ZTE Blade Q Lux review – low cost quad core with 4G LTE support

ZTE Blade Q Lux is a low cost quad core powered handset with 4G LTE support. This handset running KitKat with 1GB RAM is priced at Rs. 4,999. It is competing with the Infocus M2 and the Micromax Canvas Spark.

Blade Q Lux 4G Unboxing
The box pack itself is pretty impressive. Inside you will find the handset, user guide, warranty card, travel charger (5V ~ 1A), data cable, 2200 mAh battery and premium quality earphone. SAR value: 0.959W/kg.

Design, Display and OS
For the price the build quality and the finishing is very good. The front panel is glossy black and rear is matte black. Handset looks good, it’s small, easy to handle and operate with a single hand. Weight with battery is 146 grams and dimensions are 67.33 x 134.24 x 10.15 (mm).

Power button and volume rocker is placed on the right side, audio jack is on the top and micro USB port is on the left side. There is a single microphone placed at the bottom. This is a dual SIM handset and SIM slot 1 supports 4G/3G/2G and SIM 2 supports 2G only. You need two micro SIM’s. There is micro SD card slot.

Blade Q Lux sports a 4.5 inch IPS screen with FWVGA – 854 x 480 pixels resolution. Colour reproduction is good, touch smooth and viewing angles are okay (good for this price tag). There are 3 dedicated navigation buttons that lights up (back lit).

There is LED notification and 3 commonly used sensors – accelerometer, light and proximity.

Q Lux 4G is running 32 bit Android KitKat 4.4.4 and it will get lollipop update.

Memory and Storage
This handset comes packed with 1GB RAM and 8GB storage plus micro SD card support. On the first boot you will get around 480MB free RAM and 4.8GB free internal storage space. This smartphone comes loaded with many unwanted apps you can easily uninstall them.

OTG is not supported, but you can install apps on the external storage.

Performance
This handset houses the MediaTek MT6732M quad core processor clocked at 1.3GHz. The benchmark apps however are showing it as MT6752. This is a 64 bit chipset (cortex A53) coupled with Mali T-760 GPU. Performance is smooth, lag free and handset does not heat up much.

Benchmark

Gaming
I played Asphalt 8 (installed on external storage). The game was playable in high visual quality mode.

Camera
There is 8MP auto focus camera on the rear with LED flash and a 5MP camera on the front. Rear camera can shoot full HD videos. The camera quality is good but when compared the camera quality on Infocus M2 and the Canvas Spark are better. Check the sample images and videos at the end of this review.

Others
No issues with the sound quality, it’s loud and clear. In-call speaker quality is also good. 4G worked, I was able to use Airtel 4G (2300 band). No issues found with Wi-Fi, GPS and Bluetooth. GPS lock was instant – it does not work indoors.

There seems to be some issue with the light sensor or some software bug. I had enabled auto brightness and at times the screen would go almost black and then brighten up after few seconds.

Battery
On a full charge the 2200 mAh battery can deliver up to 6 hours of continuous usage (moderate to heavy).

Verdict
The ZTE Blade Q Lux is probably the cheapest 4G supported handset available in India. It is a good option if you are specifically looking to use 4G networks. This handset is competing with the Infocus M2 and the Micromax Canvas Spark. These 3 handsets are priced the same at Rs. 4,999. The camera quality on the Canvas Spark and the Infocus M2 is better when compared with Q Lux, however the key advantage of Q Lux is, it supports 4G.

ZTE Blade Q Lux 4G is available on Amazon.in for Rs. 4,999.

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