As I’ve already mentioned, the Android OS version of this device is 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. I’m really glad that this phone has the latest version of the Android OS. I’ve mentioned this before, but I’ll say it again. This Android Phone is great if you’re planning on just purchasing a cheap phone to try out the Android OS. The fact that this phone has the latest version of the Android OS makes it even better.
Now moving on to the features of this phone. The ZTE Nova 4’s messaging is done via : SMS ( threaded view ), MMS, E-Mail and Push Mail. The sensors of the ZTE Nova 4 are : accelerometer, proximity and compass. The browser of this phone works in HTML. The GPS of this phone supports A-GPS. The ZTE Nova 4 also has Java via Java MIDP emulation. The colors of this device are limited to only one color : black.
Here is a short list of the things that this phone can do :
- SNS integration
- MP4/H.263/H.264/WMV player
- MP3/eAAC+/WMA/WAV player
- Google Search, Maps, Gmail,
- YouTube, Calendar, Google Talk
- Document viewer
- Photo viewer/editor
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
This concludes our little review / preview of the ZTE Nova 4. In the end, this is a pretty decent phones even though it’s weak, however, since the Android OS v.40 Ice Cream Sandwich is installed on this phone I’d classify it as a good phone. It is uncertain when this phone will actually come out, but we can assume that it will be around Q2 of 2012. If you feel that anything important has been left out of this little review / preview feel free to leave your suggestion for things that should be added in the comment section below and I shall be sure to take them into consideration when writing my future projects. Until next time however, I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.
